Luis Miguel
GALA Board Candidate, 2027-2029 Term
Professional Information
Brief Bio
Luis Miguel is the founder and CEO of Avantpage, a language access company based in Davis, California. Over 30 years he has grown Avantpage from a traditional translation firm into a technology driven partner for US health plans and government agencies, with a distributed team across the United States, Mexico, Poland, Brazil, and Argentina. His work rests on one purpose: opening doors through language access to create a better future, so that every person is heard and participates with dignity.
Have you served on a board, committee, or working group before? What surprised you about it?
I served as president of the board of the Davis Bridge Foundation for five years. What surprised me most was how much a nonprofit's effectiveness depends on the board itself. The same mission and the same staff can produce very different results depending on how dedicated and experienced the board members are. A committed board that brings expertise and shows up consistently gives the organization direction and momentum; a disengaged one holds it back. That experience is a large part of why I want to serve GALA, and why I take the time commitment seriously.
Which skills do you possess that would make you valuable as a board member?
As CEO of Avantpage I have developed strategic planning and financial oversight experience
Describe your experience with setting strategy.
As founder and CEO for 30 years, I have set Avantpage's direction through several shifts. The biggest was repositioning from a traditional translation firm into a language access company focused on US health plans and government agencies, a choice that defined our market. More recently I led our move from pure services toward a software plus services model, organized around four priorities: automate, reduce costs, sell more, innovate. Today I am working with my leadership team on our three to five year strategy, using a Blue Ocean lens to find uncontested space where we can create new value.
Candidate Perspective
If you had to give GALA a new tagline to convey the association's future-readiness, what would it be?
The independent home for the future of language
What should GALA look like in 3 years if change keeps happening at the current pace? Who should we serve? What should we offer? What value should we deliver?
These are the right questions, and I would make them the board's agenda for the next three years.
AI is reshaping our industry faster than any of us planned for, and most of the voices interpreting that change are commercial: Nimdzi, Slator, TAUS, CSA Research. They do valuable work, but their business is selling research, news, and data. GALA's role should be different. As a nonprofit run by its members, it can be the neutral ground where language service companies, linguists, technology providers, and the clients who buy our services work through change together.
In three years, I would like GALA to serve that whole ecosystem, not only company owners. That means bringing linguists and enterprise buyers in as full participants, and being the place where traditional providers and technology first players learn from each other.
What we offer should follow: practical guidance on AI adoption and quality, benchmarks members can trust because no one is selling them, education that keeps people employable, and a collective voice for why human expertise and language access still matter.
The value is trust. When the market is noisy and fast, GALA should be the one source members know is working for them.
Which GALA programs have you personally participated in over the past few years? Describe any volunteer roles you've had at GALA.
I have given several presentations and webinars, and was a member of the Program Committee for the conference in Dublin (2023).
What is GALA doing today that you would stop doing?
I would stop trying to cover everything. GALA today offers publications, research, benchmarking, webinars, training, a conference, and visibility services, and in several of those areas commercial firms with larger budgets already do the job well. Spreading a small staff and volunteer base across all of it dilutes the one thing only GALA can offer: a neutral, member led space where buyers, providers, linguists, and technology companies work through change together. I would review every program against GALA's own test, did this help our members succeed, and retire the ones where members can get the same value elsewhere.