Localization Leaders: Meet LangOps Institute’s Pascale Tremblay

Season 3, Episode 1: LangOps and the Future of Localization

In this latest episode of the Localization Leaders Podcast, we’re joined by Pascale Tremblay, the Chief Growth Officer of the LangOps Institute, an organization that supports professionals and businesses in navigating the evolving work landscape being shaped by the integration of AI technologies. 

With over 20 years of experience in the localization industry, Pascale has played a pivotal role in building language frameworks and operationalizing localization programs for global brands. In our conversation, Pascale shares her insights on the evolution of language operations, why the shift to LangOps is essential, and how AI is shaping the future of the industry.

Watch the full interview below, hosted by Yoav Ziv, BLEND’s CEO:

Thanks for joining us, Pascale. Can you share a little bit about your career path and how you found yourself at the LangOps Institute?

I’ve been in the industry for quite some time, a little bit over 20 years now. I’m passionate about language, culture, and travel, so I studied linguistics, philosophy, and literature. But at the time when I was studying, localization didn’t exist.

I found myself working at a software company and because I had a linguistics background and speak multiple languages, I was just pulled into it. Then, like they say, the rest is history. I started coordinating translations for software, and then I worked for emerging technologies in solar and built a localization program there. But most of my career was spent working in fashion and building language and localization programs within the fashion industry at Gap Inc.

I built a fully independent localization function that supported four global brands, several global offices, and really was a micro universe in and of itself.

At the time, I didn’t know and probably didn’t have the language for it, but it was very much LangOps at the core. This journey to LangOps has been in the works for a very long time, but now it’s really coming more into the sphere.

That’s fascinating! For some of our listeners who may be less familiar, how would you describe LangOps and why did you decide to join the LangOps Institute?

LangOps recognizes that the work we do as localization professionals is a lot more than what we express in what I like to call the “little localization box.” First of all, I want to clarify that I spent my entire career on the organizational side. It was about delivering content at global scale. When you talk to your stakeholders or your executives about localization, it resonates as, “Oh, it’s just a translation.” And that really minimizes the work that we actually do when we build a localization program.

As our digital environment continues to develop and become more advanced, the work that localization professionals are doing has a lot less to do with the actual translation piece and a lot more to do with building a framework – a very complex framework that threads and weaves language across systems so that you can talk to your vendor, leverage technologies, and have content and data flow all within your complex environment.

LangOps is truly a methodology of building – you start by building a language framework first so that you can expand and scale. Working for a global retailer like Gap, for example, I had very different use cases. 

If I adopted a traditional way of looking at localization, from the use case to the vendor, I would never have been able to scale, and the cost would have been unbearable for my department. 

I started to look at it from the core, building a foundation and a framework that I could build different workflows around and then scale them. Workflows are variables, but the framework is agnostic, so you can build as much as you want.

I spent most of my career in the technology industry. When I first joined BLEND, I thought I would be in a completely different environment, but what struck me were the similarities between the software development space and the content development space.

The shift happening in the localization industry now is interesting because it feels similar to what happened in the software industry. In software, they needed to create pipelines that integrated development, testing, and production in a flow, rather than in silos. That’s exactly what’s happening in localization, too. 

How do you see this transition happening from a concept to actual reality?

When we look at what’s happening with AI, we have to understand that we are moving into an advanced digital age which is all run by data. But you cannot process data on its own, you need a framework. It’s imperative, in my opinion, to adopt this framework in order to enable language operationalization because you cannot operate data out of the blue. You need that framework. 

It’s going to be a lot of work to get there as an industry because you have some companies that have extremely mature programs that have adopted some version of LangOps. However, there’s also a lot of people that are just starting. They are midway. 

Our goal with the LangOps Institute is to bridge that knowledge gap so that we can help bring that methodology. 

For those that are just starting, they can build the bridge to the future. Then for those that are more mature, what comes next? How do you help infuse those new processes with AI? What is generative AI going to look like? Or how do you use a knowledge graph? What is an ontology? How does that fit within the language framework? 

If I’ve learned anything with the work that we’re doing now with AI, it’s this: it takes a collective intelligence or a collective knowledge to really bring this all together. Going forward, we really need to work all together in the industry so that we can all thrive.

I think you’re spot on. From my experience, technology has opened up many opportunities to streamline the localization process, but there’s always resistance to change. Do you think this mindset shift towards more tech-driven processes will be widely accepted, or is there still some fear of these changes?

There’s definitely some resistance to change. There’s also some fears. I would say that’s normal, though. 

People need to understand that we’re not preaching LangOps because we want to invent or create a new way to work. It’s about adapting to technology. 

We are following what technology is enabling us to do. There’s a strong appetite to understand what’s next in our industry. So we’re trying to build that community to take us all to the next level – from translators to reviewers, localization engineers, and localization program managers – anyone who wants to go further and expand.

To your point, we can see that workflows are moving left, moving upstream. A lot of the expertise that’s been developed in operationalizing language can be leveraged to really curate, annotate, and build that language framework. But the biggest opportunity is that it’s language agnostic. All that we’ve learned to create the target language will also apply to source languages. 

We have a lot to bring to the table in not only operationalizing language for global audiences, but also for domestic audiences, because we can bring along those people in copywriting, in content design. They don’t have the same expertise we do in operationalizing all of that, creating the different layers, fragmenting, and then repackaging it. We do have that. 

