Christian Arno founded translation company Lingo24 in the UK in 2001, after graduating in French and Italian from the University of Oxford. His aim was to create the top online brand in translation services and as such, Lingo24 was the first translation company to market itself entirely online. Christian launched international operations in China (2003), New Zealand (2004) and Romania (2005) and he has since expanded into North America, continuing to broaden Lingo24’s global reach with clients now in over sixty countries. He now has some of the world’s biggest blue-chip companies on board such as MTV and Orange. Christian was a winner at the 2003 W@W awards for innovative use of the internet, whilst he also won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and best e-business start-up the same year. Website localization has played a central role in Lingo24’s own expansion into international markets, with websites in multiple European and Asian languages. Christian and Lingo24 have used this same strategy to help countless other companies grow abroad. Today, Lingo24 has over 100 full-time staff members working across four continents and a network of 4,000 translators. They are on track for a turnover of $6.5m USD in 2009.

• Multilingual Marketing, SEO And The Global Village