Essen Yang

I've always had an extensive interest in languages, with Chinese and English being my two favorites through all of my early years of education. Logically, I went on to University to study a Bachelors in Teaching English as this was my original career ambition. However, after graduation I realised I found more challenge and more satisfaction in translation and interpreting. The really big surprise was ending up working in the alcohol industry as it's not a traditional industry for someone with world-class language skills. First and foremost, it's a startup company, and startups present the biggest challenges (and the biggest opportunities) for any graduate in any subject. Being part of something new, and being a participant on the journey to help turn concepts, ideas, and sketches into something real and tangible was a challenge I wanted to take on. Having to broaden my vocabulary from business English to include thousands of technical words relating to architecture, engineering, and construction is not something you can do with a generic dictionary! It took months of research to ensure complete accuracy, and when being part of a massive construction project such as Nine Rivers Distillery, accuracy is absolutely critical. It literally can underpin the success or the failure of a project of this scale. While most people don’t have the first clue about the 1100 ISO standards for construction, I know most of them from memory and I’ve translated most of them too! Now moving on to the production side of the project means extending my knowledge to everything from laboratory science (from yeasts and fermentation through to wood chemistry) to glass molding and paper and cardboard for packaging and labels. Never a dull day!