Uber's Global Aspects with Pia Bresnan
Pia Bresnan is Senior Localization Manager at Uber. She was technically born in NY but is a Citizen of the world. She spent her childhood in Europe before coming back to the US for her under-grad studies in International Relations. Pia started her second career in Localization at a single language vendor, learning the ropes from the linguists' perspective then worked her way up the value chain, now at for the past 4 years leading a team of Localization Program Managers at Uber. She has over 18+ years of Localization strategy experience with extensive hands-on operational know-how, managing global teams. She combines a strong instinct for stakeholder empathy and a keen understanding of their challenges with a pragmatic and efficient ability to lead cross-cultural teams to "get stuff done”. Pia lives in the Bay Area with her family. KEY TAKEAWAYS It's possible to maintain a global image while adjusting to the local requirements if you understand your target audience. Speaking multiple languages is not necessary for a successful career in a multinational company as long as you can understand the markets you are dealing with. Even the way we greet one another has a huge impact on the localization process and shows how we should be taking every aspect of a culture into account. BEST MOMENTS "Customers don’t use uber because it’s an American company, they use uber because it’s serving their purpose." "We recognize that the way we developed Uber is not suitable for each country. Take India for example. Not only the bandwidth is very different but also the socioeconomic level of our drives is different. So we need to adjust to being able to operate in India in an efficient way." "It's been a journey to educate everyone to understand that we are a global company. Yes, the majority of the problems we are trying to solve are for English Speaking countries but you need to be aware that you cannot simply say 'Do you need a knife and a fork with your Uber Eats order?' in Japan because it doesn't translate to anything." ABOUT THE HOST Levent Yildizgoren, the author of 'Good Business in any Language', is an award-winning entrepreneur, localisation professional, and a PRINCE2 qualified project manager. CONTACT METHOD Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leventyildizgoren/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/yildizgoren IG: https://www.instagram.com/levent.yildizgoren/ ABOUT THE GUEST Pia Bresnan is Senior Localization Manager at Uber. CONTACT METHOD https://www.linkedin.com/in/pia-f-bresnan-8186765/ https://www.uber.com VALUABLE RESOURCES Do you have any questions about translation, localization, or international growth? Visit TTC website: https://ttcwetranslate.com/ Take your business global with the 5-step LINGO modal! Purchase 'Good Business in any Language' on Amazon now: https://cutt.ly/2ORR