If you’ve spent any time in localization, you’ve probably crossed paths with LocWorld, one of the industry’s longest-running conferences. And if you’ve been to one, odds are you’ve also crossed paths with Renato Beninatto.
On a recent episode of The Agile Localization Podcast, host Stefan Huyghe caught up with Renato, now CEO of LocWorld after Nimdzi Insights acquired it from founders Ulrich Henes and Donna Parrish, to talk about what’s changing, what’s staying, and why Vancouver is about to get very interesting.
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New owner, new playbook
Renato is no stranger to this event. In fact, when he dug into LocWorld’s historical attendance numbers after the acquisition, he discovered that he’d personally attended 48 editions, third only to Donna (55) and Ulrich (51).
"I know this beast. I’ve known the organization for a while, and this is why I wanted to buy it.
LocWorld was a lifestyle business for its previous owners: heavily community-driven, with the same familiar faces showing up year after year. Nimdzi is taking a more commercial approach, built on creating value for exhibitors, sponsors, and attendees.
The strategy is a virtuous circle: strong content attracts buyers, buyers attract sponsors, sponsors fuel growth, and the event gets bigger. As of the recording, Vancouver already had 120 buyers registered – the biggest cohort yet, at 45% of all attendees – alongside 28% LSPs and representatives from 74 companies, a quarter of them software and technology firms.
One concrete change: no more joint LSP-and-buyer presentations on the main stage. Going forward, the enterprise presents, and the LSP merely hosts.
"The show is to create value and hear the experiences of the buyers.
Sales pitches are being pushed off the main stage and into clearly marked featured sessions and the solution square. Renato is also stepping back from the stage himself, despite now owning the event – he says he needs to stay neutral rather than insert himself into the program.
From chaos to order
The Vancouver theme, “From Chaos to Order,” was actually inherited from Donna and Ulrich, along with the program committee’s selections. But Renato thinks it lands perfectly for this moment in the industry.
"When you’re using AI, you realize it’s great when it’s telling you stuff you don’t know. But when it comes to telling you stuff that you know, you’re looking – this doesn’t sound right.
The industry has collectively moved past the “AI as magical panacea” phase and is now hunting for structure: governance, guardrails, and order. For some buyers, that caution runs deeper than guardrails. Renato describes signing a contract for a regulated-industry consulting engagement:
"I have this privacy attachment and AI policy attachment. I have to sign a statement that I cannot use AI to work with them. Not even their approved AIs. No AI. You sign and you pray that everything will be okay.
That said, don’t expect an AI-saturated program. When three different gaming-industry contacts approached Renato about reviving Game Global as an event-within-the-event, one thing stood out: gamers don’t want to talk about AI – they have bigger fish to fry.
Game Global will run a parallel track in Vancouver with its own program committee. Renato even suggests first-timers prepare an AI buzzword bingo card – the ten expressions you’re guaranteed to hear by the end of the conference.
Sessions Renato is personally excited about
A few highlights worth circling on your schedule:
- Dr. Mark DeVolder’s keynote on change management. He’s a British Columbia native who works with NASA and large enterprises. Renato saw him speak a decade ago and specifically invited him back.
- A full Canada-focused track on day two, including a session on indigenous languages and the civil rights implications of getting documents in languages beyond English and French.
- A first-day terminology track, because terminology is suddenly cool again thanks to the unstructured chaos of LLMs.
- An Esri session on streamlining processes with AI and RAG, for the more technically inclined.
Why Vancouver, and why now
Vancouver was chosen before the acquisition, partly in response to European attendees’ growing reluctance to deal with US border crossings. But it turned out to be a fortunate pick. It’s a major gaming and film production hub, home to SAP, Motorola, and Lululemon offices, and sits in the same zone of influence as Seattle.
There’s also a bonus for schedule-jugglers: TAUS is running back-to-back with LocWorld, and the two teams created a combo pass. The result is an unofficial Loc Week with a Loc Weekend featuring loc walks, boat rides up the river, pub crawls organized with local associations like VLUG and STIBC, plus optional side trips to Whistler.
The big tent vision
Looking past Vancouver, Renato’s game plan is to turn LocWorld into a “big tent” event. Game Global is the first vertical experiment, and Rotterdam in 2027 will add a life sciences track, possibly in its own room. He’s already sold on the venue, awkward commute and all, praising its bright, modern iron-and-glass architecture from the late 50s and early 60s.
And he confirmed the next-next stop: San Jose in November 2027, with two floors reserved exclusively for LocWorld.
More communities under one roof, more value for exhibitors who can access those communities, and more reasons for attendees to keep coming back.
Renato’s background
Renato Beninatto is one of the most recognizable figures in the language industry, with over three decades of executive experience. He is a co-founder of Nimdzi Insights, a leading market research and advisory firm for the localization industry, and co-author of The General Theory of the Translation Company. Most recently, Nimdzi Insights acquired LocWorld from founders Ulrich Henes and Donna Parrish, with Renato becoming CEO after having attended 48 editions himself.
Update: On October 19, 2026, as LocWorld56 opened in Vancouver, Localization World Ltd. announced it had acquired TAUS Events outright. LocWorld now takes over TAUS’s events programming, production, and commercial operations, while TAUS refocuses fully on its EPIC language-data and quality-evaluation platform.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are the speaker’s own and may not necessarily align with those of Crowdin.
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Yuliia Makarenko
Yuliia Makarenko is a marketing specialist with over a decade of experience, and she’s all about creating content that readers will love. She’s a pro at using her skills in SEO, research, and data analysis to write useful content. When she’s not diving into content creation, you can find her reading a good thriller, practicing some yoga, or simply enjoying playtime with her little one.