How to position localization as a strategic growth driver

How localization teams can drive growth by aligning with business goals, using data, and building cross-functional influence.

At Acclaro, we help companies expand and succeed in global markets through a combination of linguistic expertise, innovative technology, and cultural fluency. As a strategic localization partner to some of the world’s leading brands, we go beyond translation to help teams scale with purpose and precision.

That’s why we bring together experts and industry leaders to share insights on high-impact topics like this one—Positioning Localization as a Strategic Growth Driver. In partnership with Lokalise, this webinar explores how localization teams can elevate their role within the organization, aligning their efforts with key business outcomes like international user acquisition, retention, and revenue acceleration.

Speakers Paula Hunter (Senior Technical Program Manager at Remitly) and Joaquin Munoz (Localization Manager at Life360) shared how they’ve transformed localization from a support function to a strategic lever.

Moderators Brittany Wolfe (Director of Brand and Growth at Lokalise) and Brendan Kenney (VP of Partnerships at Acclaro) facilitated a practical, forward-looking conversation designed for anyone leading—or building—a global program.

Want to dive deeper? Watch the full webinar on demand.

Inside this conversation

Why shift localization’s narrative
Building stakeholder relationships
Using data to power your story
Expanding your influence through positioning
Leveraging partners and vendors
Storytelling and proving ROI (even solo)
Overcoming resistance and claiming credit
Where to begin
Final thoughts
Watch the webinar on demand

1. Why shift localization’s narrative

Paula started the conversation with a clear message: localization touches every part of the business, from product and engineering to marketing, sales, HR, and customer success. But it often remains invisible.

“We need to, as localizers, make ourselves visible and find those opportunities,” Paula explained. She shared a story about being invited to present at a global sales kickoff, which became a turning point for how localization was seen internally. It created new visibility and unlocked collaboration.

Joaquin added that at Life360, international growth is tightly tied to corporate KPIs like monthly active users. When U.S. growth hit a plateau, global expansion—enabled by localization—became critical.

He encouraged teams to think beyond markets and into language leverage: “If you’re already doing a Spanish version for here in the US, then think of all of the countries that that… think of it by language rather than locale, and how many countries that you could then basically extrapolate out utilizing that localization that you’ve already done.”

2. Building stakeholder relationships

Getting out of the “support silo” starts with building bridges. Paula emphasized curiosity as a must-have skill for localization leaders.

She recommended starting with the department you sit in: “Start with where you… the department that you sit in. You know, localization… I’ve sat in so many different departments… start to get curious about what your manager does, what the team around you does who are not localizers.”

From there, expand by sitting in on other team meetings and asking targeted questions. As Paula put it: “If they were talking about a feature, I would ask, oh, is this, you know, will this be successful in Japan? Will this be successful in Germany?”

Joaquin recommends identifying team leads and direct contributors, then creating a quick-reference “cheat sheet” of stakeholders. “Out of respect and deference to whoever the team leader is, I usually approach them first… and then finding out who that direct stakeholder would be as a point of contact, and kind of making a cheat sheet of all the different teams that you have.”

As Paula noted, localization teams often have a unique advantage: “Because localization touches on all of these different teams… we have this unique bird’s-eye view of the organization that other departments may not have, and so that is a huge value that we bring.”

3. Using data to power your story

Getting out of the “support silo” starts with building bridges. Paula emphasized curiosity as a must-have skill for localization leaders.

If you’re exploring AI-driven workflows, Acclaro has written about how AI is impacting the localization process.

4. Expanding your influence through positioning

Several speakers shared that renaming the localization function—for example, to “International Growth” or “Global Experience”—can help reset how the organization views your team. But the real work is internal alignment.

Brendan noted that aligning localization KPIs with corporate goals like user growth, revenue, and retention is what ultimately drives influence. When localization is measured by outcomes, not inputs, it gets a seat at the strategic table.

