SHAREHOLDERS

Ana has a degree in Biology from Universidade de Lisboa and has also completed an advanced course in Arts at ar.co, an independent art school. Her diverse background, combined with a life-long interest in cultural events, has endowed her with skills in many scientific, technical and artistic areas. Her knowledge of languages comes from her origins (Portuguese/German/Japanese), several courses taken in Portugal, and time spent living in England and Germany. Having gained years of experience in the publishing and translation fields, she founded her own company and managed projects in the areas of biology, the environment, and the arts. She has recently dedicated herself to promoting personal development through workshops and individual coaching. Currently, she is a Star Partner with KennisTranslations and is responsible for business development, management, and quality and operational control.

Christina was born in Koblenz, Germany, where she completed her secondary education in 1984 and trained as a language correspondent (English and French). She worked for six months as an air hostess with the German airline AeroLloyd. In 1992, she obtained a degree in Applied Languages from the Johannes Gutenberg- Universität Mainz/ Germerseheim in Germany. Her language options were French and English and she specialised in economics. Within the scope of the Erasmus Programme, she spent a semester studying at Dublin City University, Ireland (1989/90). She began studying Portuguese as a third language and after following an intensive course in Portugal she decided to remain in the country, where she has worked as a translator since 1993 and as a conference interpreter since 1995. In 1996 she took part in a seminar on specialist translation that was organised by the Portuguese Association of Translators. In 2004/5 she attended a course on conference interpreting at the Universidade de Lisboa and in April 2010 she attended a seminar on recent developments in the translation market, organised by the Universidade do Minho and the Portuguese Association of Translation Companies. Since the 1990s, she has mainly worked as an interpreter for Portuguese and foreign agencies and for multinational groups in Portugal and Germany. She has undertaken work for the European Union as well as for courts and the Portuguese police. In 2009, she worked almost exclusively for VW – Autoeuropa, Palmela, Portugal. Her working languages are German (her native language), English, Portuguese, and French. After being invited by KennisTranslations to take part in a training seminar in Marche, Italy in May 2010 she decided to join the company and has accepted the invitation to run the interpretation area.

Benedetta was born in Pisa, Italy. She has a degree in Contemporary Dance from the Rotterdam Dance Academy, Holland (2003), a degree in Modern Languages and Literature - European Languages and the History of Visual and Performing Arts, (Portuguese and Spanish Studies), from the University of Pisa, Italy (2006), and a Postgraduate degree in Translation from the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Portugal. Her working languages are Italian, Portuguese and English and her fields of expertise are design, architecture, and the visual and performing arts. As a freelance translator she has been working with the ExperimentaDesign Lisboa, Torino 2008 - World Design Capital, the Belém Cultural Centre (CCB) and the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, among other clients. She currently divides her time between translation and the performing arts. After being invited by KennisTranslations to take part in a training seminar at Château de Riveneuve, Pamiers, France in April 2011, she decided to join the company and has accepted the invitation to manage business development for Italy.

Luisa has a degree in Chemistry from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and has also successfully completed a course in Photography and Visual Arts at the Maumaus School. She has participated in several exhibitions as an artist and a production assistant. In 1989, she began working as a freelance translator and has since become a project manager, working on small to medium-sized projects in the fields of medicine and ERP systems. She actively translates and proof-reads in the areas of medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, and contemporary art. She is currently a Star Partner with KennisTranslations and is responsible for business development, human resources, and quality and operational control.

Lein is a highly motivated and results-oriented economist with twenty years of experience in management, business reengineering, and change management in European companies. He has been responsible for executing complex projects involving company sales, management support, and information and organisational systems in the IT, telecommunications, and utility sectors. He was born in Holland but has lived and worked in Portugal since 1998. His main professional skills include: co-ordinating and managing multifunctional teams on projects in the IT, telecommunications, media, and energy sectors; executing partnerships between European IT, telecommunications, media, and energy companies, in which he draws on his in-depth knowledge of global value chains and market players and employs an innovative approach that is focused on internationalisation, planning, organisation, and start-up control of new companies. In his current role as a Star Partner with KennisTranslations, he is responsible for internationalisation, finance, business development and commercial management.

Born in England of Italian-Irish parents, Dana, as she is called, has always lived in an international, multi-lingual environment. Fluent in English, Italian and French, she developed her language skills during long periods spent between London, where she began working as a translator and interpreter, Cambridge, where she attended courses in translating and interpreting, Italy, where her family moved, and especially her beloved Ireland, her mother’s country of origin, where she became passionate about Irish literature and the Gaelic language. In the early 1990s, she lived in Rome, reading for a degree in Modern Languages and Literature at La Sapienza University and also working as a translator and interpreter for various agencies and especially for an important medical centre in the city. She then moved to the Marche region in the province of Fermo, where she worked as a translator and as a native English language assistant at many state schools. She also organized Business English courses for local companies and children’s summer camps. However, after many years and many thousands of teaching hours, Dana returned to full-time translating in 2006. She specializes in the fields of fashion, tourism, food, wine, literature and art.

