Meet the Pride Worldwide: Kari Mørkesdal

Name: Kari Mørkesdal

Kari Mørkesdal hiking in Norway

Hometown/Lionbridge Office:
Bergen, Norway

Job Title:
Quality Director

How long have you been at Lionbridge?
I joined Berlitz Translation Services in 1993 as a contracted translator and ended up in Lionbridge through a series of acquisitions.

What does a typical work day look like for you?
I have to have breakfast before I sit down with a fresh cup of coffee at my desk to clear the easy stuff from my inbox and make sure I know what needs to get done. Afternoons tend to be busier than mornings in terms of meetings, with the Europe-Americas “meeting crunch” late in my day. Since I work with people in different offices, I try to be conscious about how to best schedule meetings, and also when to send emails in order to give people enough time to respond.
My team works on many improvement projects at the same time, so there is a lot of interaction via multiple channels to keep projects progressing. Even if I work from home, and we rarely use our cameras during meetings, I never feel isolated. I think this is probably because I have met many of the people I communicate with.

What is your favorite place in your office?
When we had an office in Bergen, it used to be the lunch room. After hours staring into the computer screen, it was nice to speak with colleagues face-to-face and make language jokes. I miss that sometimes.

What is the best part of your job?
I get to work closely with extremely dedicated and passionate colleagues, and it is also fascinating to interact with people from so many different countries every day and see the results of what we do.

Fill in the blanks:

The Kjerag Boulder in Norway

I speak 2+ languages (list them!)
Norwegian and English fluently, and I can make myself understood in Swedish and Danish, but my five years of German and three years of French have been seriously underused, unfortunately.

My favorite local saying is ______, [and it means ______, if not English].
My favorite local saying is “Det er ikke hvordan du har det, men hvordan du tar det," and it means, "It is not so much the situation you are in, the important thing is how you choose to deal with it."

A tourist visiting my city shouldn’t miss…
The "Norway in a Nutshell" one-day tour.

My coworkers would say my weirdest habit is…
Running in the dark during the winter wearing a headlamp, spikes, and layers of wool.

Outside of work, I always make time for…
Great wine and tasty Italian food at my favorite wine bar.

My hidden talent is…

Home decoration – I painted my entire house on the outside this summer. Good thing the sun does not set until midnight in Norway in June and July.

Hanging out with dogs (I regularly walk the Alaskan Husky downstairs and dog-sit a Welsh Spring Spaniel) makes me roar.