AaGlobal promotes pair to lead technology and growth strategy

Hull-based translation and interpreting specialist AaGlobal Language Services has strengthened its leadership team with the promotion of Andrei Sparling to managing director and the return of Ignas Mikoliunas as chief operations officer.

The appointments form part of the company’s continued investment in technology, AI and service innovation as it looks to enhance its offering for clients around the world.

Andrei has been with AaGlobal for more than 15 years, progressing from interpreter and bookings coordinator to general manager, director of operations and now managing director. 

He has played a key role in the firm's growth and the establishment of Hull as its headquarters.

Andrei said: “This is my 16th year and we have definitely grown not just as a business but also with people. 

“We started with three in Hull and we now have 38, and everything is a lot more modern.

“As we have grown we have gained a lot of experience with a variety of clients all over the UK and across the world and that brings more responsibilities. 

“As we have built our capabilities we have also advanced our technology.

“We have created our own systems to enhance our reputation of delivering high quality services in translation and interpreting and developing them round our client requirements and our linguist requirements.

“When Ignas left, we were relying more on suppliers to develop our systems but his return has enabled us to change that. 

“He can make the decisions and have more of a steer on the software development side, working with an in-house team is allowing him to spread his wings.”

Ignas, who previously worked for the business before leaving in 2022 to broaden his experience in IT and software development, has returned as chief operations officer to help drive new technology-focused projects.

He said: “I am passionate about technology and at AaGlobal the challenge is always different – from organising an office move to working on track and trace with the UK Health Security Agency.

“The language services sector in the UK has been quite stagnant recently and we want to do something about that. 

“AI allows us to do various things and we have numerous projects, some small and some big, which give us room to explore opportunities to grow the business.

“There is so much more we can offer and having a really good team here – people who are experts in this industry, very tech savvy and very much behind us – makes it even more exciting.”

Together, the pair will support AaGlobal's next phase of growth, combining advances in AI and digital systems with the firm's focus on delivering high-quality, people-led language services across its network of translators and interpreters.

Chief executive Kirk Akdemir added: “We have had world class developers working internationally on AI for several years but we have never seen it as an opportunity to reduce staff numbers.

“AI is only ever going to be as good as the person using it so our main focus is to keep improving our people.”

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