Think globally, speak locally

Vasco Pedro is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Unbabel. He founded Unbabel and its new category creation, LangOps, in 2013, alongside João Graça, Sofia Pessanha, Bruno Silva, Hugo Silva during a surfing trip in Arrifana, Portugal. Under this leadership, Unbabel has since expanded globally with offices in San Francisco, California, and additional US hubs in New York and Pittsburgh, and a subsidiary office in Portugal. Leading brands like Pinterest, Skyscanner, Under Armour, Trello, and Oculus use Unbabel to make their customers happier and their support operations vastly more efficient. Vasco developed his love of both languages and technology during his time at Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned both his Master’s and doctorate in Language Technologies. Vasco then worked at both Siemens and Google, where he helped develop technologies to further understand data computation and language.

João Graça is a co-founder, Chief Technology Officer, and computational genius behind Unbabel. Portuguese born, João studied computer science at doctorate level at one of Lisbon’s most well-respected technical universities, Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa. During his studies, he published a number of well-received papers on machine learning, computational research, and computational linguistics — all of which form the bedrock of Unbabel’s machine translation engine. After graduation, João worked with INESC-ID, developing research in natural language processing (NLP) and went on to do his postdoc in NLP at the University of Pennsylvania. João was awarded a Marie Curie, Welcome II Scholarship (2011), which he declined in favor of entrepreneurship. He worked with now Unbabel CEO, Vasco Pedro, together on the development of language learning algorithms and machine learning tools, plus held various research scientist roles before co-founding Unbabel in 2013.

Kathryn Keenan is the Vice President of Revenue at Unbabel. Kathryn oversees Unbabel Sales and Marketing and brings over a decade of experience in the enterprise tech industry. Since joining Unbabel in 2018 she led the Solutions Consulting team before taking on her current position. Prior to joining Unbabel, she led Implementation and Presales teams at Percolate (Seismic) and Beem. Having lived in Dublin, San Francisco and London before settling in Lisbon, she brings a global perspective and a deep understanding of diverse markets to our team. Kathryn graduated summa cum laude in Neurophysiology from Trinity College Dublin. This unique background has equipped her to tackle the challenges of the fast-paced tech world with scientific precision and a creative approach.

James Palmer is the Chief Financial Officer of Unbabel. He boasts more than 30 years of experience advising and leading global companies in a variety of technology-based services sectors with a speciality on leading business through complex sales and integration processes. He has recently overseen as successful refinancing of the supplier risk management service provider, Achilles, and was instrumental in the sale of UK-based email security business, MessageLabs, to Symantec for $700m. Prior to that, James had been President and Chief Executive of the state-owned telecommunications operator in Panama, Head of Marketing and Product Management for Cable & Wireless Global Businesses and Chief Operating Officer of their Regional Businesses organization. He is a past board member of the incumbent telecommunications businesses in the Maldives, Yemen and St Kitts & Nevis. He earned his M.A. in Mathematics and a diploma in Statistics from Cambridge University.

Ana Becker-Weinberg is Chief Executive Officer of EVS, an Unbabel company. She leads cross-functional business operations by overseeing key management functions, including strategy, excellence, compliance, M&A and business integration. Ana has over a decade of experience working across several continents and industries. Currently based in Lisbon, she speaks four languages, and spends her time between the Unbabel hubs, working with investors and executive teams on business transformation, scaling, and professionalization. Prior to joining Unbabel in 2019, Ana led strategic business-building and M&A activities at Maya Partners, leading the company’s investment and growth in Latin America. Additionally, at Brunswick Group, she served as advisor to the Chairman and Founder, and developed and implemented strategic projects and business development initiatives.

Leah Bucellato is Chief People Officer at Unbabel, where she oversees the onboarding, engagement and development of people across the global organization. She is a commercial HR professional with 14+ years of proven experience working for some of the most recognised and awarded creative, media, and tech companies. Prior to Unbabel, Leah helped Media Art Lab (MAL), the creative advertising agency for Apple, grow their London office from 20 to 200 people, and managed the Italy, Spain, and France offices. She led the implementation of the HR function, and set up processes for recruitment, induction, retention, benefits, and employee relations at App Business, a specialist app software company. Additionally, she led the HR team and created the global HR strategy for BBH, the global advertising agency that produced campaigns for top brands, including Audi, Axe, Google, and Virgin.

José Pedro Nunes is the Vice President of Engineering at Unbabel, responsible for our overall Engineering strategy, including delivery, hiring, and retention — and joins us with experience in managing large cross-functional teams, in multiple locations, and in fast-paced customer-focused contexts. José also held the role of Head of Engineering at BeReal, and prior to this he was the VP of Engineering at Reachdesk, one of the world’s fast-growing SaaS Startups. During his time at Reachdesk, he was part of the company’s executive team and held responsibility for all Engineering areas, from hiring and retaining the Engineering team to successfully delivering the roadmaps. José also had the role of Director of Engineering at Talkdesk — his responsibilities included delivering projects, making design decisions, hiring, and retaining a team of around +100 FTEs. Prior to this, José spent six years at Sky and held the position of Head of Technology for Sky’s OTT Product, Sky Store. Additionally, he was part of the board that managed the Sky Technology Center in Lisbon.

Kerry Scobie is the Vice President of Operations at Unbabel. She is responsible for leading the functions related to our global community of freelance translators and linguists, overseeing the performance, development, and operation of our translation services. Kerry has an extensive background in management and leadership in commercial operations at scale. Kerry was the Global Delivery Director at Lingo24, before the company was acquired by Unbabel, in which capacity, she led the Service Delivery and Vendor Management teams across Lingo24’s international hubs, driving operational delivery and developing business growth.Prior to that, she spent more than 15 years with the IKEA Group in various management positions in Sales, Operations and Customer relations. She has a passion for business through people, and has a strong belief in situational and collaborative leadership.

As Unbabel’s Head of Product, Gil combines his aerospace engineering background with years of dedicated service at Unbabel, where he co-launched LangOps and played a pivotal role in the successful launch of the Unbabel Portal. An accomplished speaker, with appearances at events like WebSummit, Gil is a user-centric product leader, emphasizing impact and innovation in his work. He’s passionate about leading teams through empathy and shared vision and is committed to defining and executing product strategies that drive business success.

Gabriele Manasse is the Vice President of Growth at Unbabel, where he oversees all product-led growth initiatives, as well as the digital acquisition and engagement of customers. With 20 years of experience, Gabriele has a proven track record of leading business development teams within fast-growing high-tech companies across various sectors. He played a key role in expanding successful startups such as SuperDerivatives and AvaTrade into the European market. Additionally, he established AvaTrade’s first office in the European Union.Before joining Unbabel, Gabriele co-founded and served as the CEO of Bablic, a SaaS solution for website and web application localization. Bablic gained tens of thousands of customers worldwide under his leadership. Gabriele successfully guided Bablic from its inception, through multiple fundraising rounds, to profitability, and ultimately oversaw its acquisition by Unbabel.Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Gabriele holds an MBA from INSEAD.