About our Founder

About our Founder

Vivian Isaak – President

Born and raised in Argentina, Vivian Isaak knew from a young age she wanted to be active in a multilingual environment. Driven by a dream to build a career in the United States as an interpreter for the United Nations, she completed her linguistic training in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Before moving to the US, Vivian worked for a cruise ship company in Greece, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, ABC News, and NBC European bureaus, and German television stations in Germany. She also translated and narrated news broadcasts of The Deutsche Welle for Latin American radio stations affiliated with The Voice of Germany. This experience eventually led her to New York where she was asked to be the editor for foreign correspondents covering the United Nations 40th anniversary celebration.

In 1990, Vivian was accredited by the American Translators Association, and launched her free-lance translation career that would eventually evolve into Magnum Group while working in an administrative role with a small New York-based export company. In 1992, Vivian started Magnum Group now a full-service, multilingual communications company offering linguistic and cultural consulting, translation and voice-over services with a worldwide network of over 2,500 linguists and subject matter experts in 30 countries.

Since the company’s inception, Vivian has had extensive experience with professional organizations worldwide. She served as the Public Relations Director and Program Director of the Spanish Special Interest Group (SpanSIG) affiliated with the New York Circle of Translators. From 1998 until 2007, she served on the Board of the Delaware Valley Translators Association. From 2004-2012, she served on the Board of the German-American Chamber of Commerce, and in 2009, she was nominated Director of Programming. She currently serves on the Board of HIAS-Pennsylvania and is actively involved with WBEC PA-sNJ-DE as the Envoy Chair, Co-Chair of the Program Committee, and Forum representative.

Vivian has been an invited guest speaker at New York University, Drexel University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania. In 2007, she received the Liberty Bell Award for her contribution to Philadelphia’s Emergency Preparedness Campaign. In 2008, The National Association of Professional and Executive Women named Vivian “Woman of the Year” in the Translation Services category. In 2009, she was nominated for Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award. In 2014, Vivian received the Shining Star Award from WBEC PA-sNJ-DE. In 2015, she received the WBENC Star Award, and in 2016, the Eastern PA SBA Small Woman-Owned Business of the Year Award and the SmartCEO Philadelphia Brava Award.