LISA Announces New Board - To Facilitate Global Business through Language Technology and Standards

["Alex Lam" <alex@lisa.org>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 16, 2003

LISA Announces New Board
To Facilitate Global Business through Language Technology and Standards

The Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA), the 13 year old
Swiss based non-profit, responsible for global representation and
promotion of this evolving IT support sector, today announced its newly
appointed Advisory Board. 

The new LISA board brings a broad range of international and industry
experience to their mandate of strengthening the Association as the
nexus for language technology and standards development worldwide. This
development follows the lead taken by LISA's elected Supervisory
Committee - LISA's Strategic Director Bill Sullivan, Program Director
for Globalization at IBM and LISA's Financial Director John Egan, VP of
Production Solutions at TRADOS, in conjunction with Mike Anobile, LISA's
Managing Director - to restructure the association over the past three
years. 

As Bill Sullivan noted, "LISA is the place where information and
education can be found for companies just entering the global market
sector, or for those more experienced players to find the standards and
proven guidance needed to hone their global marketing strategy to
provide a better ROI."

The new Advisory Board is well positioned to support LISA's 2004
strategy, which is driven by a client-focused program to define the
language and technology needs of vertical business sectors through
detailed and systematic profiling. This program aims to define the
industry needs that LISA will then address by harvesting the collective
experience of LISA's members, most of whom have been an integral part of
the 20-year growth of localization from a cottage industry centered on
translation into a global resource for language and cultural adaptation.
"Our members are our primary resource and the proof of best practice,"
says Mike Anobile.

The LISA Advisory Board lending their expertise to drive these programs
is:
Lyra Spratt-Manning is CEO of the RWS Group, LLC, a global technology
services provider that assists corporations and leading technology
companies in meeting their localization and internationalization
requirements. As an experienced consultant to the medical,
pharmaceutical, and manufacturing industry relative to CE marking, US
government contracting requirements, and international regulatory
issues, she managed the ISO 9000 certification process for RWS in 1997. 

Kurt Ramin is Commercial Director, IASCF, at the International
Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in London, where he participated in
the re-structuring and re-funding of the International Accounting
Standards Committee into the current organization. He currently also
acts as Vice Chair, XBRL International to promote the use of this
xml-based business reporting language. At the IASF he lead the effort to
standardize and develop a 32-language glossary for accounting
terminology. International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS/IAS) are
now accepted as Financial Reporting standards by over 90 countries and
governments around the globe.

Hanspeter Siegrist is the former co-founder and CEO of the STAR Group.
Hanspeter has over 20 years experience in the GILT industry focusing on
language tools development and translation services for the automotive,
advertising and IT sectors. Presently Hanspeter manages and sits on the
board of several US and European based software development companies.

John Hammond is the Head, Product Management and Marketing for Exonomy
Limited, a subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank. John is based in Hong
Kong and has been responsible for the non-banking aspects of the trade
portal www.scb2bex.com. He has been a long-time LISA supporter and has
been involved in one of the largest full banking/financial portal
localization projects in Asia.

Alison H. Rowles is the Managing Director of SMP Marketing Sarl, the
marketing arm for LISA, which was spun off in 1999 to focus on the
promotion of the business sector and the creation of strategic alliances
for the association. Previously, she was an international marketing
consultant specializing in the IT sector and global trade and transport.
 
"I've watched LISA develop in parallel to the businesses that have used
the association and its conferences to launch their products, meet their
clients, benchmark their peers and find the creative stimulus to move
this industry forward," said Hanspeter Siegrist, addressing the fact
that the association is again taking a leadership role in spurring
sector growth through cementing strategic alliances with other
associations representing strong global industries.

Lyra Spratt-Manning concurred stating, "The RWS Group has always enjoyed
the benefits of the LISA Association. I now look forward to contributing
more of my energies and the company's considerable expertise toward the
continuing education and growth of this important association."

For information about LISA visit www.lisa.org or email admin@lisa.org.
For Public Relations and LISA Marketing inquiries contact SMP Marketing
Sarl * Tel +41 21 807 1675 * Fax +41 21 821 3219 * belinda@smp-m.com