David Poppleton

A brief biography

After taking a degree in Comparative Literature with French and Linguistics at the University of East Anglia in 1972, I joined a major privately-owned UK group as a management trainee. My first overseas posting was to Antwerp, where I worked in the international road transport sector. I continued my professional training by obtaining a management diploma at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and later becoming a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (one of the UK accountancy bodies). From 1981 to 1994 I was the Administration and Finance Manager of a large meat-processing plant and abattoir in the West of France, and also undertook assignments with Group operations in the Netherlands.

After a period as finance manager in a fast-growing industrial joinery, setting up new information and accounting systems, I decided to use my business experience in a different way and in January 1999 became a freelance French to English translator specialising in accounting and finance. My clients are mainly financial institutions, accountancy firms, larger SMEs, and quoted companies. I am a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (UK) and of the Société Française des Traducteurs. I participated in the 1st Summer Seminar for Financial Translators at La Rochelle in 2002, running a session entitled "Understand accounting documents to translate them". At the 2nd seminar, at La Baule in 2004, I gave presentations on discounting and on consolidation basics, while at the 2006 session in Paris, I went over some of the traps waiting to ensnare the unwary translator (amortisation, depreciation, deferred tax, income tax, provisions, etc). My accounting knowledge was put to very good use when companies started to prepare their transition to IFRS - because I understood the subject, clients could be confident in my translations of their manuals and procedures.