I strongly believe that it is our opportunity to finally really anchor our seat at the table and bring language to life from data to content. It’s exciting. As professionals, we need to disrupt our mindset and really understand that we’re flipping the script on language. 

This is no longer about just transforming one content and conveying it into a different language or culture. It’s about taking that data point, that idea, that concept, and building a product from it.

If I’m a localization manager in a company, I’d say that my role now is to enable this shift to happen. I need to research the technology, I need to research the processes, I need to learn about all of that so that I can make that available to my internal customers who are the content creators.

Absolutely. It’s about dissecting language and really understanding how to operationalize it. The roles and the responsibilities are going to be very different. You’re designing a framework. There’s a lot of talk these days about solution architects. Where should that role fit? And what is the role of the program manager? 

I think it’s about the design of that framework. You have to work cross-functionally in everything. I know it seems overwhelming for people who are not used to it. As part of the LangOps Institute, we are bringing together adjacent knowledge so that people who want to drive change in a program that is not very mature can have access to the tools and the knowledge necessary to enable that. 

For example, answering questions like, “Hey, how do you initiate an org change? How do you initiate change management? How do we even go about socializing the concept, and is that going to resonate with our business partners?”

This is something I really care about because when I was building those language frameworks or those processes, I didn’t have that knowledge. I went intuitively from what made sense, and then it took many, many years to really refine that concept. Now we’re helping people accelerate that development and take it to the next level.

It’s very challenging and also requires a mindset shift because, as localization professionals from the client side, you are the ambassador of the world because you’re speaking on behalf of the global audience. You have to evangelize your processes. You’re the gatekeeper for your global content. 

Actually, one of the most significant shifts that enabled me to really accelerate the development of my program is when I decided to let go, consider the true value, and redesign and rebrand what I do. From there, I decided to focus on what my team is about – global content enablement. 

We are the experts in providing grammatical knowledge, semantic context, and expertise on language. But we don’t own the content. The content belongs to all these other teams. From there we established that we were the global content enablers. It helped us really clarify our relationship with stakeholders, too. The work became a lot more seamless. 

My team also focused on automating everything. If you find yourself doing redundant tasks that you can automate, you need to automate those tasks, and then we go to the next level. Bringing that continuous development mindset to a team as you also implement continuous automation in continuous content development is also a mindset shift. 

The work that we’ve been doing at BLEND, creating a more automated and streamlined process, has really driven home the point about how crucial it is to make this shift. 

If we don’t do that, eventually the economies of the business will drive the use of uncontrolled AI and uncontrolled technology which eventually will be a lose-lose. Again, it also happened in the software development industry. People really rushed to adopt some technologies. They were not implementing it in a way that is responsible and controllable.

You’ve mentioned how important it is for localization professionals to shift their mindset. How do you see this evolving in the coming years? Do you think smaller or larger organizations will implement this shift more rapidly? And what’s your vision for LangOps in the long run?

I wouldn’t say the size of the company really matters in this case. It’s really about the team and how much drive you have to initiate change. I think there’s going to be a need to develop different methodologies based on your maturity level, which is part of what we’ll cover within our courses. If you’re just starting out, it’s a little bit more challenging because you have to implement existing traditional tools while keeping your eye on the ball knowing you’ll need to change things soon. If your processes are mature, on the other hand, then you have a very complex system that you need to infuse new technologies into. There are very different challenges, but I think it’s the human skills and the drive that are going to make the program successful or not, in my opinion.

I believe LangOps will become the standard. I personally do not see any other way to enable AI technologies without a framework. If I look back into the programs that I’ve created based on a framework, as opposed to based on use cases, the framework stands the test of time. 

Years ago, even before ChatGPT, I already had a conversation with my vendors, letting them know that my goal was to enable generative AI when it arrives. With the framework in place, it was already possible to start mapping out what we’re going to do. 

As humans, we have an embedded grammar in ourselves that enables us to learn languages. The framework is the structure that allows the enablement of more advanced technologies. To me, it’s a no-brainer, but we have to share the message. 

I think the more we get into AI, it’s going to be a no-brainer for a lot of people. It’s also our goal to provide the concept and the wording and the ideation around that framework so that people can socialize the concept.

That’s a very exciting vision, Pascale! I think we’re headed in that direction, and it’s going to be interesting to see how this evolves. Before we wrap-up, let’s do a few rapid-fire questions. What’s your favorite language?

I love Italian.

What’s your favorite place you’ve traveled to?

One of my favorite cities is London. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger, and I just love the vibe. It has a very special place in my heart.

What’s the best localization advice you’ve ever received?

You don’t need a title to initiate change. A former leader told me, “You don’t need the title—just make it happen.” That advice really stuck with me.

Who is your localization role model?

One of my role models was one of my translators. She was the most experienced woman I’ve ever worked with and the most dedicated and passionate – I learned so much from her in her dedication. I wanted to mention her today because she passed away several years ago. With her as part of our extended teams, we were able to really build something incredible. Her name was Isabelle.

That’s amazing. Thank you so much for joining us, Pascale! It’s been a fascinating conversation.

As we see more companies adopting LangOps methodologies, the language industry is poised for exciting growth. To learn more about how LangOps can help streamline your localization efforts and improve workflows, explore other episodes of the Localization Leaders Podcast or visit the LangOps Institute for valuable resources.

Corinne Sharabi

Corinne is the Social Media and Content Lead at BLEND. She is dedicated to keeping global business professionals up to date on all things localization, translation, language and culture.

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