ZOO Spotlight: Carla Boggs – Localization Project Manager
Localization project managers (LPMs) help support our amazing ZOO Community, by continually supporting and offering guidance to our translators to help entertain the globe.
For this ZOO Spotlight, we talked to LPM, Carla Boggs, about how she got into the localization industry, what her favourite things about working with the ZOO Community are and if she has any advice for those looking to get into the industry.
Tell me about your journey with ZOO!
I’ve been working at ZOO since August 2021 – the company was recommended to me by an old friend of mine who works in Media Services and had a lot of good things to say about ZOO and its culture. He shared my resume, and the rest is history! I’ve been managing all of our French projects since I finished training.
How did you get into the localization industry?
I’ve always been into languages. I grew up bilingual, as my parents moved to France when I was five. I studied German and Italian throughout middle school and high school, and then went to university for a degree in Applied Foreign Linguistics, which is when I started learning Mandarin.
After graduating, I moved to Taiwan to further my Mandarin studies and ended up getting a Master’s degree in International Relations out there. This led me to working as a translator and editor, mostly specializing in academic works, as many of the connections I made in grad school wanted to have their papers translated to English, or needed help with letters of recommendation and the like.
What areas of translation and language interest you the most, and how has this helped with your role as an LPM?
I love the intricacies of language – I actually like studying grammar and understanding why things work the way they do. It’s a lot of pattern recognition, which I find fun!
In my role as an LPM, I think this helps when dealing with my translators, as we can discuss the finer points of what they do and why, and they recognize my sincere enjoyment of the subject. Of course, being a native speaker of French is a bonus.
We can discuss the finer points of what they do and why, and they recognize my sincere enjoyment of the subject
What is your favourite thing about working with the ZOO Community?
The people! I’m obviously biased, but I love my manager and my team – it’s a really great environment to work in. Everyone is so helpful and we have really good, open discussions as to how to deal with any issue that might arise, or how to work better as a team and as a department. In my experience, this has held true across all departments.
What advice would you give to somebody who was interested in getting into the localization/translation industry?
I think that’s a two-parter, in that if you want to work in localization, I don’t think you necessarily need to speak another language, but I think you should have had the experience of studying one – if that makes sense.
My best advice for translators would be to network a lot and have at least one specialization to rely on – technology is a really valuable one at the moment, for instance.
For both, having good time management and organizational skills is crucial, especially when working for yourself as most translators do!
Tell us something about yourself we might not know.
I’m actually an American citizen through my dad, who’s Swedish-American, and a UK citizen through my mum.
My first real visit to the US was in 2016, where I did a cross-country road trip with one of my Tennessee cousins from Knoxville up to Missoula, Montana, and then down to LA to see some other friends. At that point, I ended up deciding to move here on a whim – five years later, I’m still here!
Become a translator
Learn more about the ZOO Community, including how to join our team and become a translator, here.