The Worldly Marketer Podcast

Giulia Greco is the Localization Programs Lead at Shopify, the leading global ecommerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. Founded in 2006, Shopify is the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow a business. Its mission is to make commerce better for everyone, everywhere. It now powers over 1.7 million businesses in more than 175 countries, and has over 5,000 employees across the globe. Shopify is trusted by brands such as Allbirds, Gymshark, PepsiCo, Staples, and many more.

Originally from Milan, Italy, Giulia has a background in translation and interpreting. She moved to Canada in 2002, and settled down in Toronto. In 2016, she joined the Shopify team in the role of Content & Localization Manager for Italian, and eventually took on the role of Localization Program Manager. In her current role, she manages the localization operations in the Marketing & Growth team, including video localization, plus several in-country editors, linguists, translators, copywriters and a Language Service Provider.

In this interview, Giulia talks about the role of internationalization and localization in Shopify's incredible growth; the challenge of working with globally distributed teams; the inherent tension between building the company's global brand identity and the need for hyper-localized content; what a minimum viable Localization team should look like; and how, in 2020, the "Shopify Effect" was responsible for $307 billion in global economic activity.

Links:

• Shopify website
• Shopify blog (English)
• Article: "The Shopify Effect: How Entrepreneurs Are Changing the World"
• Shopify podcasts (English)
• Shopify on LinkedIn
• Shopify on Facebook
• Shopify on Instagram
• Shopify on YouTube
• Shopify on Twitter
• Giulia on LinkedIn
• Giulia on Twitter

This episode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Kathryn Read is an international sales & marketing consultant and a Partner at Uniconsult-Wick & Partner, which is a business management and export consultancy based in Austria. She has over two decades of experience developing niche products in emerging markets, and helping small and medium-size companies to break through international barriers, thereby creating successful entrepreneurs and a thriving global marketplace.

Originally from the U.K., Kathryn has a background in French and German language studies, and she is extremely well travelled. She began her export career back in 1995, working at a British auto-parts manufacturer in Nottingham. In 2000, Kathryn relocated to Austria to take on a cross-border sales role at Trodat, which is a globally successful consumer goods company, and she has made her home in Austria ever since. In 2001, she joined HiPP, the European organic baby food company, and spent several years leading the brand's international sales efforts into Central and Eastern Europe as well as Asia, including China.

Kathryn firmly believes that business is done between people, and therefore she focuses on building strong relationships that form a solid foundation for doing business. I've had the pleasure of getting to know her better over the past year or so, and I always appreciate her authenticity, her genuine curiosity about people and cultures, and the kind, thoughtful way she approaches everything she does.

Links:

• Kathryn's website
• Kathryn's blog
• Kathryn's e-book: How to Decide Which International Markets to Enter"
• Uniconsult-Wick & Partner website
• Uniconsult-Wick & Partner YouTube channel
• Kathryn on LinkedIn
• Kathryn on Instagram

This epsiode waws sponsored by Vistatec.

Anastasia Leng is the Founder & CEO at CreativeX, a technology company whose mission is to advance creative expression through the clarity of data. Launched in 2015, CreativeX uses analytics tools to help Fortune 500 brands like Unilever, Mondelez, Heineken, ABI, Google, L'Oréal, and Pepsi to measure the efficiency, the consistency, and the impact of their visual marketing content across the globe.

Fluent in three languages, Anastasia has been a nomad all her life. She has lived in Bahrain, Vietnam, Hungary, Russia, France, England, and currently makes her home in New York City. With a background in psychology and sociology, she began her career in marketing in 2005. She joined Google in 2007 as a Product Marketing Manager, and eventually took on the role of New Business Development Manager, EMEA, where she led entrepreneurship efforts in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and was responsible for early-stage partnerships for Google Voice, Chrome, and Wallet.

