An Ballekens
Founder and Senior Localization Project Manager
After working as a translation PM in London, An founded a corporate Translation and Localization Agency in 2002 and has been running it ever since. She started out as a translator for technical, marketing and legal translations, travelling around the world as an interpreter at business conferences and product launches. She guesses the challenges of interpreting in remote places such as Iceland have made her adventurous and resourceful.
The opportunity to further combine all the things she is the most passionate about presented itself in 2008, as a game publisher approached her to localize their games: Languages, localization, games, copywriting, marketing, travelling… What more to ask for?!
This is how Gameeleon came to life! Since then, An has had fun localizing and testing countless video games and managing a team of linguists. As a multilingual localization project manager, she refuses to lose touch with the games she is working on. She likes to play and get the feel of every single one of them!
An finds it an exceptional privilege to work in the game industry.
Her hands-on approach drove her to surround herself with people with different perspectives and solutions. She loves the challenge of localization and culturalization and being there for her clients. An thrives on communicating, meeting new people and finding out new approaches. Combined with her love for travel, you’ll be sure to find her at a few gaming conferences every year (when this horrendous Covid-19 pandemic is over, of course).
An loves to play games in her games room, filled to the brim with games, consoles and memorabilia. She always enjoys a nice RPG or interesting historical game, and she’s also not opposed to a good SIM or a bit of decent horror game. ? An also loves to watch brilliant TV-series.
One – well, two – thing that you will always find next to An’s desk is her favorite mascots, office dogs Ula and Maggie. They are always there to support An during a tough day or late evening of work and meetings. And they never complain!
An was born and raised in Belgium and speaks four languages. She loves travelling, discovering other countries and cultures and large cities. But she is always happy to return to her rural home, because next to playing and working on games, An enjoys nothing more than catching up with friends and family on a sunny terrace in her hometown’s (Ypres) historical market, watching TV-series in front of the fire, going on (not so very) adventurous walks with her dogs in the various regions of her beautiful country and cycling through the small hills of Heuvelland.
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