Sean has a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies from University College London, and a Master’s degree in English from King’s College London. Graduating in 1993, he taught English in Madrid and London before entering the IT industry as a computer programmer in 1999. In 2005, having passed the Chartered Institute of Linguist’s Diploma in Translation, he became a full-time freelance translator, specialising in the areas of information technology, automotive engineering, and the arts. In 2007, he passed the CioL Diploma in Translation in a second language pair and also became a full member of the Institute. He joined KennisTranslations in 2009, where he is the Star Partner responsible for translating texts on the arts and humanities, and business development in the UK.

Luzia graduated from the University of Minho with a degree in Management Information Systems. She has ten years of experience in management consultancy and Information Systems, having spent a large part of her career at a North American consultancy company, where she worked as a senior consultant on projects involving process re-engineering and information and change management systems development. She has also carried out management and business development roles for public sector clients, as well as project management, team coordination, and client management roles. For the past five years, in parallel with her professional activities, she has developed skills in the areas of leadership and personal and professional development. She has recently joined KennisTranslations, where she is the Star Partner responsible for internationalisation and business development.

Galina has a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and English from the Minsk State Institute of Foreign Languages, Belarus. Her degree is recognised by the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal). In 1975, she took the Guide-Interpreter Course organised by Intourist of Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2004-2005, in Lisbon, she completed the Improvement Course for Translators run by the Portuguese Association of Translators. She has worked in the ex-USSR and in Portugal as a teacher, an interpreter, a guide-interpreter, and as an employee of an aviation company. She has lived in Portugal since 1984 and dedicates herself to translation (she has been a full-time translator since 2005). She is a member of the Portuguese Association of Translators (APT). At KennisTranslations, she is in charge of translations from/to Russian and Ukrainian.

Marina Roger’s interest in languages first centred on Italian, leading her to read for a Master’s degree in Italian Language, Literature and Civilization at the Universities of Caen and Turin. She then opted to study for a degree in Lusophone Language, Literature and Civilization, which she began at the University of Aix-en-Provence and continued as a distance-learning student with the University of Montpellier III. Although she has not yet had the opportunity to gain a qualification in English, this language has always been part of her study options and her working languages. The desire to translate came quickly and clearly, and the focus of her dissertation was therefore a work of translation. She continued to specialise in this field at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, where she read for a Professional Master’s degree in Translation, Subtitling and Dubbing of Film and Audiovisual Productions. Her professional training took place in Rome at several post-production companies dealing in subtitling, dubbing and voice-over work. In 2006, after leaving Italy, she settled in Lisbon, where she has mainly worked as a freelance translator of written texts. In 2009 she joined KennisTranslations, where she is the Star Partner responsible for business development in France.

Maria has a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Linguistics with Spanish Language from Kingston University London and a degree in English Literature from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She taught English and Spanish in Greece before becoming a full-time freelance translator in 2004. She actively translates/proof-reads in the fields of economics, technology, and the European Union. For the past four years she has been living in Spain and in 2009 she completed a one-year course in Translation Studies with the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She joined the KennisTranslations team in 2010, and is the Star Partner for translations from/into Greek.

Marietheres was born and raised in Vienna, Austria. She studied at Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, graduating in 1981 with a Master's in Social and Economic Sciences (with English and French as her foreign languages and Small and Medium-Sized Businesses as her specialized subject). Her first job was in the finance department of a German steel-construction company. She moved to Portugal in 1983 and dedicated herself to her growing bilingual family while working as a freelance translator of commercial documents from English and later also from Portuguese into German. She founded a youth club, coordinating and running a variety of educational activities. She took a two-year course in philosophy and Catholic theology for laymen and also received training in computer skills and software applications. Since 2004 she has worked for a German-Portuguese power-plant construction company in Lisbon, first as a change manager in the project department, then in the finance department, and lately as a translator working in Portuguese, English and German in the human resources department. She specializes in translations of commercial, legal and financial documents as well as philosophical/religious texts from English and Portuguese into German.

Nataliya was born in Bulgaria and holds two high school diplomas: she graduated from Vassil Levski High School in Troyan, Bulgaria where she studied English in a specialized intensive language training class and she also managed to obtain a language certificate from the Ekzarh Yosif Foreign Language High School in Lovech, Bulgaria. Nataliya is passionate about the English language and in 2005 she also obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in English Language and Literature from the St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, and a Master’s Degree in Translation from the same university. Nataliya lived in London for about a year where she worked as a full-time teaching assistant and a part-time translator and interpreter for various UK agencies. Later, after returning to Bulgaria, Nataliya started working as an export manager in the Riko Style timber factory, where she managed to gain some marketing and commercial experience. She continued to translate professionally and in 2010 she became a full-time translator, proofreader and interpreter specialising in the fields of medicine, pharmaceutics, dentistry, health & safety, psychology, business and tourism & travelling. After being invited by KennisTranslations to take part in a training seminar at Château de Riveneuve, Pamiers, France in April 2011 she decided to join the company and has accepted the invitation to manage business development for Bulgaria.

