Sebastien Kuo

Localization Program Manager | [email protected] | 917-388-7136 | linkedin.com/in/sebastienkuo

About Me

Data-driven and adaptable program manager with 12+ years experience executing localization strategy at both startups and Big Tech. Strong record of delivering value through smart spending with minimal impact to quality and speed-to-market expectations. Focused on impactful content and user experiences built for a diverse global audience. Values transparent and goal-oriented relationships with stakeholders in order to navigate cross-functional teamwork, build consensus and align results to organizational objectives.

Work Experience

Localization Program Manager (Google Cloud), Google (via Akorbi Workforce Solutions)

December 2023 - August 2024

Managed end-to-end L10n operations strategy for Google Cloud products’ UI, on-/off-line marketing collateral, technical documentation, support assets and learning modules across 160+ countries, 80 languages, and 3B+ users.
Administered $56.4M budget to localize 150M+ words, delivering $11M in savings (-20% YTD Y/Y), in line with organizational financial priorities in response to forecasted macroeconomic pressures.
Practiced strategic budget management and proactive risk management by surfacing opportunities to leverage cheaper machine translation (MT) workflows and initiating experiments to generate ROI data for comparison to baseline HAT.
Improved overall stakeholder satisfaction (as measured by internal surveying) by 18 points by promoting new service offerings like Urgent requests (+53% improvement on TAT) and a simplified trans-creation pipeline.
Collaborated on long-tail experiments to improve deep learning transformer-based machine translation and large-language model (LLM) and AutoML algorithms.
Created self-service dashboards from raw project metrics and financial datasets enabling stakeholders to track spend and volume product line, service type and time period against annual budget line-item.
Facilitated success of outsourced operations by identifying then addressing knowledge gaps, bugs and other blockers throughout the project lifecycle.

Localization Quality Manager, Twitch Interactive

December 2021 - December 2022

Designed and implemented a quality management framework that directly influenced company strategy, resulting in an 11-point increase in non-US market Net Promoter Scores (NPS) YoY.
Built internal dashboards using Microsoft Excel and SQL to show financial impact of quality mechanisms, resulting in a 44% decrease in issue type resolution times compared to the same period prior. Lead coordinated linguistic QA cycles with internal reviews and external vendors, ensuring timely and accurate project execution.
On-boarded linguistic quality assurance (LQA) vendors via RFI and negotiated minimum acceptance thresholds for billed work from existing vendors, reducing annual spend by $29K.
Drafted and led the implementation of an English diversification project to launch Canadian English, Australian English, Hong Kong English and Indian English leading to notable increases in attributable retention and new user signups (market-dependent).
Authored and maintained extensive “how-to” and process documentation on Confluence, ensuring transparency, knowledge transferability and accessibility of critical information for new hires and relevant teams regardless of function.

Localization Manager, StubHub (an eBay company)

June 2015 - July 2020

Scaled a solo operation into a team of 40 offering a mature program of services: internationalization (i18n), translation, project management, linguistic quality testing and platform infrastructure support services.
Introduced a growth-focused localization strategy that enabled marketplace expansion into 47 languages covering 80+ countries in just 5 years; built on variations of tactical playbooks designed to complement business objectives and market opportunity size.
Reduced content creation and translation turnaround time by integrating L10n workflow into existing Jira workspaces, tracking request ages and resolving escalations swiftly with relevant stakeholders.
Integrated pseudo-localization and other localization best practices into the UX design process and enabled the inclusion of design assets from Sketch and Figma and Drupal 9 marketing content into the localization pipeline via TMS connectors.
Led procurement of new translation management system (TMS) from securing budget, RFP, vendor selection, contract negotiations, compatibility and information security compliance testing through technical integration, raising on-time delivery rate from 52.5% to 96.4% and eliminating 55+ work hours.
Spearheaded internal development of a localization QA program and evaluation platform that reduced testing turnaround time from 14 days to a 48-hour SLA.
Directed the successful expansion of my department during acquisition of competitor: producing plans for employee restructuring, technology and workflow integration, assisting with change management exercises and skills training and boosting cohesion by organizing social and team-building events.

Localization Program Manager (Content & Community), Coursera

March 2014 - May 2015

Established vendor management quality benchmarks measured against style guide adherence, glossary usage and requiring vetted linguists as part 2-step evaluation workflows.
Established and engaged a community of global volunteers (1,550 MAU at peak) to translate course descriptions and lecture videos’ subtitles, contributing 1,825,000 words across top 8 most spoken languages and saving tens of thousands of dollars of translation spend.
Promoted consistency of localized user experiences by aligning disparate translation processes and resources of engineering and product marketing verticals.
Presented in-depth research and subject-matter expertise during evaluations of 3PP AI-assisted chat support, video subtitling, speech transcription, voice-over , dubbing and other pre- and post-production media workflows services.

Localization Project Manager (Mobile Platforms), Twitter

June 2012 - March 2013

Partnered with platform developers, product owners and business relationship managers to leverage a million plus volunteer translators to localize mobile apps into 30+ languages.
Sourced error reports and improvement ideas regarding the mobile apps from international user channels, producing actionable insight reports for inclusion into monthly cross-functional planning exercises.

Localization Project Manager, Etsy

April 2011 - June 2012

Managed the translation of Etsy.com including project management, query management and LQA bug triage by aligning operational capacity and stakeholder demand with business objectives to promote market entry confidence, local relevance and operational value.
Facilitated in-country user research sessions to define persona-driven UX priorities and integrate localization with broader GTM strategy.

Customer Service Representative, Etsy

February 2009 - April 2011

Provided front-line customer service via email, virtual chat and telephone.
Resolved escalations involving suspicious transactions and behavioral complaints.
Researched industry trends and legal precedent to refine marketplace policies and inform development of algorithms to detect fraud, reduce fiscal risk and improve data privacy and compliance.

Legislative Trainee (Office of Timothy Kirkhope, MEP), European Parliament

January 2005 - July 2005

Drafted and proofread Member’s contributions to plenary debates and legislative proposals as rapporteur of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (work citations available upon request).

Education

Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs

The George Washington University Washington, DC

Skills

Methodologies: Agile, Waterfall, Scrum, Kanban, Lean
Project Management: Jira, Asana, Trello, Microsoft Project, Smartsheet
Translation Management Systems: Smartling, XTM Cloud, Transifex, Crowdin, memoQ, SDL WorldServer, SDL Trados
Data & Visualization: Excel, Looker, Tableau, PostgreSQL, SQL, SQLite
Web & Design: Drupal 9, Wordpress, HTML, CSS, Figma, Sketch
Scripting: Python, Zsh, Bash, Ruby, Golang
Cloud Fundamentals: AWS S3, Google Cloud
Workflows: SVN, git/GitHub, Machine learning

Certifications

Project Management Professional (PMP) - Program Management Institute (PMI) (Re-certification in progress)

Languages

	Proficiency	ILR	CEFR
English	Native	5	—
Chinese	Fluent	3+	B2
French	Proficient	3	B1
German	Basic	1+	A2