Welcome to “Building Localization from Scratch”, the series where we speak to founding localization leaders about what it really takes to build localization departments from the ground up.
This week, we talked with Rylee Mora, Localization & Content Manager at Progyny, a global women’s health and family building company. Progyny seamlessly integrates into existing benefits ecosystems, providing comprehensive support for fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, and midlife.
From Content to Localization
Before Progyny, Rylee worked as a Content Manager at Earlybird, a well-established European venture capital firm. There, localization was often part of broader conversations about go-to-market strategy: how a company’s story translates across markets, where it resonates, and where it doesn’t.
Although her background is in content management, PR, and brand development, Rylee’s personal experiences naturally drew her toward localization. Having studied and lived internationally from a young age across the US, UK, Spain and Germany, she has firsthand experience of navigating unfamiliar systems, languages, and cultural nuances while being distanced from her own culture.
For Rylee, localization is personal. It’s about building a bridge between worlds: something she now does at scale for Progyny’s members.
Building structure in an organic function
When Rylee joined 10 months ago, there was no formal localization department in place. In fact, her role only expanded to include “Localization” in the title two months ago. However, the function already existed organically within the company’s global operations, and the expectation to build high-quality localization was already strong across teams.
Her role has been to bring more structure and consistency to that foundation by:
- Formalizing processes
- Creating clearer frameworks
- Ensuring localization is approached strategically and at scale
At Progyny, the Member Experience team, which works closely with the company’s members through regular consultations, is responsible for localizing content. Rylee leads the localization strategy and roadmap from the Product team; working cross-functionally with Member Experience to align localization efforts across the organization.
External vendors are only used when they’re at capacity, as the subject matter requires a deep level of understanding that they only really have in-house. The unique nature of the company means there’s a clear value in having those who speak directly with members shape and inform localization.
Localization in a B2B2C model
Progyny operates as a B2B2C company: it partners directly with employers, but ultimately serves their employees.
This model requires a proactive approach to localization. If they onboard a new client with a large population in a specific region, the platform must be prepared to serve that audience effectively. Beyond translation, it also takes into account cultural sensitivities, local nuances, and relevant legal or regulatory considerations to ensure the experience feels both accurate and appropriate in each market.
From language coverage to quality and scale
Early on, the focus at Progyny was on expanding language coverage. Now the core languages have been rolled out, Rylee’s focus has shifted to scalability and quality.
Key priorities include:
- Maintaining high quality in new regions
- Monitoring translation quality scores
- Tracking turnaround times
As their localization processes continue to mature, the next step is further investigating member engagement using analytics tools to continuously improve the localized experience.
Balancing speed and quality
When Rylee first joined Progyny, the company was scaling quickly, and localization had to keep pace with that growth. In some cases, that meant delivering what was needed in the moment while simultaneously building the underlying processes.
They are still scaling quickly, but now they have more space to refine and strengthen those processes. The challenge has been finding the right balance between speed and quality: making sure they support members immediately while continuing to build a more consistent and scalable approach over time.
Finding support as a solo localization leader
Building a localization function can be isolating, especially in small or one-person teams. Rylee has navigated this by:
- Conducting thorough research on localization operations (everything from reading LinkedIn articles on the train to discussions with large language models).
- Learning from industry peers (she gave a special shout-out to our founder, Tim Renders, and Mercedes Krimme, Notion’s Head of International Experience, who was also interviewed in this series: Building International Experience with Mercedes Krimme.
- Collaborating closely with internal Product and Member Experience teams. As an international company, this cross-functional collaboration brings together diverse perspectives; strengthening localization efforts and enabling a more nuanced approach.
Localization as a business driver
Localization is not a nice-to-have when you serve multinational companies. It is fundamental to the effectiveness of your offering and drives client satisfaction, member engagement, and adoption of services.
By providing culturally and linguistically relevant experiences, Progyny enables its clients to support their employee populations with relevant and locally accessible fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, and menopause benefits.
Lessons learned: Invest early in infrastructure
One key lesson Rylee highlights is the importance of implementing a Translation Management System (TMS) early. At the time, speed was the priority, which meant relying on more manual and interim workflows to keep up with demand.
While this approach allowed them to move quickly, it also reinforced the need for more scalable, structured systems as localization volumes grew.
Advice for new localization leaders
Rylee’s advice for founding localization leaders is to think strategically from the outset and let that guide your foundational decisions, which shape everything that follows:
- Will translation and localization management be handled in-house or outsourced?
- How will languages and regions be prioritized?
- What content should be localized, and when?
- Where does AI fit into the workflow?
It’s also important to build core resources early, such as:
- Glossaries
- Style guides
- A strong TMS
The more of this you can set up early, the better. At the same time, don’t get too caught up in the foundation-building. Much of this can be built retroactively. In fast-moving environments, part of the job is simply getting a feature localized and refining as you go.
Building while moving
Rylee’s experience at Progyny highlights a reality many localization leaders face: you rarely get to build from a blank slate. More often, you’re building while the company is already in motion.
Success comes from balancing structure with flexibility: putting the right foundations in place while staying responsive to immediate business needs.
At Progyny, localization has evolved from an embedded, informal function into a strategic driver of growth. By combining personal insight, cross-functional collaboration, and a focus on continuous improvement, Rylee is helping shape a localization approach that scales with the company, without losing the nuance that makes it effective.
This interview is the ninth in our “Building Localization from Scratch” series, where we sit down with 10 localization industry leaders to pull back the curtain on what it actually takes to build a localization department from the ground up.
Every hard-won lesson, workflow, and strategy from the series is distilled into our White Paper: The Blueprint for Founding Localization Managers, a practical guide for localization leaders building their function from the ground up.
📢The White Paper launches in June 2026. Register your interest here, and we’ll send it straight to your inbox when it’s ready!