João has a degree in Biology from the Universidade de Lisboa, a PhD in Plant Science from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., and a degree in Modern Languages and Literature (English and Portuguese), combined with a minor in Linguistics, from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. This background provides him with a sound scientific and linguistic knowledge. He started working as a translator in 2002, and since then he has mainly translated pharmaceutical/medical patents, and public science books and exhibition texts. He recently joined KennisTranslations, where he is the Star Partner responsible for technical translations and related terminology.

Andreea was born in Romania and has always loved foreign languages. She has a Bachelor's degree in Romanian and French Language and Literature from the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Romania (2003) and a Master's degree in Human Resources. In 2003, she attended DELE (Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language) classes for Spanish and some French classes for the DALF diploma (Advanced Diploma in French Language). She also has a Certificate of Legal French Vocabulary from the CCF (French Cultural Centre of Iasi) and attended some seminars on French and English Legal Vocabularies, organized by the ATR (Romanian Translators Association). She is a member of the ATR and specializes in law, human resources, tourism and the retail industry.

Having been passionate about literature and linguistics from an early age, in 2007 Carina obtained a degree in Modern Languages and Literature from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where she read Portuguese and English studies and specialised in Translation from English. Between 2007 and 2009, she worked as an English teacher at public and private schools in the district of Lisbon. However, her interest in translation, which was evident during her first degree, led her to study for a Master’s in Translation at the same faculty. While undertaking an internship as part of her Master’s she joined the KennisTranslations team, where she worked as a translator on several projects and produced a final report focussed on the translation of technical texts and, in particular, the translation of patents. In May 2010, she completed her Master’s degree and began working regularly with the team as a translator.

Jacek has a degree in Modern Languages and Literature from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he specialised in Portuguese and Spanish. He lived in Portugal between 2000 and 2008, working in the commercial areas of publishing companies, including PortoEditora and Impala Editores, and collaborating with translation companies. In the 2007/2008 academic year, he took part in the Conference Interpreting course under the umbrella of the European Master’s in Conference Interpreting taught by the Universidade de Lisboa. After returning to Poland, he undertook an internship at the Portugal-Poland Chamber of Commerce and is completing a Master’s in International Relations. He has worked independently as a translator, interpreter and consultant on issues related to the markets of Portuguese and Spanish-speaking countries. He joined KennisTranslations in 2010.

Thomas Kaiser was born in Frankfurt-on-Main, where he completed an apprenticeship as a bank clerk after passing his A-Levels in 1984. Later, as a tourist representative with Europe´s leading tour operator, he spent six years in various countries, including Italy, Morocco, the Maldives, the Dominican Republic and Spain. In 1993, he decided to enter university to study Translating and Interpreting at Las Palmas University (A-language: Spanish, B-language: German, C-languages: English and Portuguese). Exchange programmes and scholarships took him to Belgium, Luxembourg (the European Parliament), Austria (the United Nations), Ireland and Brazil. Subsequently, he attended the renowned European Master’s in Conference Interpreting at La Laguna University, where his working languages were German, Spanish, English, Italian and French. In addition, he is a sworn interpreter in the German–Spanish language pair, in which he is accredited by the Spanish Foreign Ministry. After a short stint as a maritime agent on Tenerife, he came to Portugal with a Camoes scholarship to take a similar course in conference interpreting at Minho University, where Portuguese was one of his passive languages. Since then he has been living and working in Portugal. During his first five years in Portugal, he was employed as a senior administrative clerk for the Law and Tax Department of the German-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lisbon. Since 2005, he has dedicated himself full-time to translating and interpreting on a freelance basis. During this time, he has been working for Portuguese and international agencies and multinational companies as well as the law courts and authorities in Portugal and Spain. His areas of specialization are Law, Economics, Commerce, Tourism and Culture. He joined the KennisTranslations team in 2010.

After studying Chemistry and Industrial Biotechnology in Italy at the Universities of Padua and Ferrara, Fabio worked in a plant biotechnology company in the Venice area as a chemical analyst. In 2005 he moved abroad to study for a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany. In 2009 he moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where he undertook post-doctoral research at the ITQB and IGC institutes. During his residency abroad he became interested in foreign languages and scientific writing and translated scientific texts for the lay public. He acquired qualifications in English (FCE), German (C1 certificate) and Portuguese (DAPLE) and joined KennisTranslations in 2011.