By Miriam Kreinin Souccar
Crain's New York Business - June 25, 2012
#38 - TransPerfect Inc.
What it does: Conducts translation and other business services for companies around the globe
How it grew: Elizabeth Elting and Phil Shawe founded TransPerfect out of their New York University Stern School of Business dorm rooms in 1992. Now the company—which provides translation and other business services to thousands of clients across the globe, including big names like Merck and Coca-Cola—is the largest privately held language and business services provider in the world.
Ms. Elting and Mr. Shawe (named to Crain’s 40 Under 40 list in 2008) win their clients by offering new technologies to make international business easier and by having a strong local presence in nearly every market.
The Manhattan-based company has offices in 76 cities worldwide, and is growing at a fast clip. Ms. Elting says it achieves growth by opening offices on its own, through acquisitions and by developing new products.
Seven months ago, TransPerfect opened its first location in Brazil, and now has plans for a second. The company recently opened offices in Madrid and Rome, and is expanding in Japan. This spring, it bought a litigation services support company called CRG, based in Washington,D.C. And last year it launched TransPerfect Remote Interpreting, a video interpreting service, in Arizona.
To handle such rapid expansion,TransPerfect has added 650 employees in the past year. “Finding, developing and retaining the best people is our biggest challenge,” Ms. Elting said. Such challenges haven’t held TransPerfect back. The company is profitable, and revenue has been growing steadily each year, even during the recession. Last year, it reached $300,596,575, a 51% jump from 2008.