In 2012, Anastasia launched herself into entrepreneurship when she co-founded Hatch.co, an e-commerce company that was selected as one of Time Magazine's "Top 10 Startups to Watch in New York", one of TimeOut NY's "Best New Shopping Sites of 2013", as well as one of the four most innovative retail companies by the National Retail Federation.

In this interview, Anastasia talks about why it's so important for global brands to ensure quality and consistency across their creative marketing assets, how CreativeX helps Fortune 500 brands solve specific pain points around their visual content, and how she is successfully managing the international growth of her own company. Catch Anastasia's valuable insights!

Links:

• CreativeX website
• CreativeX Blog
• CreativeX on LinkedIn
• CreativeX on Twitter
• Anastasia on LinkedIn

This episode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Rachel Carruthers is the Head of Internationalisation and Localisation at Canva, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that makes graphic design simple for everyone. Since launching in 2013, Canva has grown to become one of the top 20 unicorn companies in the world, with a current valuation of $15 billion dollars USD. Canva now has over 50 million monthly active users across 190 countries and 100 different languages. More than 1,400 team members work together across continents to achieve the company's mission, which is to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere.

Originally from California, Rachel spent several years working on the vendor side of the Localization industry, servicing high-profile tech enterprise clients in Silicon Valley. In 2015, she moved to Sydney, Australia, to pursue a Master's degree at the University of Sydney, and she never left.

After a brief stint at a digital marketing agency, Rachel joined Canva in 2017. In her current role, she is responsible for ensuring that every Canva user has a truly localized experience, be it on the Web App, iOS or Android platform. She and her team also ensure that the company's marketing efforts are localized, that there is a variety of region-specific content for Canva's design community, and that designs are relevant and fitting for each market around the world.

In this interview, Rachel talks about the major global-growth milestones that Canva has achieved since its founding, the role of internationalization and localization in facilitating that growth, and the importance of international, non-English-speaking user for the company's bottom line today. She also talks about how Canva's investment in localization directly reflects of its commitment to accessibility, diverse representation and inclusion – core values that are inherent to the company's mission. On a variety of levels, Canvarepresents an incredibly valuable case study for SaaS companies everywhere.

Links:

• Canva main website
• Canva Learn (Courses, Tutorials & Blog)
• Canva Design School
• Canva on LinkedIn
• Canva on Facebook
• Canva on Instagram
• Canva on YouTube
• Canva on Pinterest
• Canva on Twitter
• Nataly Kelly article: "100 Languages and Counting: International Growth at Canva"
• CBInsights: "The Complete List of Unicorn Companies" (May 2021 status)
• Rachel on LinkedIn

This episode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Mulumba Lwatula is an entrepreneur, a business consultant, and a technologist based in Lusaka, Zambia. He is the Acting Deputy Head of Investments (Mining, Manufacturing & Agribusiness) at IDC (Industrial Development Corporation), a state-owned enterprise whose mandate is to spearhead the Zambian Government's commercial investments agenda aimed at strengthening the country's industrial base and job creation.

With an MBA and a background in Systems Analysis and Design, Mulumba has built a deep expertise in the development and delivery of technology-driven solutions in emerging markets on the African continent. Since beginning his career over 20 years ago, he has gone from as a Developer, to a Webmaster, to an IT company co-founder, to an Independent Consultant for the United Nations, he has founded a number of companies.

Aside from his role at IDC, where he focuses on Mining, Manufacturing, and Agribusiness, Mulumba co-hosts Scale Up Africa, a podcast on building resilient African entrepreneurs and businesses, and he is a co-founder at Soqo, a data analytics and payments startup.

In this interview, Mulumba talks about his work at IDC, how he sees Africa's burgeoning startup ecosystem, what foreign brands need to know about Zambia's rapidly changing marketplace, and how the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is creating new opportunities for local entrepreneurs. Catch his valuable insights!

