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Laurence 'Larry' Jeremy Gould is the founder and chief executive of thebigword Group, a language services provider with 10 international offices including New York, Dusseldorf and Beijing.

Clients include 80 per cent of the world's top 100 brands and government organisations including the UK Ministry of Justice, UK Ministry of Defence, UK NHS, US Department of Defense, NATO, FEMA and Canadian Armed Forces.

Larry believes that language is the final barrier to prosperity and wants more British companies to trade internationally.

He has voiced concerns about the impact of UK government policy on the availability of highly skilled workers from the European Union.

In 2016, thebigword won a £120m contract to provide language services to the Ministry of Justice, the largest of its kind in Europe and renewed a five-year £15m contract with Crown Commercial Services.

Larry left school at 15 to become a retail apprentice at Debenhams department store in Leeds. As an apprentice, Larry learned valuable lessons for a successful business career namely, how to listen, sell and have a flexible approach.

In the 1970s, he worked for AMF as an international manager selling textiles machinery to uniform factories behind the Iron Curtain in the former Soviet Union and in Western Europe.

Larry started his own business in 1980 offering recruitment and language services. The recruitment division was successful, with a £20m turnover and 100 staff, but he sold it for £8m in 1996, and retired.

During ‘retirement’, Larry created eight job centres for the unemployed across Israel, helping immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia.

In 2000, he returned to the language services business and started an expansion programme at thebigword, then turning over $450,000.

The company now employs 600 people, has a network of 14,000 expert linguists in 72 countries and is on course for sales of $90m in 2018.

Larry has won multiple awards, including Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year and a ‘Stevie’ American Business Award for corporate social responsibility, and is one of the longest holders of the Investors in People standards.

Leeds Beckett University presented him with an honorary doctorate after they worked together to develop an online training course for linguists, leading to the creation of the International School of Linguists, which has trained more than 8,000 people.

The Yorkshire Post

Entry in the Institute of Export and International Trade

Financial Times

Financial Times

The Yorkshire Post

Huffington Post

Telegraph

Business Insider

Huffington Post

The Yorkshire Post

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