Paule Kekeh

Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Paule Kekeh. I graduated from ISIT with a degree in trilingual translation in 1984 and a degree in conference interpreting in 1986. I am currently a full-time civil servant at the European Commission in Brussels.

Can you tell us about your academic background leading up to your degree at ISIT?

I joined ISIT right after obtaining a trilingual high school diploma (English, German, Russian) in 1981 at the Lycée Jeanne d’Arc in Clermont-Ferrand.

Can you summarize the impact that the ISIT Master’s degree has had on your professional and personal life?

This high-quality training and degree enabled me to pass a recruitment exam for an international organization (General Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States) as soon as I left ISIT in October 1986, barely four months after graduating. Every step of my professional career has been made possible by the excellent foundation I acquired at ISIT, which has allowed me to continue learning and improving throughout my career.

Can you describe your professional career since graduating?

I worked for two and a half years at the General Secretariat of the ACP States, then during a joint ACP-EEC (now EU) meeting, I worked with the Director of the European Commission’s Joint Interpretation and Conference Service (now the Directorate-General for Interpretation and Conferences). She offered me a position as a staff interpreter at the European Commission. I joined on a temporary basis and became a permanent staff member after passing a competitive examination.

My dream had always been to work at the United Nations Secretariat in New York, and I applied for a position there at the same time as I took the competitive examination to become a permanent staff member at the European Commission.

Having passed both examinations, I decided to try my luck in America and accepted a position at the United Nations in New York, where I stayed for three years. I then decided to return to Brussels to resume my position as a staff interpreter at the European Commission.

In 2004, I had the privilege of undertaking a six-week exchange with the International Monetary Fund, where I worked with the IMF’s team of interpreters and translators during the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

This experience was very interesting because it allowed me to use my translation skills, which I had rarely used until then, except during the two years I spent in the “conference interpreting” section at ISIT, during which I had several translation contracts for a publishing house.

What have been your most notable professional achievements since graduating from ISIT?

For me, obtaining these various positions through competitive examinations is, for each of them, a challenge met and a professional achievement in its own right. All these stages of my career have been enriching and fulfilling.

The European Commission, where I am today and where I will have spent most of my career, has offered me exceptional opportunities:

• Regular assignments to EU summits of heads of state and government, joint summits, and numerous opportunities to travel on business. Thanks to my solid consecutive interpreting skills, which I owe to my time at ISIT, I am often assigned to accompany dignitaries abroad. I accompanied former European Council President Donald Tusk to meet with his counterparts in France at the Élysée Palace; in Tunisia, in the Ivory Coast and even in Beijing for a meeting with President Xi, where French, Chinese, and English were used. I also regularly accompany European Union commissioners as their personal interpreter on some of their trips.
• With a degree in French, English, and German, my professional career has led me to expand my language skills and add Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese, as well as working into English.

What advice would you give to current master’s students, whether for their academic or professional experience?

I would advise students to choose their languages carefully and enrich their combination according to their chosen market. Their current combination is a starting point, but they need to plan training to add other useful languages. They should not neglect consecutive interpreting, which is still necessary in certain meetings.

Beyond languages, I would recommend that they work on their general knowledge, their historical, geographical, and cultural knowledge, and that they be curious. There is no limit to the subjects that may occur in meetings.

It is an exciting profession. If I had to do it all over again, I would make the same choice. Interpreting is a “profession” in the noble sense of the word, close to an artistic or sporting discipline. You never stop training and honing your skills. After 38 years, I continue to take training courses, in the same way that, as a former athlete, I continue to run several times a week. Nothing is boring when you pay attention to it. As a Buddhist master once said, “Boredom is lack of attention.”

Finally, the profession has evolved with remote interpreting. Future graduates must pay attention to their working conditions. Interpreters must guide the technicians who develop these tools, because only they can measure their impact, particularly on the health of their hearing.