Links:

• IDC website
• IDC on Facebook
• IDC on Twitter
• IDC on LinkedIn
• Scale Up Africa Podcast website
• Scale Up Africa Podcast on LinkedIn
• Scale Up Africa Podcast on Instagram
• Scale Up Africa Podcast on Twitter
• Soqo website
• Soqo on Twitter
• Mulumba's personal website
• Mulumba on LinkedIn
• Mulumba on Instagram
• Mulumba on Twitter

This epsiode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Tobias Reiter is the Co-Founder and CEO at VIEBEG Technologies, a Silicon-Valley based Health Tech company that expands people's access to affordable health care through the power of data. Launched in 2018, the company mainly operates in Central and East Africa, and offers high-quality medical and dental supplies as well as equipment through its comprehensive online marketplace and procurement software.

Originally from Austria, Tobias first entered the world of AI back in college when, together with some colleagues, he built an AI-powered trading algorithm that was later sold to investors. He soon discovered that instead of just making money, he wanted to create an impact and solve real-world problems.

Since launching VIEBEG Technologies, Tobias has been living and working in Kigali, Rwanda, and he is now on a mission to help achieve sustainable development in Africa by investing and participating in the African Tech-business environment. Besides his role at VIEBEG, he is also the Co-Founder of Tech Enfold Ltd., which is a Kigali-based social enterprise that focuses on empowering female software engineers in Africa.

In this interview, Tobias talks about the many learnings he gained from launching VIEBEG's operations in Rwanda, some important (and at times surprising) socio-cultural aspects of doing business in the region, and some key takeaways for other foreign entrepreneurs thinking of investing in Central and East Africa. Tune into the conversation!

Links:

• VIEBEG website
• VIEBEG on LinkedIn
• VIEBEG on Facebook
• VIEBEG on Twitter
• Tech Enfold website
• Tech Enfold on LinkedIn
• Tobias on LinkedIn

This episode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Simon Kemp is the Founder & CEO at Kepios, a strategy consultancy that helps organizations all over the world to make sense of people's evolving digital behaviours. He is also the Chief Analyst at DataReportal, an online library of up-to-date reports that explore people's digital behaviours around the world. These free reports, which he produces in collaboration with Hootsuite and We Are Social, provide current, country-by-country information on everything from Internet penetration rates to online activities such as mobile usage, social-media habits and e-commerce adoption.

Besides running his own consultancy, Simon is an Advisor on a couple of different Boards, he is a GWI Ambassador, and he is a contributing writer at The Next Web. Originally from Scotland, he has been based in Singapore since 2007, and he has become a perennial guest on this podcast. He has been featured on seven previous episodes, most recently on episode #179.

In this interview, Simon talks about the latest series of Global Digital reports: the 2021 Global Overview Report and the 2021 Local Country Reports. In particular, he focuses on some surprising new trends emerging from those reports, including the massive popularity of image recognition tools, the general shift towards social search (instead of traditional search engines), and the clear preference for educational, instructional content (versus purely promotional content).

Links:

• DataReportal website
• DataReportal on LinkedIn
• DataReportal on Facebook
• DataReportal on Twitter
• Digital 2021: Global Overview Report
• Digital 2021: Local Country Headlines
• Hootsuite website
• We Are Social website
• GWI website
• Simon's articles on The Next Web
• Kepios website
• Kepios on LinkedIn
• Kepios on Twitter
• Simon on LinkedIn
• Simon on Twitter

This episode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Jason Mander was first featured on this podcast on episode #16. He is the Chief Research Officer at GWI (formerly known as GlobalWebIndex), which is the leading consumer research company for the global marketing industry. Headquartered in London, GWI has been delivering game-changing insights to just about every major agency, media organization and global brand since 2009.

In his role as CRO, Jason leads the Research & Insight departments at GWI, and oversees the company's flagship study on the digital lives and lifestyles of consumers across more than 45 countries. He also directs the GWI's thought leadership program on the topics that matter to today's marketers, planners and researchers.

