Cesco Linguistic Services was founded on August 4, 2004. Our passion is to facilitate Human-to-Human understanding in meaningful and rewarding ways through the power of language.
We excel at providing expert & timely customized language solutions for organizations of all sizes.
The name Cesco (pronounced “Chesco”) comes from the founder’s firstborn son Francesco, whose birth coincided with the year the company was founded.
Copyright © 2023 Cesco Linguistic Services, All Rights Reserved
For over 25 years, Giovanna has been a noteworthy leader in the language industry space. You may know her from her work as the Founder and CEO at Cesco Linguistic Services, but Giovanna is also a published language industry author, trainer, and speaker.
She is a member of the ASTM Committee F43 on Language Services and Products and Chief of US Delegation for the ISO/TC 37/SC 5 for translation, interpreting, and related technology standards. She is a national and international language industry expert.
Giovanna was honored with the 2020 Bill Daniels Ethical Leader of the Year Award for her unwavering commitment to principle-based ethics in business despite and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic to promote language access for Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals.
In addition to her role as Cesco’s Founder and CEO, Giovanna serves as Colorado’s Honorary Consul to Italy. Giovanna acts as an intermediary between Colorado’s Italian residents and the Italian Consulate General in Chicago, Illinois. She is Colorado’s reference point for Italian nationals in Colorado and assists local Colorado students seeking Italian Visas. Lastly, in this role, Giovanna acts as a diplomatic liaison for Italian delegations visiting Colorado.
She holds a BA from the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, Italy. She is a graduate of the School of Translation and Interpretation in Geneva, Switzerland; she speaks English, Italian, French and Spanish. She held positions in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Lastly and most importantly, Giovanna lives life with core values rooted in her Christian faith, her sense of honesty, loyalty, and fairness, and her family’s importance in her life. Giovanna and her husband, Joél, have two biological teenage sons. They also have three daughters who Giovanna and Joél sponsored and welcomed into their family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fun fact:
Giovanna has married the same man (Joél) 3 times without ever divorcing. Ask her how :-)
Favorite food:
Givanna loves Mozzarella cheese. But not just any Mozzarella. It’s the mozzarella made from the buffalo cow in the Naples area and Campania region of Italy.
Steve has been working in the language services industry since 1987, having started as a freelance translator and project manager and subsequently holding senior management positions with language services providers in the US, Ireland, and Spain.
This background has given him a deep and thorough understanding of all aspects of the translation and interpreting project life cycles, as well as of the business imperatives driving client language services requirements. In addition, from 1998 to 2011 Steve served as chairman of the ASTM subcommittee responsible for developing and publishing ASTM F2575 Standard Guide for Quality Assurance in Translation, the first standard of its kind in the United States. He currently serves as the technical contact for the update.
He teaches in the University of Maryland’s Graduate Studies in Interpreting and Translation program and earned an MA in Spanish Translation and Interpreting from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Throughout his career, Steve has always been a strong advocate for the profession and for bringing new practitioners into the industry. To this end, Steve often speaks to student groups about careers in language services, mentors translators who are starting out. He works on language industry initiatives, both in Europe and the US, to reach out to academic institutions to advocate for the type and level of language, translation, and interpreting training that is required to better prepare students to succeed in the market.
Joél Contreras has led an impressive career as an Entrepreneur, Information Technology Executive, and Digital Marketing Executive. He was one of 3 IT leaders that led the expansion of financial giant TIAA from New York City to Denver, Colorado.
As Cesco Linguistic Services co-founder, he serves as Chief Marketing and Chief Technology Officer. Through his commitment to these roles, he has helped launch and grow Cesco Linguistic Services into a leader in the linguistic services industry.
Joél has a passion for serving others. And in particular, Joél loves to serve and advocate for the disenfranchised in our society. He has volunteered and served on the board of directors of several Colorado-based non-profit organizations.
Joél is God-loving and God-fearing man whose values are deeply rooted in his Christian faith.
He holds an Information Systems BA degree from The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.
Joél and his wife Giovanna are parents to two teenage sons. They also have three daughters who Giovanna and Joél sponsored and welcomed into their family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fun-fact:
Joél considers himself the biggest Muhammad Ali fan in the “whole wide world.” Anyone who knows this about Joél, knows that he’s watched every film and video clip produced about the Greatest Of All Time. He met the champ as a young man growing up in New York City.
