Language I/O delivers secure conversations in any language through the power of AI

Delight your customers and workforce by enabling effortless multilingual conversations built into your existing systems.

Language I/O believes in the power of conversation to connect people

  To make this a reality, we deliver accurate translations in over 150 languages in real-time.  Whether you are supporting existing customers, creating engagement with potential new customers, or connecting your employees, Language I/O bridges the language divide for more impactful human engagement.

Our values

While we are a global company helping our customers connect with people in over 150 languages, our roots are in the American West. That means we value forthrightness, flexibility, and tenacity.
As we pioneer connecting humans through the power of technology, our values serve as the compass that guides our directions and decisions.

Decide with data

Communicate often and with transparency

Pair ideas and innovation with action

Embrace and celebrate diversity

Lead with compassion and empathy

Focus on customers

Our history

Heather Shoemaker, Language I/O’s founder and CEO, was a journalist and then a developer. With her passion for language and storytelling and technical acumen, she knew there had to be a way to remove obstacles for humans communicating with one another. With this idea, she founded Language I/O in 2011.
Since then, Language I/O has become a leader in AI-powered translation and has:

  • Translated 1B+ words in 500+ language pairs for global brands operating in over 150 countries
  • Pioneered the use of real-time machine translation engines to identify the best for business-accurate translations
  • Created the category for Multilingual Customer Support
  • Built the most secure translation platform on the market

Our team continues to innovate and focus, ensuring our customers can support theirs in any language, across any channel.

Our leadership team

Heather Shoemaker

Chief Executive Officer

Heather Shoemaker

Chief Executive Officer

Heather is the mastermind behind Language I/O’s core technology, which eliminates the need for expensive and time-consuming neural machine translation engine training by dynamically selecting the NMT engine that will best translate a given piece of content and imposing company-specific terminology onto any of the many NMT engines integrated into the Language I/O cloud solution.

Prior to co-founding Language I/O, Heather was well-known for globalizing code for Fortune 500s. She was also the senior director of Product Management and Globalization for eCollege, which was acquired by Pearson Education during her tenure. While at Pearson/eCollege, Heather and her team built a next-generation, online college education platform, which was launched globally.

Heather holds a Master of Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder College of Engineering as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of Washington in Seattle. She has lived in various parts of the United States and Mexico and speaks English and Spanish. 

Viviana Bertinetto

Chief Customer Officer

Viviana Bertinetto

Chief Customer Officer

Prior to working for Language I/O, Viviana spent ten years working in the language industry for various language service providers managing projects and vendors. Throughout her experiences, Viviana has worked closely with her customers to automate their processes and fully support their localization efforts.

Viviana is passionate about working for a woman-owned company and places high importance on women being successful in the tech industry.

She was born and raised in Italy and has a Master’s in Foreign Languages and Translation from the University of Turin.

Viviana also speaks Spanish and Italian.

Meg Fahey

Chief Financial Officer

Meg Fahey

Chief Financial Officer

Meg is responsible for financial operations and corporate strategy. Prior to Language I/O, she spent 10 years in high-growth companies within the software/SaaS industry. Most recently, Meg led the finance organization at CloudHealth by VMware, where she oversaw the teams responsible for accounting, operations, and FP&A.

Meg is passionate about building teams, scaling processes, and being a hands-on finance business partner to her colleagues throughout the organization.

Meg holds a BS in Accounting and an MBA from Quinnipiac University.

chris jacob

Chris Jacob

Chief Product Officer

Chris Jacob

Chief Product Officer

Prior to joining Language I/O, Chris was a Product Line Manager at CloudHealth by VMware. During his time there, Chris oversaw the teams responsible for backend data operations, and grew the product to become a recognized market leader in the cloud management space.

In that role, Chris was able to spend time traveling to the UK, Australia, Japan, France, Korea and Israel, which furthered his understanding of cultural differences. His time spent demoing and configuring products via translation services convinced him of the need for a translation service that understands the complexities of industry-specific jargon.

Chris holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Bowdoin College in Maine.

Sheridan Orr

Chief Marketing Officer

Sheridan Orr

Chief Marketing Officer

Sheridan Orr is the Chief Marketing Officer at Language I/O. Before joining the Language I/O team, she was the Chief Marketing Officer for BuiltIn.com and served as the Managing Partner of The GTM Collective.

