Translation firm’s profits hits £1m and CEO unveiled

An Edinburgh-based tech-enabled language translation company has seen its core earnings hit a record £1 million and unveiled a new chief executive.

From left: Andrew Campbell and Christian Arno. Picture: contributed.

Lingo24 said the role will be occupied by Andrew Campbell, promoted from global MD. He is the second person to serve as chief executive at the company after founder and president Christian Arno moved into his new role early last year. Paul Gregory, formerly chief executive of energy research and consultancy group Wood MacKenzie, remains chairman.

Arno said Campbell’s appointment comes at “such an exciting time” for the organisation. “Andrew has been running the business day to day for over six years now, and so this promotion will not change internal management significantly.

“But from an external perspective, it makes clear who is our executive leader and broadens Andrew’s remit. We are confident that Lingo24 will go from strength to strength under Andrew’s leadership.”

Campbell said: “With many of the building blocks in place for the business to kick on from here, I am excited to be leading Lingo24 through the next phase of growth.”

The news came as the firm not only saw core earnings (excluding interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) reach £1m for the first time but revenue exceeded £10.7m, up by 21 per cent.

It experienced increased revenue in areas such as consultancy and engineering projects, working with large-scale multilingual data sets, and developments included the use of artificial intelligence as it seeks to automate more and more of its workflow.

Campbell said that last year, many of Lingo24’s customers – including The Macallan, Eventbrite, and Swiss fertility-focused start-up Ava – “significantly” upped their work with the firm. “It’s been inspiring to see the global impact that many of our clients are having with our support.”

Lingo24, which says it helps companies to accelerate international growth, also stressed that its customer base is “truly global”, with only a fifth from the UK and more than 40 per cent from the US. Other high-profile clients include Virgin, WPP Group, Edrington and Groupon.

It also reported net retention up to 115 per cent, and an increase in the number of accounts spending more than £500,000 in the year, while almost double the workload was completed in 2018 compared to three years earlier with no increase in headcount.

Arno founded Lingo24 in Aberdeen in 2001, and the company has since grown to more than 170 staff globally. The company attracted investment from Gregory and former chief executive and chairman of Wood Mackenzie, and other top Scottish business figures, in 2014.