Company: TransPerfect, New York, NY
Company Description: TransPerfect is a family of companies providing global business services in over 100 languages. With over 50 offices worldwide, TransPerfect is the largest translation company to be fully ISO 9001 and EN 15038 certified. Now in its 16th year, the company is still owned and operated by its original founders, Liz Elting and Phil Shawe. TransPerfect is a certified woman-owned business.
Nomination Category: Sales Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: National VP of Sales of the Year

Nomination Title: Jessica Eker, Vice President of Business Development, North America

Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Jessica Eker is TransPerfect’s Vice President, Global Life Sciences. In
addition to consistently maintaining her status as the company’s top earner,
Eker manages a team of 32 salespeople throughout the US and Canada.

Despite the difficult economic climate, Eker's team has had a standout year
that included the following accomplishments:

* Her team will have sold and managed just under $50M in revenue for the
year, reflecting an increase in total group sales by 72% over 2008 while
industry standard for growth is 3% to 5%.
* Her life sciences sales team established preferred partnership MSA
agreements with 5 of the world’s Top 10 pharmaceutical companies, one of which
represents a $5M account. They also clinched the opportunity to manage all
translations for one of the top-10 largest clinical trials of all time, which
encompasses 53 global markets.
* Landed the highest-revenue opportunity in the company’s 17-year
history: a $20 million M&A translation project encompassing over 60 million
words in 3 months;;
* Identified enough opportunities through current and potential clients
to develop 5 new services and technologies.
* Developed 25% of her reports into positions of leadership within the
company (with many taking on their own reports). One standout example: a
Director of Strategic Accounts who created a team of seven reports within the
span of eleven months.

Eker credits these successes to the following strategies:

* Putting Struggling Business Units on Track for Success: Understanding that
underdeveloped revenue pockets can often represent prime selling
opportunities, Eker evaluated underperforming divisions and implemented a plan
that involved isolating the strengths of each division and focusing on
proactive business development strategies. In addition, by identifying
divisions’ weaknesses, Eker recognized the need to make strategic hires to
fulfill those gaps. Within the last year, Eker's efforts to revitalize weaker
business segments and capture new markets have led to a 276% boost in sales in
these areas, transforming once underperforming units into some of the
company's most prolific and profitable revenue streams

* Promoting Idea-Sharing and Collaboration across Divisions: With 18
separate divisions – each with its own unique specialization and knowledge
base – Eker saw an opportunity to create better client solutions by promoting
more robust collaboration between divisions and across territories. This
enhanced collaboration has contributed to an upswing in overall sales by 195%
over the previous year.;

* Leveraging Web-Based E-Marketing Technology to Drive Client Demand: With
such a close connection to the life sciences industry, Eker has identified
areas of interest for clients that have a natural connection to TransPerfect’s
service offerings. To leverage these areas of interest, TransPerfect
implemented a number of web-based marketing initiatives, such as partnering
with well-known industry experts to sponsor web-based learning seminars and
utilizing advanced email marketing strategies. Since instituting the use of
this technology, web-driven sales have increased by 200%.

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List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

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http://www.transperfect.com

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:

Jessica Eker started at TransPerfect in March 2003 as an Account Executive,
climbing the ladder to Vice President in less than five years. She consistently
ranks among the company’s top earners, all while managing a total of 32 reports
in offices across the US and Canada, including TransPerfect’s New York
headquarters. Eker’s area of specialty is the Life Sciences—TransPerfect’s
second-most-profitable vertical. Her articles on translation for clinical
trials can be read in both Future Pharmaceuticals and EPC (European
Pharmaceutical Contractor), and last year she was a featured speaker at the
Drug Information Association’s annual conference. Eker graduated from