Stephen Whiteley: CEO & Business Development
Raised in Catalonia, educated in Spain and the UK, Stephen Whiteley is fully trilingual in Spanish, English and Catalan, speaks fluent French and Italian, and has more than a passing knowledge of Japanese. He was an honours graduate of Cambridge University (UK) in Modern Languages and Economics in 1996, after completing a double Part One in French and Italian.
He then worked as a teacher and lecturer in Tokyo, before returning to Europe to cut his teeth in the world of consultancy and knowledge management. He worked as a process re-engineering advisor in the insurance industry, and was a strategy consultant for multinational pharmaceutical firms including Glaxo and Astrazenaca.
Stephen went on to specialise in knowledge management, working as a consultant to the consulting firm CAP Gemini Ernst & Young in Barcelona. He was an Assistant General Manager in the automotive spare parts industry and, briefly, the General Manager of Sirius Comunicación S.L, a media company focussed on R+D.
He has translated various books, including a series from the Harvard Medical School and Antonio Buero Vallejo’s seminal Historia de una escalera.
In 2009 Stephen completed a PDD (Management Development Program) at Barcelona’s IESE business school, widely recognized as one of Europe’s top international business schools.
Stephen Whiteley has over 20 years’ business experience in consulting, translation, business processes and knowledge management in multinational companies. His experience and interests put him in a perfect position to pioneer a process-orientated, knowledge-based approach to linguistic issues.
Colin Whiteley: President & Linguistic Consultant
An honours graduate of Cambridge University (UK) in Modern Languages and Linguistics, Colin has over 30 years experience in global business. He has worked in the areas of Marketing, Communications and Knowledge Management and has extensive knowledge of the translation needs of large corporations. Colin speaks five languages fluently and has a working knowledge of several more.
Colin Whiteley started work with Mather and Platt in the UK in 1971 and was trained in fire engineering before being sent by the company to Brazil in 1974. He was appointed General Manager of Mather + Platt Spain in 1976 – the youngest such appointment ever – just before the entire company was acquired by Wormald of Australia. For the next 30 years Colin held a series of upper management positions in Wormald and subsequently Tyco International, which in turn acquired Wormald, managing the Southern European companies and later serving as Global Special Hazards and Global Marketing and Communications Director. Throughout this period Colin was an active member of the fire protection fraternity, serving as President of Tecnifuego-AESPI in Spain, Vice-President of Eurofeu (based in Frankfurt), and representing Spain on many European industry committees, technical working groups, etc., notable at CEN and CEA. He was the editor of the first ever European sprinkler standard (EN12845) and involved in a number of other standards and industry initiatives.
Colin has had a key role in creating and developing the Quicksilver brand and business, turning an internet start-up into a documentation services firm with nearly €1M yearly turnover, 10 employees and offices in three countries. Colin oversees the entire production process, with a global view of all projects and hands-on involvement in translation, proofreading, linguistic consulting, desktop publishing, etc. He has been instrumental in developing Quicksilver’s high added value methodology for integrated translation and desktop publishing services.
