A day with.... Emmy Simons

Emmy Simons is a genuine all-rounder in the AgroLingua team. After successfully completing her French degree, our Operations Manager gained extensive experience as a project manager, primarily at AgroLingua. She is a versatile team player, equally as good at translating French language texts as managing translation projects. This serves to underline why she is the right person for the role of Operations Manager.

Her job sounds extremely varied, and Emmy’s experience in the role certainly supports this. Emmy usually switches on her laptop before 08:30am and reads through the e-mails that are specifically addressed to both her and AgroLingua.

Then she checks her schedule for the day ahead. Her first meeting is at 09:00am, with AgroLingua Director Jos van Kleef. A student will be starting an internship at AgroLingua in the near future and there are still a few things that need to be arranged. The aim of the internship is for the student to gain as much practical experience as possible within a short period of time. For a translation agency like AgroLingua, it is always the aim to ensure a successful internship. Who knows, it might lead to a long-term collaborative partnership with the intern.

One of the e-mails she has received is an open application from a new translator, who would like to become part of AgroLingua’s extensive network of translators. His CV certainly looks promising, as translating texts for the agricultural sector requires extensive and specific knowledge. Emmy doesn’t hesitate, she quickly replies to the candidate. With the help of a test translation, AgroLingua and the translator can establish whether a long-term collaboration has the potential to succeed.

Before her lunch break, Emmy manages to fit in her scheduled weekly meeting with an important client. For the past three months, AgroLingua has provided translations from Dutch into French, English, German, Polish, Spanish and Italian for the client in question. The client is in the process of creating a new website and their internal communication is being revamped. Is the client satisfied with the quality of translation? Does the terminology need to be updated? How extensive are the texts that need to be translated in the next few weeks? It’s vital that Emmy is aware of client specific information, as this must be clearly communicated to the project managers and translators.

The Sales and Marketing plan for the next six months needs to be completed as soon as possible. Together with Remko Custers, our Sales and Account Manager, a few additional activities are planned out. These include an online marketing campaign and trade fair visits.

Now Emmy needs to switch to the role of Project Manager. A French company has requested the translation of two texts from Chinese to French and the secretary on the phone isn’t sure how to realise this. Once Emmy has received both source texts, she can prepare an accurate quote and send through a project timeline outlining the translation process. The woman on the phone seems reassured. “This sounds like a really professional approach", she says with a relief. Emmy will become her first point of contact, not only for this translation project but for all future projects as well.

The working day is almost over. Her administrative tasks still need to be checked, but she will have some time for this tomorrow morning. Emmy still needs to prepare a training course for the whole team, and check if the prospective translator has already sent back his test translation. She is curious to find out how he has got on. Tomorrow already promises to be another interesting day!