Three talented women with a vision. Four Masters degrees and one Doctorate. Combined fluency in 10+ foreign languages. Forty years of localization management experience. The math is pretty impressive – and the sum is one groundbreaking group: Women in Localization, founded in 2008 in Northern California’s Silicon Valley.
Anna Schlegel of NetApp, Eva Klaudinyova of VMware, Inc. and Silvia Avary-Silveira of Symantec, are the pioneers of this new group (previously NCWL for Northern California Women in Localization), and their credentials are impressive (see their bios). Their education and professional experiences in the industry with leading international companies such as NetApp, VMware, VeriSign, Xerox, Cisco and Symantec make them the female equivalents of Warren Buffet to the localization industry. If anyone is qualified to lead an international support group for women in the field, it is most certainly these three ladies.
WL was forged out of passion for
globalization and a desire to facilitate networking among female localizers. “We wanted to
have a group for women where they could ask questions and share their
professional challenges without feeling intimidated”, Anna Schlegel explains. “This
would be a dedicated place for women to develop their careers in localization
with a goal of creating an open and collaborative forum where women could share
their expertise and experience…Women often get overlooked for career moves and
promotions, so we wanted a group where women could help each other to grow and
learn.”
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