Anna Bastek

Anna Bastek is the co-founder and Marketing Director of Wolfestone Translation Ltd. Anna was awarded the title of "Swansea Bay Woman of the Year 2009".

Anna has wide ranging management and strategic experience and impressive track record building start-up companies and accelerating revenue. Anna’s career so far has included being a Marketing Manager for a PCB Design Company, a Marketing Director and Business Development Director for a Carbon Offsetting Company and a Marketing Director for a Contract Cleaning Company.

Anna is an experienced marketing and communications professional and is responsible for the development and maintenance of marketing and business development strategies within Wolfestone.

Anna holds a Master's Degree in Marketing, a Bachelors Degree in Production Systems Management, ILM certificate in management and CIM e-Marketing Award and has lived in the UK since 2003.

To relax, Anna enjoys travelling, walking, scuba diving and is a talented photographer.

Roy Allkin

Roy Allkin is the co-founder and Operations Director of Wolfestone Translation Ltd. Roy studied History for his first class Honours Degree before going on to achieve a Masters Degree with distinction in Business. He is currently studying CIMA Management Accounting.

Roy’s career has seen him work as a General Bar and Restaurant Manager in London, an Enterprise Manager for a business development agency and as a National Business Development Director and interim CEO for a national charity.

Utilising his extensive experience in business development strategy his primary focus now is ensuring Wolfestone fulfils its huge potential. Roy sees a pivotal role for the company in raising standards in the industry and promoting the highest degree of professionalism possible.

In his spare time Roy travels extensively, is an advanced scuba diver, enjoys tennis, rock climbing and sailing and is passionate about reading. Roy is also a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon-do, has been British Champion, and has represented Wales internationally.

Shiona Oldham

Shiona moved to Swansea after leaving the RAF where she served as a Survival Equipment Expert at RAF Brize Norton for 5 years and also serving with distinction in the Falkland Islands.  Whilst serving Shiona also represented the RAF at long distance running something she continues to enjoy today, regularly running half marathons to raise money for Wolfestones’ chosen charities.

With a desire to pursue further education Shiona studied photojournalism at Swansea Institute of Art and Design where she gained a honours degree.  Whilst studying Shiona worked as a sales/marketing executive at a leading insurance company in Swansea and was promoted to a senior position.  During this period Shiona has also gained business experience by running a small photography business.

Shiona began working for Wolfestone Translation Ltd as a Marketing Assistant and after proving to be a vital and valuable asset to the company, demonstrating insight, business awareness and a true flair for her work, Shiona has been promoted to the position of Marketing Manager. This highlights Wolfestones’ approach to offering a strong career path and support to staff.

Emma Roome

Before her career at Wolfestone Translation, Emma completed a French and Spanish degree at Cardiff University. During the course of the degree Emma spent a year working and studying at the University of Limoges, France and the University of Extremadura, Spain, this consolidated her love of both languages and encouraged her to continue with her studies. Following this, Emma decided to concentrate on improving her translation skills and went on to do a Masters in Translation and Language Technology at Swansea University, where she also completed her SDL Trados level 1 certification.

Emma is currently the Senior Project Manager for Wolfestone Translation, with ultimate responsibility for all projects passing through the company as well as translating from French and Spanish into English. During her time at the company Emma has gained a City and Guilds Level 4 Professional Development Award in Project Management and the Institute of Leadership and Management level 3 award in First Line Management.

In her spare time Emma has also completes small voluntary translation projects for organisations such as the Communication Workers Union and the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign. She also enjoys travelling and experiencing new cultures.

Lloyd Ford

Lloyd received his undergraduate degree in German and his Postgraduate Diploma in Translation from Swansea University. He also has university level qualifications from Germany, France and Spain.  At the end of the 90's Lloyd spent 3 years studying and working in Germany, mostly in Berlin.

After university Lloyd played bass guitar, guitar or drums in several bands of various styles of music.  Whilst playing music, he also had numerous different jobs, such as working for the Welsh Assembly Government, delivering beer, writing and, of course, freelance translation. 

