In 2008, Sberbank of Russia invited McKinsey consultants to audit its workflow. Experts from several countries took part in the project, which meant that English was used as the main working language. Russian Translation Company was entrusted with language support.
Our job included:
● 24/7 translation of slides and supporting documents dealing with business, finance, banking, and information technologies.
● Daily on-call consecutive interpretation during work meetings and discussions.
● Simultaneous interpretation at weekly meetings attended by the top leadership of Sberbank.
● Interpretation during offsite training sessions.
The project was a success mainly thanks to the seamless teamwork. Our interpreters received background materials to prepare for the events directly from the Translation Department. And our on-call interpreters shared insights into the preferred terminology of consultants from this or that working group. Their joint efforts resulted in an extensive glossary that was constantly being updated.
Working for McKinsey was a serious test for our 24/7 model. Consultants often work late into the night, while early birds like to have all the materials ready by the time they start their day. It was not unusual for us to get an assignment at 3 a.m. with a note reading, «We need the translation on the CEO’s desk by 8 a.m.» It was hardly an easy job for what at the time was still a fledgling company, but we proved we were up to the task. One of the consultants even asked us at one point, «Do you guys ever sleep?»
The Birth of a New School
Our on-call interpreter often had to provide whispered interpretation (known as chuchotage). Whispering for long periods of time can be quite harmful to the vocal cords, so we got to thinking about what we could do to help look after her voice. The solution came from RPK’s founder, a trained theatre and cinema actor — why not bring in his favourite speech coach from the Boris Shchukin Theater Institute, Anna Brusser, to help our interpreter out. And it worked! Our interpreter didn’t lose her voice once during several months of intense work.
To improve our translations of banking terminology, we invited Elena Yushina, a respected author of several textbooks on financial translation, to hold a series of workshops for the interpreters, translators and editors working on the project.
The fact that we had successfully run two courses to top up the skills of our employees got us thinking about a new line of business, namely education. At first, we only organized sessions for our staff. Soon, however, our school opened its doors for freelancers and corporate in-house translators and interpreters.
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We are masters of the word, after all!