Jason is the author of numerous research reports, including recent ones published in collaboration with LinkedIn, Reddit and Slack. He has also developed new data sets, including GWI Work, which offers a deep dive into B2B professionals, and GWI USA, which examines contemporary attitudes, behaviours and sentiment among American consumers.

As a public speaker, Jason regularly presents at industry conferences and has been a frequent contributor to articles and analyses across titles like WARC, Think with Google, BBC News, Huffington Post, eMarketer, Bloomberg and CNN.

Links:

• GWI website
• GWI blog
• GWI's 2021 "Connecting the Dots" report
• GWI on LinkedIn
• GWI on Facebook
• GWI on Instagram
• GWI on YouTube
• GWI on Twitter
• Jason on LinkedIn

This episode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Anna Golubeva has more than 15 years of experience working in various international communication and localization roles IKEA. A graduate of Moscow Pedagogical University, she began her career as a translator, consultant and English teacher almost two decades ago. In 2003, Anna joined IKEA Russia as a translator and copywriter. A few years later, she relocated to the Netherlands, where the Inter IKEA Group is headquartered, and she has living and working there ever since.

In her current role, Anna leads the digital translation capabilities program at Inter IKEA Systems, which is the worldwide IKEA franchisor. She enjoys the opportunities and challenges of working with languages for IKEA's globally successful life-at-home brand. With her previous experience in retail, marketing and production management, Anna is currently focusing on multi-language initiatives to connect language topics with Inter IKEA Systems' business agenda, and to enable the reach of the IKEA brand for more people in the world.

I first met Anna at a workshop called "Bigger, Better, Faster: Navigating the Globalization Road from Startup to Enterprise". The workshop is a recurring one that is offered as part of the extended program for the LocWorld conference series. As a result of meeting there in July 2020, Anna and I are now part of a small group that meets once a month to discuss issues around localization strategy.

Links:

• "About IKEA" website
• Inter IKEA Group website
• IKEA on LinkedIn
• IKEA on Instagram
• IKEA on YouTube
• IKEA on Twitter
• LocWorld website
• Anna on LinkedIn

This episode was sponsored by Vistatec.

Stella Paris is the Head of Language Services at Translators Without Borders (TWB), the world's leading non-profit translation organization. Since 1993, TWB's mission has been to work towards a world where knowledge knows no language barriers, and people around the world have access to vital information in their language. To achieve this goal, TWB connects NGOs and aid organizations with a community of over 4,000 professional translators, who work in 190 language pairs.

In 2020, one of TWB's top priorities has been to help provide access to timely and accurate information about COVID-19. In July, it announced its participation in the Translation Initiative for COVID-19 (or TICO-19, for short), which brings together translators, technologists and researchers from major technology companies, academic institutions, and Language Services Providers. The aim of this initiative is to use language technology to make potentially life-saving COVID-19 information available in as many languages as possible, with a view to bringing the global pandemic under control.

Originally from the U.K., and based in Italy since 2003, Stella has a background in language studies, marketing and translation. She has been working in the language services industry for two decades, and has held a variety of roles including as translator, vendor manager, project manager, account manager, and communication manager. Before joining TWB in 2018, she was the Marketing Director at one of Europe's top localization companies. In her current role as Head of Language Services, she is a member of the TWB's Leadership Team, and is responsible for managing the organization's Language Services Team.

Stella believes in the power of global communication as a driver for change. Besides her role at TWB, she is a member of the management team for the Italian Chapter of Women in Localization.

Links:

• Translators Without Borders website
• TWB's Holiday Giving Campaign page
• Episode #074 with Lori Thicke, Founder of TWB
• TWB on LinkedIn
• TWB on Facebook
• TWB on YouTube
• TWB on Instagram
• TWM on Twitter
• Stella on LinkedIn
• Stella on Twitter

This episode was sponsored by Bubbl.