I´ve prepared a mini-biography to show how, in the course of my professional journey, I developed my bilingual skills.

I started my career, in Rio de Janeiro, as a bilingual executive secretary for a British food processing industry. My main activity was to translate for the directors, all the written and oral communication of the company, including technical manuals, also acting as the link between the company and CACEX (Brazilian government importation regulating agency), since none of the directors spoke Portuguese.

Shortly thereafter, also in Rio, I was offered a position heading the administrative and finance Department of UNIC, the United Nations Information Center, in Brazil. One of my tasks was to prepare and translate correspondence and reports in English and Portuguese. Four years later, I was promoted and transferred to São Paulo to head the administrative and finance dept. of Unicef – United Nations Children´s Fund. In this position, I was also in charge of writing, and translating the correspondence and reports of that department, in English and Portuguese. (Please note that, until today, even though I´m no longer a staff member, I continue to participate actively, every year-end, in the Unicef campaign to help raise funds for their social projects in Brazil.) A few years later, I left my career with the U.N. to manage the administrative and financial department of my husband´s company, in the agricultural field. During this period, I also helped to translate the promotional pamphlets and instruction manuals of grain storage bins and related equipment, which were of American technology. I was also in charge of the communication with our suppliers from overseas.

My next project was to start a trading company, with two partners, to import eletronic devices. I was in charge of the administrative, financial and logistic departments of the company; and also communications with our suppliers from other countries. In addition, I used my English and Portuguese skills to translate the owner´s instruction manuals of each appliance. My next enterprise was the purchase of a language course franchise, which I managed for 5 years. Besides administering the school, I tested the teachers to evaluate their fluency in the English language and taught them how to minister the franchisor´s teaching method. To assure the formation of homogeneous classes, I trained teams of pedagogic coordinators, to apply tests, at the school and in the companies, to properly evaluate the students´ English levels; and to supervise the teachers´ work.

After I sold the course, I became na executive distributor of an American cosmetic company, for whom, besides my commercial activities, I performed consecutive interpretation at presentations, training sessions, conventions and meetings.

I have experience in traslations involving audio and visual resources. I prepared subtitles for videos of the “Force for Good Foundation” and for Power Point presentations of the humanitarian foundation “Nourish the Children”.

I also did several jobs translating and recording marketing research interviews (“voice-over”), from Portuguese into English, for a large international pharmaceutical company. In 2008, after the cosmetics company closed it´s operations in Brazil, I resumed my activities in the field of languages.