Late in 2007 Lloyd decided to concentrate on translation.  He then participated in an EU exchange program to Seville, where he improved his Spanish, began learning Portuguese, and translated 1000’s of pages of tourism websites. Lloyd has since begun learning web design and Italian, and then started at Wolfestone in June 2009 as a translator and Junior Project Manager.  His hobbies include playing music, snooker, IT and chess.

Anna Milkowska

Anna completed a teaching degree at the University of Silesia in Poland in 2004. Having received Qualified Teacher Status, she continued her education and two years later graduated with a Master’s degree in English, specialising in American culture, poetry and gender studies. She then moved to Wales to complete her Master’s in Translation with Language Technology at the University of Wales Swansea, where she developed her translation skills and CAT tools proficiency.

While studying, Anna worked as a freelance interpreter and translator, collaborating mainly with local government organisations.   Upon completion of her MA course, she started work as a Learning Support Assistant for a small Welsh primary school, supporting children with special educational needs. She also gained her ECDL qualification. In 2008 she joined Wolfestone Language School as an ESOL tutor and in July 2009 started work as a Junior Project Manager and in-house translator.

Anna’s interests include art, poetry, cultural studies and translation studies.  In her spare time she enjoys exploring Welsh culture and the countryside.

Helen Courtney

Helen joined Wolfestone in November 2009 as Finance Manager.

In 2004 Helen received her Honours Degree in Accounting, having always been interested in finance and numbers, accounting seemed the obvious choice. After completing her degree she continued to study the subject and is now almost fully qualified as a chartered accountant. Although having recently taken some time away from studying she plans to be fully qualified in the very near future. Helen is now also considering the possibility of learning a new language or maybe picking up where she left off with her French studies many years ago, as working with so many people that speak so many different languages is very inspiring.

Helen is extremely interested in health and nutrition, and her hobbies include running a wellness club in her local town centre, boxing, swimming, running and more recently she has taken up kick boxing. As you can tell she enjoys spending a lot of time at the gym!!

Once Helen has worked off the stresses of the day, some other, non exercise related hobbies include, reading. Her favorite author is Stephen King and her all time favorite film is The Shawshank Redemption which is actually based on a Stephen King short story.

Helen thinks it’s important to spend as much time with her family and friends as possible, so she tries to do this as much as she can whether it’s going out for food, visiting the cinema or just a quiet night in relaxing with a DVD. Helen also enjoys travelling and one of her favorite holidays was a recent trip to India, where she spent a few nights on a rice boat travelling through the backwaters and visiting local villages. Next on the agenda is something less exotic but something close to every girls heart - a shopping trip to New York

Linda Griff

Linda joined Wolfestone in April 2010 as General Manager for Germany, with overall management responsibilities for the Sales, Marketing, Finance and Project Management teams.

Linda completed her honours degree in Politics with Economics at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany). Linda gained valuable experience working for a Member of the German Parliament for a number of years, before deciding to develop her marketing skills and joined a online event portal company. Two weeks after finishing her studies Linda packed her belongings into a couple of suitcases and moved from her hometown in Southern Germany to Wales to live with her British boyfriend who she met in Australia in 2007.

As a Native German who is now living in a foreign country she’s experiencing how important foreign languages are and she’s glad that she attended her English and French lessons in school on a regular basis when she was younger. Unfortunately her French isn’t as good as her English but having said that, she’s already thinking of improving her French skills again.

In her spare time Linda attends a pottery class at Carmarthenshire College and she enjoys shaping mugs and flower vases on the potter’s wheel. Another interest is photography. After refusing for years to give in to the new trend of digital photography and clinging on to her traditional SLR, she has finally given in and purchased a Digital SLR to explore the Welsh Countryside and especially the beautiful wild coast in Pembrokeshire.

