Professional Profile

Lenka de Graafova, M.A., is the founder and owner of LingoStar Language Services Inc. Originally a translator, interpreter and a project manager for Dutch, Czech and English translation projects, she founded LingoStar in 2004 in Vancouver, BC, Canada and has guided the company in every step of its growth. She has successfully managed worldwide teams on multilingual translation projects, often meeting complex requirements including website translations, multilingual voice-overs, transcriptions and other language services. Her 17 years of experience in the language industry and expertise in multilingual business solutions is reflected in LingoStar’s commitment to superior quality through comprehensive and meticulous project management, internal quality control processes and an established network of language professionals in North America, Europe and Asia.

Background & Education

Lenka is of Czech origin, was educated in the Netherlands and United Kingdom, and has worked in Europe and Canada. She speaks four languages and is an entrepreneur with a passion for languages and related technology. She holds a Master’s degree in Modern Languages from the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom and a BA in Translation Studies from LOI in Leiderdorp in the Netherlands.

Achievements

Lenka built a successful language services company from scratch with a 2,000+ client base and 4,000+ worldwide language suppliers’ database. LingoStar has been in business for 16 years and going stronger than ever before. In her CEO position, Lenka has personally been involved in operations, customer base building, market research and targeted marketing campaigns. She has set up procedures and documentations for supplier selection, evaluation and quality controls. The result of this is a solid network of language providers that LingoStar’s clients from various industries have come to rely on. Lenka has been intrigued and challenged by multilingual SEO practices, web marketing and online sales while developing LingoStar’s powerful online presence. She hopes to transfer this knowledge to LingoStar’s clients who are seeking advice on linguistic and cultural issues connected with foreign markets and global market expansion. If you speak Czech, click here to access Lenka’s Czech language website.

Expertise

Drawing on her linguistic and managerial experience, Lenka has built a dedicated team to run LingoStar language projects. Her recent focus has been on working with corporations in need of resolving language related issues with global websites, multilingual marketing materials and foreign market product launches. Lenka’s expertise includes multilingual business solutions in the areas of:

• Generating revenue with multilingual websites
• Localizing – culturally and linguistically adapting marketing and promotional materials
• Using a multilingual website as a powerful marketing tool
• Increasing (international) sales by speaking to potential customers in their native language
• Increasing (international) sales by speaking to potential customers in their native language
• Web marketing effectively across cultures and languages
• Improving sales by being culturally and linguistically aware of business partners
• Dealing with foreign language markets and clients

Check out LingoStar’s Series on multilingual website translations. Download our ebooks and localization guides. 

Languages

Fluent: English, Spanish, Dutch

Native: Czech

Basic: German, Russian, Slovak

Hobbies

Growing up in the Czech Republic and having lived in the Netherlands, UK and Canada, Lenka has a passion for languages, cultures and travelling. She has visited more than 30 countries and will not stop at that. She enjoys working and meeting people of different backgrounds, which is directly related to her daily work at LingoStar.