Let’s talk shop… with Raisa McNab, Chief Executive Officer at the Association of Translation Companies.
Angela: I am interviewing Raisa McNab today. I am visiting her in Portsmouth during an ATC networking event, and we are talking about her work for British translation companies, and the technological and other aspects of her work today.
Maybe you could introduce yourself to us, Raisa?
Raisa: Really nice to be with you today. My name is Raisa McNab. I'm Chief Executive Officer at the Association of Translation Companies, the professional industry body representing language service companies in the UK and overseas companies operating in the UK market.
I am a translator by training. I've got an MA in translation with English and French from Finland, where I'm from. I worked in a commercial translation company for fifteen years and I've now been heading the ATC for the past year and a half. I represent the ATC towards stakeholders and I drive the association's strategy and objectives together with our Council.
Angela: You already said a lot about what you are doing right now. What is that sort of material you you're actually working on at the moment?
Raisa: At the moment, we've got several important initiatives that we're working on at the ATC. One of them is the provision and procurement of public sector translation and interpreting. We work closely with stakeholders on the commissioning bodies’ side and also with associations and organisations representing translators and interpreters in developing a sustainable ecosystem for public sector procurement in the UK for the years to come.
Brexit and immigration take a large part of my brain at the moment, looking at what Brexit will mean for language service companies in the UK and our counterparts in Europe, specifically the UK’s future immigration system. But we are also working on initiatives and member benefits that we can offer to our member companies that make sense to them. Putting together our annual conference, the Language Industry Summit, launching in a couple of weeks is a big part of the ATC-year as well.
In general, I am developing the ATC’s foundations and the work that we do in a way that is meaningful for our member companies, the UK and overseas language service companies that we represent.
Angela: You started off working in a translation agency, right? How did it happen that you switched between the work in a translation agency to the more structural role in ATC?
Raisa: My first touch point to the ATC was really through ISO standards. I joined the ATC’s ISO commenting group and started developing ISO standards for the language services industry. I've been involved in that for probably the past seven or eight years. I was the ISO Standards Lead on the ATC Council for a few years and then I got elected as a full Council Member.
For me, this transition from the commercial company side to the association side has been a really interesting journey. It has definitely helped me that I come from the industry and that I've been involved in ATC work before this, but it's also been a challenge for me to focus on the bigger picture, looking at areas where I haven't been professionally involved before.
Public sector interpreting, for example, and government lobbying were new to me, so there have been a lot of new areas for me to get my claws into, so to speak.
Angela: That sounds really interesting and also very challenging. When I look at the language industry today, I see a lot of changes ahead of us. How do you see translation industry development from the past to today and into the future?
Raisa: Well, I've been in the language services industry now for 20 years or so, within the time that I've been in it, it has developed dramatically and it continues to evolve.
When I first came to the industry, machine translation was still something that you laughed about, really, but MT is now part of our everyday work. Now we're talking about Artificial Intelligence, and where the industry is going with it, and I can't see what the industry will look like in five or ten years’ time. It's an interesting journey that we're on. But at the same time, I see that certain parts of the industry are developing in this direction much faster than others. For example media and entertainment localization is going a lot faster than perhaps the traditional engineering or public sector work that many of the ATC member companies are involved in.
At the moment, it feels like there are almost two different strands that are moving at a different speed and with different characteristics. So things are changing. But how, when, into which direction and how fast? This is really the question.
Angela: And we're hopefully going to see it and will move along. Actually, when we talk about technology, I'm, of course, also interested in talking about memoQ within this framework. You know memoQ from your own experience as a project manager, right?
Raisa: Yes, I have used a lot of different translation technology tools in my time. I started with the old versions of Trados and memoQ. I've known it from the beginning really, and as you said it's one of the tools that I've got quite a lot of experience as a project manager. Also on the translation side, I always liked working with memoQ.
The development of translation technology tools has definitely been positive. I've seen changes in terms of functionality, in terms of responsiveness, in terms of moving with the different types of content that we're seeing. Though I have probably lost my touch a little bit now because I'm not involved in in daily production work anymore!
But having been a trainer in a growing translation company for many years, I did use memoQ very, very intimately, along with a host of other tools.
Angela: You're talking about having been a trainer in the past. Do you think that the training that we have right now for the language industry is sufficient for everything, all the messy and very difficult-to-understand stuff that is ahead of us? Are that all that is needed? Are we up to date?
Raisa: I think that's a challenge because our industry is so diverse. When we talk about training, we think about translation studies at the university. Can university training fully prepare young translators or young interpreters to go out into the industry? I think it's quite a tall order. There are so many different streams within our industry, with different types of technology and different types of workflows so I think it's a challenge. I think that we in the industry have to continue supporting training at university level but also do our bit in providing further training.
I like that technology providers are going out there and doing this as well.
I think we need to work together. We need to work together and we need to acknowledge that technology is the one thing that changes the fastest. So we all have to continue learning and we all have to continue upskilling, to be able to work in this fast moving industry.
Angela: We're at the University of Portsmouth at the ATC Networking Day today, and students and staff are also attending the event. There are a lot of translation students, and I think they're all looking to find a career in the language industry, to figure out how to get into the industry. Do you have any advice for them? What would you say from your point of view and your experience that you have from the industry? What would you tell them about how to get started?
Raisa: I would say to them: Look at the variety of different types of careers you can have in the language services industry. Look at all the exciting things that this industry can offer. Of course, our core functions of translation and interpreting. But you can also look beyond those to all the other exciting things that you can do, all the areas that you can learn from. That's certainly been my personal journey. I was trained as a translator. I thought I wanted to be a translator. I did a little bit of it. And then I got into project management and beyond that, into quality management, training, development and so on.
As a consequence, I've not actually ever worked full time as a professional translator, though I've got huge respect for translators and interpreters. But for myself, I've discovered a hugely meaningful, hugely interesting career within the language services industry, without being a translator.
Just be open to different opportunities and experiences. And of course, while we don't even know what the jobs of the future are going to be, I do feel really passionate about preserving our focus on high-level language skills.
We will still need professional, qualified, competent linguists doing these jobs of the future. Language skills are still at the core of what we will be doing in the years to come even if the profession might be a little bit different then.
I personally would even venture to suggest that linguists will have to be even more qualified because editing a translation that comes from a sophisticated machine translation engine may be more difficult than creating a good translation from scratch.
Angela: As the CEO of the Association of Translation Companies, do you think it's a good idea for young translators to work for translation companies first, or start as freelancers? What would you suggest them to do?
Raisa: I really support going into a language services company at the start of your career. Starting as a freelancer straight off can be quite a daunting prospect for fresh graduates, setting up as sole trader, marketing their services, getting to grips with all the technology, finding clients and continuing to learn the craft of translation at the same time. From my experience, having seen fresh graduates over the past 15 years and having trained them internally at a translation company, I think it's a great idea to go out and work in a company, whether it's as translator or project manager or something else. It is a really great way of seeing how the industry works, understanding its dynamics, technology and so on. Many people that I know have gone into freelancing from there, but you're much better equipped going into freelancing after you've had this exposure and the support of working in a company.
Angela: This is a very good suggestion for new language graduates. Raisa McNab, thank you very much for this interesting interview. I hope that we will meet soon again, as our industry develops further. Thank you very much!