Favorite food:
Joél loves all types of food. His favorite is Sushi.
A trained conference interpreter, Certified Healthcare Interpreter, interpreter trainer, translator, language access consultant, and member of the Cesco family, Gabriela Siebach is known for wearing many hats.
From coordinating seamless multilingual events to serving as lead conference interpreter for large virtual events, she can be credited with customizing interpreting solutions to make hosting multilingual events easy and simple in her time as Cesco’s dedicated Director of Interpreting Services.
She is a proud alum of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, where she received a Master of Arts in Translation and Interpretation. She loves to contribute to the translation and interpreting profession.
She spends a lot of time volunteering on the Policy, Education, and Research Committee of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care, the Job Task Analysis Committee of the American Association of Interpreters and Translations in Education, and contributing to initiatives as a member of the American Translators Association and ASTM.
Fun fact:
Gabriela likes to garden and would love to have a few egg-laying hens and maybe some pigs or goats, but loves the convenience of residential zoned homes.
Favorite food:
Gabriela likes most food, but has always loved Sopes a Mexican dish that has a corn flour (Masa) base with lifted edges that is fried and filled with refried pinto beans, a meat of choice—She likes beef or chicken Tinga— queso fresco or cotija, lettuce, tomatoes, a nice spicy salsa, and maybe slides radishes.
Camila is an Interpreting Services Coordinator at Cesco Linguistic Services. She has worked in the language services industry for three years, gaining experience in project management, quality assurance, technological tools, and client support.
Camila’s passion for languages started in the 7th grade when she was placed into French class (the Spanish classes were full). She discovered an affinity for the language, which led her to a study abroad semester in Paris, a B.A. in French, a teaching assistant job in Annemasse, France, and ultimately a master’s degree in Translation and Localization Management, with a focus on French translation.
It was during her master’s program that she was exposed to the many opportunities that the wonderful, wide world of the language services industry has to offer.
Fun fact:
In her spare time, Camila reads, plays video games, and teaches tricks to her dog, Aspen.
Favorite food:
She also enjoys cooking (and eating) all sorts of vegetarian dishes; her favorite cuisine is Indian food, followed closely by Mexican and Thai.
Graduated from the Translation career in her country of origin, Macarena is one of the latest incorporations to the Cesco family: she is one of the Interpreting Services Coordinator. She has been working in the language industry for 3 years now. Started as an interpreter, translator and transcriber first, and then switched to Project Management, where she feels really comfortable.
She defines herself as proactive, challenge-lover and very self-demanding. She also loves learning new things and bettering herself!
Born and raised in Argentina, she’s always been interested in languages, especially English, which led her to choose the amazing world of translation and interpretation. She confesses she keeps on learning new things everyday, and that is fascinating!
In her free time, she enjoys playing with her cat and dog, watching movies, and spending time with friends.
Favorite Food:
Her favorite food is pasta, definitely!
After earning his BA in Legal Translation, Martín Ariano moved to Spain to pursue a Master’s degree in Translation & Localization Technologies as well as a Master’s degree in Healthcare translation.
With over a decade’s experience as an in-house and freelance translator, he’s been working for Cesco as a Project Manager for several years now.
He’s enthusiastic about translation technology tools, Machine Translation, and the US Hispanic translation market.
Fun fact:
In his spare time, he enjoys playing the alto saxophone and going to concerts and the theater.
Favorite food:
Thai food.
An industry veteran, Pinay has been working in the language business for over 30 years. She is a Philippine Studies graduate and started as a Tagalog translator in the industry. She subsequently moved to project management, where she has proven to be a resourceful leader and mentor, having the natural flair for combining problem-solving with creativity and communication while driving project-wide efficiencies through dissecting complex issues and crafting effective, often-times iterative solutions that directly impact the bottom-line.
Pinay’s demonstrated project management experience has provided her with extensive exposure across different industries and has developed a broad mindset resulting from working collaboratively with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and senior leadership of varied business organizations.
Fun fact:
Pinay’s love for cooking definitely knows no bounds as she would drive to Ontario (from Chicago) just to have good Chinese food. She used to be a Theater major, too.
Favorite food:
She hands-down loves (cooking & eating) Filipino food but holds uni, oysters, and anchovies very dear to her heart.
Cintia recently joined Cesco as the Talent Engagement Manager. She has been in the language industry for 15 years as a Spanish Translator, Editor and Transcriber and for about 2 years as a Spanish Interpreter.
