Jonathan Kirk, CEO
An Englishman who has lived in Italy, Japan and America, Jonathan brings experience in how
business is done on three continents. Jonathan studied at Cambridge University in England,
and after several years in strategy consultancy co-founded
systemsGo, now
a leading provider of IT services, in Japan. He then co-founded
eterniTV (renamed Convade in 2004),
a provider of technology and services
for creating searchable, browsable internet video archives, and incStream, a research and IP holding company.
Jonathan speaks, reads and writes Japanese. 
Russell Hyzen, Senior Vice President, Corporate and Business Development
As head of business and corporate development for Elanex, Russell is responsible for finding and executing ways for the company to grow – through increased global presence, acquisitions, partnerships, and new products. Russell is a veteran of several successful businesses and an established entrepreneur. As head of business development and employee number one at XOOM.com (later merged with SNAP to form NBCi in one of the most highly publicized deals of that year), Russell was responsible for key partnerships and acquisitions that led to dramatic traffic growth for the company, which in turn led to an extremely successful IPO in 1998. Russell was also instrumental in attracting top talent to the company, including key members of the management team and a high profile outside director. Prior to XOOM.com, Russell was head of business development at Quote.com where he executed partnerships leading to traffic growth of over 300% for the company. He has also founded, invested in, or advised around 10 other companies spanning a range of industries.
David Currie, Senior Vice President, Product Strategy and Development
David comes to Elanex with a 25 year track record of proven successes in a range of roles, industries and cultures. As co-founder and CEO of ScanAlert, David assembled a team, developed, launched and marketed the world's most recognized security mark, Hacker Safe™, acquired by McAffee in January of 2008. As a consultant to the World Bank, David developed localization technology and tools for the SME Toolkit, a global business portal currently spanning 30 countries and 14 languages. As co-founder and COO of Etera Systems, David developed the world’s first managed application services platform and was key in negotiating a successful merger with Corio. In his career, David has been involved with numerous startups, has served as founder, director, CEO, COO, CTO, CIO or consultant in companies ranging in size from zero to $6B in revenue, and has served on multiple corporate boards. David has called the US, England and France home, and has led technology projects across North America, Hong Kong, China (PRC), Western, Central and Eastern Europe, India, Indonesia and the Balkans.
Michael Teper, CTO
Michael brings over a decade of diverse technology experience. Having started his career as a consultant with USWeb,
working on high profile projects including the technology that powered the Yahoo! Careers and Insurance.com websites,
Michael went on to lead development of online rich media learning and presentation
systems at Eloquent and Convade. Later, Michael built a consulting practice helping several companies
with development of internationalization technology. Michael holds a BS degree in Computer Science from
Carnegie Mellon University and is fluent in Russian.
Dave Drennan, CFO
Dave brings to Elanex over 30 years of experience in high technology business. He has helped fund and has held senior executive positions at numerous start-up enterprises. Formerly, he held VP positions at Seagate Technology in Finance, Sales & Marketing, and was head of Corporate Development. Dave has lived and worked extensively throughout Asia and Europe. Dave is a CPA.
Thomas Edwards, Director of Major Accounts
Thomas A. Edwards is a localization industry leader who lives and breathes translation and testing.
Prior to joining Elanex, Thomas spent over a decade in operations and sales positions in the localization industry, working with preeminent companies on both the client and the service provider sides. He has held various sales and head of office positions for Bowne Global Solutions (BGS), Lionbridge (NADAQ:LIOX), Moravia Worldwide, and International Language Engineering (ILE). He has opened offices in three different locations, has generated revenues of tens of millions of dollars over his career, brought in and worked with some of the industry’s largest accounts, and consistently exceeded revenue targets. Thomas has three passports (Swiss, French and American), was born in San Francisco and was raised in Normandy. He speaks French and English fluently. He graduated from the Universite de Caen (France) and the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and Linguistics.
Adam Wooten, General Manager (United States)
With two degrees in translation and an MBA, Adam has experience in all aspects of the translation and localization industry. Adam began on the linguistic side as a Spanish court interpreter and an in-house translator, but quickly moved to the business side and gained experience as a translation project manager and director of sales and marketing, where he was directly responsible for increasing sales by more than 30% to a ten year high, and for winning and handling the company’s largest ever translation project, a project to transcribe and translate the trials of Saddam Hussein, Chemical Ali, and other members of the former Iraqi regime. Adam is also a frequent speaker at industry events, and an adjunct professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he teaches a course on translation technology.
Rolf Hecken, General Manager (Canada)
With nearly 20 years in the translation and localization industry and vast experience in translation-related technologies, Rolf heads our Canadian operations as General Manager, based in Montreal. He has experience in the Canadian market ranging from small to very large scale organizations. Originally from Germany, where he worked many years in the automotive and technology sectors, he brings a strong focus on solution building, processes and quality assurance to our team, and has founded or held senior executive positions in several successful service companies. Rolf is fluent in German and English.
Troy Helm, General Manager (Australia)
Troy brings to Elanex 18 years of international experience in both large and small companies.
He has lived in Japan for 7 years, where he was an engineering project manager for Apple Computer Japan.
He has also worked with both US and Japanese companies as a management consultant with Strategic Decisions Group,
developing corporate strategy and doing financial analysis. Most recently, Troy was VP of Business Development at ID Certify,
a provider of infrastructure for legally binding digital signatures. Troy has a BA in international relations and an
MS in management science and engineering from Stanford University, and is fluent in Japanese.
Robert Gumley, General Manager (Japan)
Robert is a 20 year veteran of Japan. After working in a
Japanese organization for five years, Robert became a diplomat
and worked in the Australian Embassy in Tokyo for six years in
the commercial and cultural areas. He was also Director of the
Australia Japan Foundation for three years from 1993 to 1996.
From 1996 to 2002 he was the Commercial Representative for the
State of South Australia in Japan. Robert is fluent in Japanese
and holds an MBA from Deakin University in Australia.
Richard Schlattmann, Director of Training
As head of training and the Elanex University, Richard is responsible for all
operational aspects of Elanex training and support
programs, and for ensuring that Elanex team members globally operate to a consistent, high standard.
Richard has a diverse cultural and business background, having worked as a management consultant for Andersen
Consulting, in systems management for Philips in the Netherlands, in sales for Hirox, and as head of training for Canning, Inc in Japan.
Richard has an MBA from the University of Illinois
at Chicago, and both a BS and a BA from Kansas State University. Richard lived in Japan for over 15 years.
Lan Lin, China Practice Leader and CEO Reports From China division
With a dual responsibility as CEO of
Elanex’s Reports From China market research division,
and leader of our China Practice, Lan is responsible
for developing Elanex’s services related to China. Lan has lived in
China, Japan, and America. She was a journalist in China, and a
university professor in Japan. In the United States she has been a
computational linguist, a cross-cultural marketing consultant, and an
entrepreneur. She founded Reports From China (RFC) in 2006, which Elanex acquired in August 2007.
Lan has a BA in Physics from Beijing University, an
MA in Linguistics and Culture from Osaka University of Foreign Studies,
and a Ph.D (ABD) in Linguistics from Kansai Gaidai University in Japan.