Home / Interpreters / Board and investor meetings

Interpreters for Board and Investor Meetings

A director who works in another language, a shareholder visiting from abroad or an investor meeting with a foreign fund puts the company's most careful words through an interpreter. Here is which mode fits a boardroom, what changes when the director joins remotely, what investor meetings ask, and what a full board day costs.

Who arranges the interpreter for a board or investor meeting

The company does. We found no rule that requires a company to supply an interpreter to a director or an investor, and we do not claim one; in practice the meeting is the company's, so the corporate secretary books the interpreter for board and committee meetings and investor relations books one for investor meetings and calls. An investor who brings its own interpreter to a meeting with management is also common, and both can be in the room.

What the law does address is how a remote director takes part. Delaware's corporation law, for example, lets directors participate by conference telephone or other equipment through which all participants can hear each other, and treats that as presence in person, unless the charter or bylaws restrict it (8 Del. C. § 141(i)). If a director joins by video through an interpreter, set it up so that the rest of the board hears the director's words in English and the director hears everything in their language — that is the point of the rule, and it is a setup question to settle before the meeting, with your own counsel on what your state and bylaws require.

Which mode fits a boardroom

Consecutive interpreting, where each speaker pauses for the interpreter, roughly doubles the time of everything said, and a board agenda planned for four hours will not survive it. For one or two directors at the table the usual answer is whispered interpreting: the interpreter sits beside them and interprets simultaneously in a low voice, and renders their contributions aloud into English, consecutively, when they speak. With three or more listeners, or a room where whispering would disturb the discussion, simultaneous interpreting with a booth or portable receivers is the alternative; that equipment comes from the venue or an audio-visual company, not from us.

Seat the interpreter next to the director, with a copy of the board pack and a view of the screen. Executive sessions, privileged reports from counsel and discussions of a director's own conflicts raise the question of whether the interpreter stays in the room; that is counsel's decision, and it is worth making before the meeting rather than in the middle of it. It is also worth recording in the minutes that an interpreter was present, for whom, and in which language.

What a board meeting asks of the interpreter

Board discussion is compressed: financial results against budget, covenants, reserves, compensation decisions, litigation updates, a resolution read aloud and voted. The vocabulary is that of the company's own reports — non-GAAP measures, segment names, fiscal-year labels, the names of subsidiaries and counterparties — and the interpreter has to render it at the speed of people who have read the pack. They can only do that if they have read it too. Send the final board pack, not the draft, and the minutes of the last meeting, so terms are rendered the way the director has seen them before.

Figures need particular care. Several East Asian languages count in units of ten thousand and one hundred million rather than thousands and millions, so "three hundred forty million dollars" becomes a different-sounding number in the director's language, and back again when they ask about it. Put the key figures on a slide or the page and refer to them, rather than relying on spoken numbers alone. A resolution that the board will vote on should be read aloud in full in the director's language before the vote, not summarized.

Investor meetings, roadshows and earnings calls

• What is said through the interpreter is said to the investor. Regulation FD governs disclosure of material nonpublic information to market professionals and to holders likely to trade (17 CFR 243.100(b)(1)); speaking through an interpreter changes nothing about that. The interpreter renders exactly, adds nothing, and does not answer questions on the company's behalf, so what management says is what the investor hears.
• One-on-ones are consecutive. A one-hour slot through an interpreter holds about half the content; plan the talking points for thirty minutes and leave the rest for questions.
• A roadshow is a day of short meetings. The interpreter travels with the team from meeting to meeting, and the day is booked from its scheduled start to its scheduled end, not meeting by meeting.
• Earnings calls in another language are simultaneous: the interpreter listens to the call and speaks into a separate line or channel that the conferencing provider sets up. Send the script and the forward-looking-statements language the day before, and the press release as soon as it is public.
• Investor questions in their own language are rendered into English for management, and the answers back; ask questioners to give their name and firm first so the interpreter can render it correctly.

Booking a board day or an investor program

A full board meeting from 8:30 to 4:30 with whispered interpreting for one director is eight hours. In person with two interpreters taking turns: 2 × 8 × $110 = $1,760, plus travel at $0.70 per mile from each interpreter's location, confirmed before you book. If the director joins from abroad by Zoom or Teams and the interpreters work remotely: 2 × 8 × $80 = $1,280. A two-hour committee meeting by video with one interpreter is $160. A two-day board retreat in person is 2 × $1,760 = $3,520 plus travel.

Send with the request the agenda with times, the names and titles of the directors and executives who will speak, the board pack and prior minutes, and the time zone if anyone joins remotely. Say whether the meeting will include material nonpublic information; if your counsel requires interpreters to sign a confidentiality agreement, say so when you request and we will confirm whether that can be arranged before you book. Board resolutions and annual reports needed in writing in another language are a separate translation service.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Languages

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate. If a language is not on that list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

Each language has its own page on what to watch for — dialects, names, dates, who the speakers usually are: see interpreters by language.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply the same business day, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

What this page says about the rules was checked against these official sources on October 28, 2026. Rules change; the source is always the authority.

• State of Delaware — Delaware Code, Title 8, § 141(i): board participation by conference telephone or other communications equipment
• 17 CFR 243.100 — Regulation FD, general rule regarding selective disclosure (eCFR)
• European Commission, Directorate-General for Interpretation — Conference interpreting: types and terminology

Frequently asked questions

Related services

For firms and institutions

From the blog