Our Team
Our network starts in Toronto, Canada and extends worldwide. We work with professional translators, broadcasters, filmmakers and theatre artists. Our translations capture the flavour and nuance of the original, and our voiceover talent delivers a performance rather than simply reading a script.
Eric Geringas
President, Voice Director
Eric got his start in international versioning the way many immigrant children do: by translating for his parents. Having lived in four countries by the age of nine, he has a lifelong awareness of the subtleties of language and culture, and of the importance of good translation. Eric started his professional life in print journalism, and then spent most of his career working in television as a writer, documentary filmmaker and factual-series director, winning a number of Canadian awards, including a Gemini. A language geek and former writer for many CBC News anchors, he is a stickler for outstanding performance in voiceover. He speaks English, Russian and French.
Norah Wakula
Director of Operations
Prairie girl, daughter of Ukrainian refugees, Norah grew up in the multicultural mosaic of Winnipeg’s north end, before making her way to Toronto. On an extended vacation from wrangling multi-million-dollar production budgets in the film industry, Norah discovered the quieter pleasures of life in Guanajuato, Mexico, where she studied Spanish and wrote non-fiction. Today, from her home office in Hamilton, Ontario, she brings her awesome organizational skills to Power of Babel, wrangling delivery schedules and herding language pros, while also practicing her writing craft.
Valentina Roldós
Director of Subtitling
Valentina is our first international staff member. Based in Uruguay, she is two time zones ahead – and always ahead of the game. Valentina’s childhood was filled with books and endless adventures in nature. That led her to university studies in communications and environmental science, but in the end, she loved stories so much that she became a subtitler, working for all the major platforms – Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. This career brought the world to her home in Montevideo, and that's how she connected with Power of Babel, located 9,000 kilometres to the north, becoming our trusted Spanish subtitler. After five years of happy collaboration, we put her in charge of the entire department.
Chantale Renée
Project Manager
Our resident Franco-Ontarian, Chantale is a proud daughter of the bilingual Ottawa suburb of Orléans, where she first discovered her love of the stage. She moved to Toronto in 2003 to pursue a career in comedy, and quickly realized she wanted to wear many hats. She turned her living room into a comedy club; wrote and produced sketch shows with her beloved troupe, Touch My Stereotype; and was a member of the city’s first French improv troupe, Les Improbables. Since then, Chantale has carved out an impressive career as a bilingual voice and on-camera talent, and now brings her organizational skills to Power of Babel’s dubbing and voiceover projects.
Neil McDonald
Audio Engineer
The first time Neil recorded music, he was 11: he figured out how to rig a pair of earphones and his dad’s cassette deck to tape himself drumming along to Led Zeppelin. He’s been a sound engineer and drummer ever since, professionally since 1995. Neil’s sound-mixing skills are flawless, but just as importantly, he is a gentle giant who puts everyone at ease and gets the best performance out of everyone who steps into his voice booth.
Simon D. Scott
Freelance French Voice Director Owner and Producer, Ginger Wave Productions
Growing up in Montreal, Simon was obsessed with music and dreamed of being an actor. These interests, combined with his golden throat, landed him on the radio as a DJ, but he never gave up on his dream. Today, Simon is not just a triple-carded actor (i.e. a member of ACTRA, UDA and SAG), but the longtime French voice of Food Network star Andrew Zimmern, and an experienced voice director and producer. In the studio, he directs voices like he plays an instrument: finding the the truest emotion and the ideal delivery to make characters come to life on screen in a new language.
Oytun Sungu
Subtitle Technician, IT Support
Oytun grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, where he developed a love of movies, heavy metal, and foreign languages. In 1996, he started a computer company, which soon evolved into a translation and subtitling service, building its own subtitling automation software for film festivals. Fluent in German and English as well as his native Turkish, Oytun has gone on to translate books, movies, and TV shows, as well as taking on technical coordination of film festivals. He moved to Toronto in 2015.