A new beginning: ATC’s vision and mission

We are proud to introduce you to ATC’s new leadership and Council, experts in the language services industry who are taking the Association of Translation Companies forward.

Ruth Partington, Chair, RP Translate

Dan Peachey, Vice Chair, Intonation

Raisa McNab, Chief Executive Officer

Meet the full ATC Council here

Over the past year, the ATC has undergone some dramatic changes, and today we want to take the opportunity to share our vision and mission with you.

Defining standards of excellence. That’s the new ATC strapline, crystallising the work the ATC Council has put in over the past year to rethink, redefine and refine the ATC’s vision for the next decade.

The UK authority for translation companies. That’s the newly defined description of the ATC, informing our direction and our initiatives.

Our vision? To support and nurture our members for sustainability and growth. To create recognition and trust for stakeholders by promoting and regulating quality driven language industry standards and best practice. To be the governing body for translation companies in the UK with regulatory function, within the next 5-10 years.

Wait, what?

A UK authority for translation companies, what does that really mean?

We strongly believe that the only way for the ATC to remain relevant in this changing global and national landscape, and to continue to generate value to its members, is to become a true voice for translation companies and to promote our members’ interests to external stakeholders.

Expanding membership

We need to expand the association’s membership base, to speak for the whole of the industry in the UK, and to have enough weight to take our message to the powers-that-be. We’ve started on that journey by welcoming a host of new members and expanding the ATC membership categories to include supported start-ups as well as corporate, technology and accredited partners, who form an integral part of our industry.

Quality-managed translation services

However, this doesn’t mean compromising the core of what being an ATC member means, a commitment to quality-managed translation services. We need to keep quality at the forefront of everything we do, and to continue to promote ATC membership as the gold standard. By that we are not just talking about translation quality, of course, but of all the ways responsible translation companies ensure that their clients receive the best service possible. ATC’s full membership criteria have always been, and will continue to be, selective.

Unique research

To take our message of the critical value of language services further, to the government, public sector procurement, international export and trade bodies, we also need to have strong arguments behind us. In the current political landscape, and in the UK especially, the government is only interested in concrete, evidence-based proposals and positive solutions to pressing issues.

The ATC is committed to supporting unique, topical research that will provide us with the ammunition we need. We have partnered with Aston Business School and researcher Ankita Tibrewal who is working on a three-year PhD study investigating how a company’s language capabilities can prove crucial in enhancing its exporting prospects. Through Ankita’s research, we hope to be able to show exactly how language capabilities and language services are critical for any business looking to take their products or services to export markets.

Lobbying

We believe that the ATC should be at the table in an advisory role when government language policies are discussed, when public sector procurement tenders are drafted, and when companies look for guidance or support on their exporting or globalization strategy. Our lobbying initiatives will be a major part of this, and we look forward to having a more robust programme in place in the coming year.

Partnerships

But we can’t do it all on our own. We need active membership participation and support, and also partners, language industry associations and other organisations whose interests and goals align with ours. It’s only together that we can truly say we represent the language services industry as a whole. We are proud to have some of the UK’s and world’s leading language service associations as our partners already and aim to continue this work to cement our relationships and lend our message the weight it requires and deserves.

Guiding the ATC through these exciting new opportunities will be the job of the insightful, capable Council, supported by our members lending their wisdom and experience to work together with the Council on our initiatives and projects. Making this vision a reality is down to us, and our trusty Secretariat.

Come, join us on our journey, the future is bright!

With excitement, enthusiasm and endeavour,

Ruth and Raisa

PS. Follow our news, initiatives and progress through LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, and stay tuned for more. If you’re an ATC member, get involved! We’d love to include more members working together with our Committees and lending their expertise in taking our message forward.