Joaquin emphasized that team placement matters too: “My goal, usually is to be aligned, or as part of a team that’s closer to the decision-making, which will then ultimately make the call for what our strategy is, what we are going to be localizing for, which locales we’re going to.”

Paula suggested using moments of organizational change as opportunities: “A prime opportunity to be proactive in that is if the organization is having a reorg, or if there’s been an acquisition. Anytime there’s shake-up in an organization, that is a perfect… that is a golden opportunity to just dive in and have these conversations and make these proposals.”

5. Leveraging partners and vendors

Localization leaders don’t have to do it all alone. Paula and Joaquin both stressed the value of bringing partners—like LSPs and platform providers—into strategic conversations.

Paula credited her LSP partners with helping her early in her career: “I owe them so much… LSPs really are an extension of your team. They have to be.”

She noted that LSPs have visibility across many different programs: “LSPs have this… they’re sitting on this wealth of knowledge and expertise of all the different experiences, the pain points, the successes of other clients that they can share conceptually with you.”

Joaquin agreed: “It’s a real advantage, and often overlooked, to bring in your vendors into that process, where they can actually impart their deeper knowledge on how it can contribute to the overall… whether it’s QBR, or whether it’s… the 3-year roadmap.”

When partners are part of your QBRs and planning cycles, they can help uncover blind spots, suggest tooling improvements, and validate your approach.

If your QBRs are still focused on process metrics, it may be time to reframe your goals. This blog on strategic localization planning can help.

6. Storytelling and proving ROI (even solo)

What if you’re a team of one? Paula and Joaquin have both been there.

Joaquin recommended building relationships with your internal data team and running small experiments:

“If you have an internal data analytics team, I highly, highly recommend developing a relationship with that team, and starting to drill down on… what I mentioned before, in terms of snapshots, so, like, a pre- and post-release, if you have new language.”

Paula suggested budget reallocation as another approach: “If you want to spend some money to try something, you can maybe… pause testing for some of the lower tier languages for… a sprint or two, and use that money to do this experiment.”

She also emphasized educating stakeholders about different quality levels and cost implications: “Did you know that there’s all these different levels of translation with different price points and quality? A lot of people don’t understand that there… we’ve got AIMT all the way through to transcreation.”

7. Overcoming resistance & claiming credit

One audience question was especially common: What if leadership isn’t listening? Or worse, what if others take credit for localization work?

Joaquin acknowledged this is real—and tough. His advice:

“Don’t give up. Identify… finding out who those leaders are of the actual teams, whether it’s in product, somebody in engineering… and then finding out the information you need and evangelizing there. So maybe it’s not in a larger group, but then just drilling down into the actual contributors.”

Paula advised surfacing localization-specific details in shared presentations:

“Injecting localization-specific information that we are the experts with… if we reduced our spend… the localization team’s gonna know exactly how much the spend was reduced by, because they’re driving that, and that’s important data.”

8. Where to begin

If you’re ready to shift how localization is seen within your organization, here are a few ways to get started:

Map localization investments to business outcomes. Start by breaking down revenue and engagement by region or language. This can reveal powerful correlations that inform smarter resourcing.
Build a small experiment. Pick one feature, campaign, or page to localize in a new language, then track metrics before and after.
Create a localization stakeholder map. Identify your internal partners across product, marketing, and engineering. Reach out with curiosity and a clear offer to collaborate.
Invite your LSP into the conversation. Ask for insights, benchmarks, and strategic support beyond delivery.
Update your narrative. Use terms like “international growth,” “customer experience,” or “revenue enablement” when framing your role.

9. Final thoughts

This conversation confirmed what many localization professionals already know: the value of your work goes far beyond words. With the right mindset, tools, and internal champions, you can make localization a key part of your company’s global strategy.

Acclaro works with enterprise teams every day to connect localization to growth. Whether you need help with content workflows, executive alignment, or building your first dashboard—we’re here to support you.