Phil Shawe’s vision for TransPerfect began while attending New York University Stern School of Business in 1991. He felt there was a need for a service-minded enterprise that could deliver complex translation projects quickly and accurately to global businesses. In 1992, TransPerfect was born to fill that gap. With no external financing and only Phil and his co-founder to run the business initially, TransPerfect grew from its beginnings as a company operating out of a dorm room into one of the world's most reputable language and business services companies.

Over nearly 30 years, TransPerfect and its flagship GlobalLink technology have won numerous international business, technology, and sales awards, including being recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies multiple times. The company pioneered the adoption of critical quality standards for the industry and was among the first to be certified to both ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 17100:2015, ensuring the highest level of quality and service for all projects. In addition, TransPerfect introduced the TransPerfect Linguist Certification (TLC) program, the industry’s leading standard for testing linguist language proficiency and subject-area specialization.

The company’s focus on quality made it a natural choice for many organizations within the life sciences industry, and while its roots will always be in language services, over time TransPerfect has diversified its footprint within the life sciences world with leading e-clinical technologies and comprehensive solutions for development, pharmacovigilance, and commercialization. 

Today, TransPerfect has over 7,000 full-time employees and a network of over 20,000 certified linguists and subject-area specialists, all dedicated to helping clients overcome business challenges. With offices in more than 100 cities around the globe, TransPerfect is the world’s largest language services provider, with 2020 revenue exceeding $850 million. Its global group of companies completes over 400,000 projects per year and works with many of the world's most recognizable enterprises. In 2018, Phil Shawe completed a historic buyout of his co-founder—ushering the company into a new era with renewed focus on innovation, expanding GlobalLink software infrastructure and AI tools to handle thousands of translation requests automatically.

Spurred on by a powerful legacy of profitable growth, job creation, expansion of the company’s global footprint, and pursuit of strategic mergers and acquisitions, TransPerfect continues to outperform the international business requirements of its prestigious and diverse client base.