The newly appointed president, Cecilia Maldonado started her one-year term at Women in Localization on January 12, 2021. 

Established in 2008, Women in Localization offers nonprofit projects on networking, education, career, mentoring, advancement, and the recognition of women’s abilities. It aims at the advancement of women’s communities globally. Membership is free and also, men are invited to join. Officers at Women and Localization are selected through a succession committee, which decides a candidate list based on the yearly goal of the group given by board members. After the interview, candidates of the final list  are presented to the board for the final selection. Afterward, Maldonado, who used to work as vice-president in 2020 was appointed to serve as president for the upcoming year during the board’s last voting session. 

Maldonado stated in 2020 that  Women and Localization’s “most important objective” centralized the growth of global membership by “setting up a virtual global chapter to focus on remote members and providing stronger support to our non-US chapters.”Accordingly, the organization added 6 new chapters. She showed sheer excitement about her new role at [Women in Localization] and believed  2021 will be a year of restructuring and reorganizing the organization to achieve more enduring successes.  The organization targets 28 chapters in 18 different countries. Finally, the new president called for the step-up of all projects to get ready for new challenges and opportunities. 

For years, Maldonado has gained her reputation and strong respect in the localization field. She is the co-founder of both Translated in Argentina, an industry association, and Think Latin America, a popular conference which later became part of the Globalization and Localization Association’s Think! series. She also voluntarily works for the Association of Language Companies in the US.