DANBURY, CT USA – 13 December 2016. Translators without Borders (TWB) announces the appointment of three new board members who will work with the current board to increase access to information in the right languages. The new board members are Nigel Fisher, former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General; Iris Orriss, Head of Internationalization at Facebook; and Chris Fyfe, the International Finance Director of Greenpeace International. Mr. Fyfe will also serve as an officer in the capacity of treasurer.
New board members signal commitment to understanding development and dissemination of content
The combined expertise of the three new board members will increase TWB’s understanding and commitment to providing local content in the right languages and in the way that people are best able to understand it.
“The board is honored to welcome three esteemed professionals with such depth of knowledge and experience in their fields,” said Andrew Bredenkamp, TWB’s Board Chair. “With this expanded board, TWB will better reflect the profile of our stakeholders within the humanitarian and development sectors, as well as commit to new means for reaching vulnerable people with localized content.”
In addition to Dr.Bredenkamp, CEO, and Founder of Acrolinx, the new members will join a board with strong language, technology, and content backgrounds: Salvo Giammarresi, Head of Globalization at PayPal; Francis Tsang, Head of International Engineering at LinkedIn; Val Swisher, CEO of Content Rules; and, Donna Parrish, Publisher of MultiLingual Computing. Edith Boehler, who has been TWB Treasurer and a board member since 2012, will be retiring from her post at the end of this calendar year.
Nigel Fisher
Nigel is currently COO of Allied BioScience Canada. Previously, he was UN Assistant Secretary-General. A former Executive Director of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), he has likewise been UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis, as well as Deputy Special Representative and Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for the UN missions in Afghanistan and Haiti. He also advises governments and organizations on disaster risk reduction, preparedness, and recovery.
Chris Fyfe
Chris is currently the International Finance Director for Greenpeace International. He is a specialist in the financial management of international organizations, with a particular emphasis on the not for profit sector. He has significant experience in development and in humanitarian programs, having worked in 20 countries across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Chris speaks English, French and Spanish and has an MSc in Development Management.
Iris Orriss
Iris Orriss serves as Director of Internationalization at Facebook. She has been with Facebook since January 2013 and is passionate about eliminating the internet language barrier. Her work focusses on growing Facebook in international markets in over100 local languages. Prior to Facebook, Iris was a director at Microsoft working on product internationalization and development processes. She is a native of Germany, speaks four languages, and was educated at the FreieUniversität Berlin.
For press inquiries please contact Rebecca Petras: [email protected]
About Translators without Borders
Translators without Borders envisions a world where knowledge knows no language barriers. The US-based non-profit provides people access to vital knowledge in their language by connecting non-profit organizations with a professional community of volunteer translators, building local language translation capacity, and raising awareness of language barriers. Originally founded in 1994 in France as Traducteurs sans Frontières (now its sister organization), Translators without Borders translates more than 8 million words per year.
For more information and to volunteer or donate, please visit: https://www.translatorswithoutborders.org or follow on Twitter