Emily Coleman

Emily grew up in Swansea before beginning a degree in Social Policy and Sociology at Bristol University. After spending three years studying and gaining a 2.1 she decided to stay working and living in Bristol. In her first position after university, Emily worked on the reception of a busy private hospital gaining excellent customer service skills and the experience of working within a large business. During summer 2009, Emily embarked on a trip around Europe where she travelled by train visiting many cities from Berlin to Bosnia and was able to combine her interests in languages and cultures with travel and architecture.  
After her time in Bristol Emily felt it was time to return to Swansea to be closer to friends and family who she tries to spend as much time as possible with, walking on the Gower beaches and enjoying meals together.

Emily is currently working as a sales and accounts executive at Wolfestone and is enjoying working alongside people who speak many different languages.  Emily has been inspired to think about learning and improving her Welsh language skills which she spoke many years ago at her Welsh primary school.

In her spare time Emily enjoys reading; her favourite author is Penny Vincenzi and has read nearly all of her novels. Emily enjoys writing poetry but is currently focussing on writing a novel which she was inspired to begin writing during her time spent in Europe. She also enjoys keeping fit at the gym and regularly running.  

Marie-Ange West

Marie-Ange was born and raised in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the South of France. She came to Swansea in 2002 as an exchange student to complete a degree in Applied Language Studies. She studied Spanish, English and Italian as part of her degree course.

In 2005, she started teaching French conversation to AS and A Level students at Gorseinon College in Swansea, whilst pursuing a two-year PGCE course. After a number of years teaching, having concurrently developed her translation skills, she decided to sit the internationally recognised diploma in translation of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, which she passed in 2007. She then began in earnest to work as a freelance translator and French examiner for the Welsh Joint Education Committee and Edexcel. In May 2010, she joined Wolfestone Translation as Project Manager/Translator.

In addition to sharing in voluntary work within the local community, in her spare time Marie-Ange enjoys reading novels, visits to the gym, upland and coastal hiking and foreign travel. An advanced diver, her latest expedition was to the Egyptian Red Sea.

Mohamed Abdelhamid

Originally from Cairo, Egypt, Mohamed has been living and working in the United Kingdom since 2007.
A native Arabic speaker, Mohamed mastered the English language at an early age, and utilised his excellent linguistic skills working as a freelance translator and interpreter in Egypt.
In addition, Mohamed has been involved in cultural projects for convertees to Islam in order to help them read the Holy Qur’an and acted as an aid to an American author who has written a book on Egyptian slang and the English translation of such words.
Mohamed has a business management degree from the Modern Academy in Egypt and, as he is always keen to develop his skills, he has worked in several different fields and managed to develop strong negotiation and management skills.
Mohamed is currently a dedicated Project Manager and our in-house Arabic specialist linguist.
We believe that having a native Arabic speaker in-house is a big advantage as the language is not just about words, it is also about knowing the traditions and habits of the client in order to deliver culturally sensitive results.
To relax, Mohamed is interested in swimming and horse riding.

Philip Thomas

Philip was born in Port Talbot and moved to Briton Ferry in 1978 where he lives today.

Philip went to Coventry college of Art and Design where he studied fine art but decided that teaching art was not for him so he moved into accounts where he has spent all of his working life. Philip started off work in the accounts department of an automotive company where he stayed for 22 years, he then moved to a butter packing company where he stayed for 7 years as the Works Accountant. His next appointment was as the Finance Manager of a company that produced building materials for the building renovation industry, he also stayed at this company for 7 years until the recent recession saw the building industry take a massive nosedive .

Philip joined Wolfestone Translation in July 2010 as an Accounts Executive so continuing his accounts theme.

In his spare time Philip has numerous hobbies including dog showing, he is also a Kennel Club Judge able to judge all the working and pastoral breeds. Philip has run weight training classes for 44 years to date and because of this he studied physiotherapy to help people who get injured in his gym, he now puts these skills to use at Briton Ferry Rugby Club where he has been the Treasurer for the last twelve years.