About us

Who we are

Over the course of 38 years in business, SIMULTANEA has built a solid relationship with its many high-profile clients, based on mutual respect and esteem, as well as with its numerous collaborators, all highly qualified, experienced professionals.

SIMULTANEA, dynamic and efficient to a fault,  can provide quality service even under severe time constraints, as is often the case due to the urgency of the client’s needs. SIMULTANEA’s strategy is designed to create solid relationship with loyal clients over time and add to its list by attracting new ones in Italy and abroad.

Professionalism, punctuality, collaboration, flexibility and, most of all, transparency  are some of the key characteristics that have allowed the company to achieve its targeted objectives for 34 years, overcoming the obstacles that have arisen and transforming itself to meet the market’s changing needs.

Our Story

• 

  1985

  Manuela Ravetta opened the business with two partners – classmates at Scuola Interpreti - on October 1, 1985, the day after she passed her last French exam at the Sorbonne, in Paris. To stay within their microbudget, the trio’s first offices consisted of a conference room they rented in the basement of what was then the Hotel Mediterraneo, at n.14 Via Muratori, in Milan’s Porta Romana neighborhood. Thanks to delicate negotiations conducted by Manuela’s father, the Hotel management kindly allowed the young ladies to use the telex (remember them?) in addition to the meeting room. In no time, the three were interviewed by a steady stream of journalists, and the idea of telephone interpreting, which they introduced, was spread by the newspapers, radio and television. After a few months, they were asked by top management at Montedison (remember them?) to make a presentation at the executive offices in Foro Buonaparte, as part of a management training course: the question was, how could these girls have made it without any experience? The thought had never crossed their minds, actually; they were far too busy working.

• 

  1987

  At the start of 1987, Simultanea moved its offices to n. 19 Via Spartaco, still in the Porta Romana area; only one of the original partners followed Manuela to the new location: she’ll stay with Simultanea until 2011. Now, in addition to a telex, there’s the telefax, but clients and collaborators still deliver the translations by hand, or by scooter messenger (remember them?). It seems impossible now! There was plenty of work, and the mayor of Milan at the time, Pillitteri, played master of ceremonies for an initiative in which Simultanea collaborated with Il Filo di Arianna (the first to introduce, among other things, a dog-sitting service). It was a fair called, enticingly enough, “Vizi e Servizi” (TN: Vices and Services, it rhymes in Italian), bringing together in the strategically located Galleria Meravigli (which had just been inaugurated) all the Milan businesses founded by young people with new ideas at the time.

• 

  2017

  In June 1988, Simultanea jumped at the chance to move its offices to Brera, at n. 12/A Via Pontaccio, in the heart of the historic city center of Milan, a stone’s throw from the famous art museum, the church of St. Mark’s, the infamous bar Jamaica, the winding pedestrian streets that offer captivating perspectives at all hours and any time of year, where art galleries and boutiques flank restaurants and cafés with outdoor tables. The agency develops and grows, and the results are satisfying. At the end of the summer of 1993, both partners find themselves in the family way; “simultaneously”, as it were. The two babies are born on successive days! A third partner joined Simultanea for a few years, guaranteeing the continuity a business must provide its clients, even when Manuela’s second son was born. Over the years, there has been no lack of offers by investors interested in buying into the company, but the answer has always been ‘no thanks’. The goal, which has been reached for some time now, is to create a “boutique translation agency”, where relationships between people are the first priority, and the clients, as well as the translators, are carefully selected and loyal. The rest, as they say, is history. Fittingly enough, in the year of Expo Milano 2015, Simultanea celebrated its first 30 years in business!

• 

  2023

  We are happy and proud to announce that SIMULTANEA has been awarded Premio Impresa Lavoro 2023 (Prize for Entrepreneurship and Work) at La Scala Theatre, in Milan, on 15 October 2023.
  The Milan Monza-Brianza Lodi Chamber of Commerce assigns this important award - as an appreciation of their entrepreneurial fairness and professionalism - to companies that have distinguished themselves for their many years in business (over 35 years without interruption) carried out for the development of the socioeconomic system of the metropolitan city of Milan and of the provincial districts of Monza and Brianza and Lodi.