At heart she has always been a Project Manager. She went from Interpreter Scheduling Coordinator to Vendor Manager, and then on to Interpretation Project Manager in 2 years. She successfully configured and implemented scheduling platforms and applicant tracking systems, designed processes and procedures, integrating tools for maximum efficiency.
She is planning to go back to college in 2023 to pursue a BS in Business Administration degree.
Fun facts:
She’s an avid reader, enjoying Sci-Fi, mystery, horror and especially long fantasy series. Her favorites are The Stand, Misery and It from Stephen King, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire (the 5th book almost caused her to flip a table).
Favorite Food:
There are just too many to choose from! Cintia loves wraps, falafels and fajitas, her mom’s estofado and her hubby’s scalloped potatoes and chocolate mousse.
Imma joined Cesco over ten years ago as a Data Entry Specialist and as her position evolved, she is today part of our Accounting team.
She has always been fascinated by the scientific study of the mind and human behavior. She earned a degree in Psychology at the University of Psychology La Sapienza in Rome, Italy.
Imma has worked as a psychologist, volunteered with the HD Italian Association, contributed to several articles on HD.
Today, Imma finds that working with numbers keeps her grounded and finds the accounting challenges very intriguing.
In her spare time, Imma likes walking, spending time with family, and cooking.
Fun fact:
If you know anything about Italian pastries, she is the best at making the famous Italian dessert baba, among many other Italian dishes.
Favorite food:
Pasta all the way!
Farha Abidi joined Cesco Linguistic Services in 2008 as a Senior Programmer. She is the one responsible to keep our websites running.
Prior to Cesco Linguistic Services, she was working as Software Engineer at Elite Technologies Pvt Ltd, India and also as a freelancer. During her years working in the previous company and as a freelancer she helped develop static websites, E-commerce sites and software applications for government offices.
She is a post-graduate in statistics from prestigious Lucknow University, India. Along the way she fell in love with programming and switched fields to computers. She did her masters in computer application through virtual learning while working.
When she is not keeping busy with her job, you can find her cooking, baking or learning new skills.
Kaustuva works as Cesco’s Senior Server Administrator with a focus on Linux administration.
After earning his Master’s degree in Computer science from BPUT, Odisha in India, Kaustuva began working as a Junior system administrator to explore his passion for Linux, system management, security-related services.
His varied roles at Cesco Linguistic Services center around server set-up, system maintenance, security, and performance-related issues.
His expertise in cloud server/services management, system troubleshooting, security, and DevOps-related help Cesco provide top-of-the-line service to our associates as well as our clients.
Mubashar joined our team as an SEO Specialist in 2021.
He graduated from the University of Global Institute. He is multi-talented and loves to work on different and challenging assignments.
Mubashar has 10+ years of experience in SEO, social media, paid ads, design, and other marketing domains, but his core expertise is technical SEO.
He is firmly grounded in his core values of honesty, accountability, and drive.
Mubashar’s role as an SEO expert at Cesco is essential to the company’s organic search growth goals.
As per Mubashar, he feels blessed to be working with Cesco Linguistic Services, especially under Joél’s leadership, because he’s getting the much-needed mentorship and a lot of learnings from Joél’s digital marketing experiences and management style.
Fun fact:
Mubashar loves traveling, especially the mountain areas where he can go hiking and explore undisturbed nature. He also plays table tennis, foosball, and cricket, but he’s not a pro in any of these games. 😉
Favorite food:
His favorite food is Biryani. He LOVES mangos.
As a Business Development Leader with over a combined 10 years of experience in the language services industry and government contracting, Justin has a proven track record of success in driving sales and establishing key relationships with clients.
Justin’s expertise in market research, stakeholder management, and prospecting has enabled him to develop and implement effective strategies and initiatives to drive business growth. His exceptional presentation skills and expertise in proposal development make Justin a valuable asset in forecasting and planning for future business opportunities.
Justin is adept at building and maintaining relationships with both potential and existing customers and is skilled at providing presentations and reports to keep stakeholders informed of progress and opportunities.
Fun Fact:
In my spare time I enjoy training and playing with my dog Atlas, video games, discovering and utilizing the world of Blockchain technology.
Favorite Food:
Seafood in general is my favorite! my favorite dish would be Lobster ravioli with a lobster bisque-like sauce.