For two decades, Sheridan has worked in the tech sector, focusing primarily on high-growth, B2B, SaaS companies. She has a passion for go-to-market (GTM) strategy and brand building.  

Sheridan received her undergraduate degrees from Meredith College in English Literature and Political Science and holds an MA from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Tulane University.  In her spare time, she’s an avid tennis player, dog mom, and world traveler.

Travis Cottom

Chief Revenue Officer

Travis Cottom

Chief Revenue Officer

Travis has over 20 years of experience in go-to-market strategy, sales leadership, revenue-generation strategy, and execution. He is a passionate sales leader who drives transformational change that leads to exponential growth and value.

Travis attended Montana State University and the University of Montana and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business. When he isn’t working, he can be found in the backcountry of Montana on a snowmobile or in a Jeep camping, fishing, hiking, and enjoying the outdoors with his friends and family.

Bill Hastings

Chief Information Security Officer

Bill Hastings

Chief Information Security Officer

An accomplished IT professional with more than 23 years of experience in various IT roles including education, government and software development, Bill oversees the IT infrastructure and all data protection initiatives at Language I/O. As part of his role, he maintains Language I/O’s compliance and certification and manages application upgrades, database administration, and internal IT support and security training. 

Bill graduated from the University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Science degree and an Associate of Science degree from Central Wyoming College. He is ISO 27001 and GDPR certified and holds current certificates for CompTIA Security+ and CISSP. 

Craig Boal

Vice President of Engineering

Craig Boal

Vice President of Engineering

As VP of Engineering, Craig oversees the design, development, testing, and maintenance of Language I/O’s innovative home grown software solutions. Having graduated from University of Wyoming with a degree in Computer Science, Craig spent 11 years leading the development team at a top 100 eCommerce site before joining Language I/O, where he has been a critical part of the software team for the past 6 years.

Outside of work, Craig is an avid fly fisher who loves spending time outdoors in the short Wyoming summers.

lisa defrank

Lisa DeFrank

Vice President of Human Resources

Lisa DeFrank

Vice President of Human Resources

Lisa DeFrank joined Language I/O in 2021 after having worked in Human Resources across both technology and healthcare industries. Lisa is driven to create a positive employee experience in the workplace that drives engagement and organizational success.

Lisa has earned a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources Management as well as a Master of Science in Management & Leadership and an MBA. She further holds SHRM-CP credentials.

Lisa has lived throughout the United States and is an avid international traveler, spending much time in Central and South America, always seeking to improve her Spanish-speaking skills.

Ted Treanor

Vice President of Strategic Accounts and Partnerships

Ted Treanor

Vice President of Strategic Accounts and Partnerships

Ted is responsible for driving growth and supporting the expanding needs of our enterprise customers. With 20+ years of experience within localization, Ted has always been driven to focus on building trust and developing strong partnerships with large enterprise customers. His customer experience spans many domains from manufacturing to non-profits and includes Fortune 500 companies in tech, biotech, travel/hospitality and entertainment. 

Based in the Boston area, Ted previously led production, project management and account management teams at Lionbridge and Acolad. He is an avid cyclist and enjoys coaching youth soccer.

In the press

  • Language I/O Announces $8M Series A1 funding to boost GenAI capabilities for Translation Services

    Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

    Language I/O Announces $8M Series A1 funding to boost GenAI capabilities for Translation Services

    Wyoming Business Council’s WYVC Funds leads round with first investment to grow state’s tech ecosystem Cheyenne, WY – August 3, 2023 – Language I/O (LIO), a leader in real-time, business-accurate translation technology, today announced its $8M Series A1 funding round led by Joint Effects, a Venture Capital firm based in Boston, MA. The largest investor…

  • Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

    Language I/O Now Available via Google Chrome Extension

    CHEYENNE, Wyo., Nov. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Language I/O (LIO), a leader in multilingual customer engagement, today announced the platform is available via Google Chrome extension and in the Chrome Web Store. As a part of the organization’s larger vision of “Language I/O everywhere,” the new extension enables all customer service managers to leverage the platform’s solutions — no matter…

  • Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

    Language I/O Announces Two Executive Appointments

    Multilingual customer engagement leader adds to its momentum with addition of chief marketing officer and vice president of product. CHEYENNE, WY – June 28, 2022 – Language I/O (LIO), a leader in multilingual customer engagement, is adding two key appointments to its leadership team with the addition of Chief Marketing Officer Tobias Rinsche and the…