I am excited to announce a big change to our Lingua team.

For many years, Juan Arellano has been our Spanish Translation Manager, overseeing the English-to-Spanish translation of GV stories. In January, however, Juan announced that he’d be stepping down, and starting on February 15, Gabriela Garcia Calderon will take over from him as Spanish Translation Manager.

Juan Arellano in Global Voices summit at Cebu, the Philippines. By Laura Schneider.

Gabriela will work with us on the growth and sustainability of the Spanish Lingua community, collaborating with the newsroom, training, establishing partnerships, and managing statistics and data. Read more about Gabriela here, and please join me in giving her a very warm welcome!

Gabriela Garcia Calderon Orbe in Global Voices summit at Cebu, the Philippines. By Laura Schneider.

I also want to say thank you very much to Juan and congratulate him on having done an excellent job leading our most active Lingua community over the last several years!