Lisa Dittmar | Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Upon completion of a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from the University of Washington, I moved to Montevideo, Uruguay where I was an Ambassadorial Scholar studying South American economics. While there, I also initiated a Rotary project to donate over 200 computers to public schools and NGOs in greater Montevideo serving over 5,000 youth. It was my first taste of project management, and have since worked in various project management and consulting roles in enterprise software.

Alongside my career in technology, I have done a number of volunteer roles, such as community development supervisor in Costa Rica, served on the Seattle Board for Amigos de las Americas, and mentored several young people on career development.

In 2011, I was awarded a Rotary Peace Scholarship to study Conflict, Security, and Development in the UK. After completing my master’s degree, I took a job at Bloomsbury Publishing as an IT Project Manager. In 2015, I pitched to Bloomsbury’s exec in a “Dragon’s Den” style forum to establish a Project Management Office. The idea was supported, and I was asked to establish and run it. Since then, I have built a team, established project management best practices, and led the delivery of a number of business change and systems development projects.

In February of this year, I decided to found my own (part-time) startup, LingoBites. It draws on my experience in technology, publishing, and languages to bring together short story authors from around the world with people learning languages. It is a mobile application currently available in the Google Play Store.