Not Lost in Translation, with Wendy Pease

Update: 2022-11-21

Description

Episode Summary

How’s life growing up in a neighborhood where no one looks like you? In this episode, I talk to a former student, Wendy Pease, who grew up overseas and learned to adapt to life where she was the one who stood out. Now, many years later, perhaps unsurprisingly, she runs a business focused on managing cultural and language barriers. From melting pots to immigration, on this episode of The Sydcast a deep dive into an entrepreneurial life set in motion long ago.

Sydney Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Wendy Pease

Wendy MacKenzie Pease is the owner and president of Rapport International, a translation and interpretation services company specializing in marketing, legal, and medical/life sciences translation. Throughout her career, she has worked with hundreds of companies to help them communicate across more than 200 languages and cultures. She is the author of the book, "The Language of Global Marketing," and the podcast host of the "Global Marketing Show."

Wendy has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA in Foreign Service & International Politics from Penn State.

She is passionate about connecting people, especially across languages and cultures. She lived in Mexico, Taiwan, and the Philippines, where she fell in love with the richness of international cultures and understood that we are all human, no matter the language we speak.

Insights from this episode:

Wendy’s life growing up
Growing up in a culturally different neighborhood
Getting into business and buying her company
Getting laid off while on maternity leave
Lessons Wendy learned running her own company
Details about what her company does
Building a formidable workforce
Details on her competitor, Google translate
The beauty of different languages
Advice for people going to other countries

Quotes from the show:

“I am an off-the-scale extrovert: I always made friends wherever I went, and I think that’s what’s given me the love I have for what I do now” —Wendy Pease [14:24 ]
“After two lay-offs on maternity leaves, I decided I was done with doing the corporate thing and wanted to own my own business again. So that’s how I ended up buying the company I run now” —Wendy Pease [22:22 ]
“I think the hardest thing for me was work-life balance. When I owned my company before, I was single and young, and in my twenties with tons of energy and a lot of time went into work” —Wendy Pease [27:07 ]
“What we do: our mission is clear, communication for peaceful and prosperous worlds. So what that boils down to is that we do written translations, and spoken interpretation in over 200 languages” —Wendy Pease [28:12 ]
“People used to come into the U.S and say, ‘I’m gonna get rid of my language and culture, and I’m gonna assimilate, and I’m gonna be American’ that’s not happening anymore. People are keeping their language” —Wendy Pease [35:17 ]
“My biggest advice is if you are going somewhere to conduct business where English is not the native language (…), my advice is to get an interpreter who fully understands the two languages and two cultures, and then you use your interpreter as your cultural conduit“—Wendy Pease [43:44 ]
“You can go out and hire them (in manufacturing), but if you don’t train them in their language, give them opportunities to promote and make them feel included, they are not gonna stay” —Wendy Pease [47:10 ]