#97 Smartling Mega-Round, Avantpage CEO on Serving LEP Populations

Luis Miguel, CEO of Avantpage Translations, joins SlatorPod to talk about the LSP’s mission over the past 25 years of helping immigrants and other limited-English-proficient (LEP) populations.Luis walks us through his journey in the language industry, from immigrating from Mexico to founding and leading a California-based LSP. He introduces Avantpage’s leadership team and highlights the importance of developing talent within the company as it grows.The CEO discusses the key differences between servicing government clients versus the private sector. He reflects on the dynamics of Language Access regulation as Biden’s new administration and the pandemic affected the regulated industry in the past year.Luis shares his approach behind building a proprietary technology stack, explains his attitude toward prioritizing organic growth over M&A, and shares his outlook for the future.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week — and the launch of the Slator Transcreation and Multilingual Content Origination Report. Florian shares key takeaways from SlatorCon Remote, which featured 13 guest speakers, drew in over 300 attendees, and facilitated around 300 individual networking sessions. Esther covers the latest funding news as language services and technology provider Smartling raised USD 160m in growth investment from Battery Ventures.