Shankar K is a Longtail Language Manager for Google in India – overseeing localization quality of 11 longtail Indic languages – Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Oriya and English-IN. He is a native Tamil speaker and can speak with at least functional proficiency in 4 other languages. His experience in localization spans 10 years, starting as a freelance English-Tamil translator.

At Google, he established a ‘closer to conversational’ tone in Tamil across products and significantly moved the needle towards easy, native user experience. His expertise includes managing stakeholder relations, training linguists on emerging services like transcreation, and developing standard localization guidelines and glossaries for the AI-era.

Previously, Shankar co-founded a marketing communications start-up, building it to serve over 50 clients. As a project manager in an education NGO, he designed an award-winning ‘Arts in Education’ curriculum that benefited approximately 30,000 primary students. A published author of two Tamil fiction books and a TEDx speaker, he also holds an MBA in Marketing. His unique blend of corporate, social sector, and entrepreneurial experience makes him a versatile professional in the language industry.