Board and committee meetings
Ordinary and extraordinary board sessions, audit and risk committees, and the closed portions where only directors and the interpreter remain in the room.
São PauloBrasíliaNew YorkMiamiLos AngelesRemote worldwide
Board & investor settingsA board meeting is not a conference with fewer people.
Directors interrupt each other. Numbers are challenged in real time. What is said becomes minutes, and the minutes become the record. Interpreting for governance and investor settings is a different discipline from interpreting a keynote, and it is scoped differently.
Settings
Four rooms, one standard
Shareholder and general meetings
Meetings with a formal agenda and votes, where procedural language has to be rendered precisely and consistently throughout.
Investor roadshows and analyst days
Management presentations followed by dense Q&A, often across several meetings in one day with different investors and the same message.
Earnings and results discussions
Sessions built on figures, guidance and carefully worded qualifications — where an approximate rendering is a material error.
What the setting demands
Why board interpreting is quoted the way it is
Two interpreters per language
Simultaneous interpreting demands listening, analysing and speaking at once. Accuracy falls measurably after roughly 30 minutes of unrelieved work, so a pair alternates through the session. This is why a full-day board meeting is quoted with two interpreters and not one.
Preparation is not optional
Board packs, the previous minutes, the financial statements and the company's own terminology are studied before the day, under the confidentiality agreement. A board's vocabulary is specific to that board.
Confidentiality in writing
Interpreters sign a non-disclosure agreement, and STIB signs the company's own NDA when required. Interpreters also work under the professional duty of secrecy that covers everything heard in the room.
Interruption is the normal case
Interpreters used to governance settings handle crosstalk, procedural interjections and directors speaking over one another without losing the thread — a skill that conference work does not necessarily build.
Consistency with the documents
When the same firm translates the board pack and interprets the meeting, a defined term in the documents is not rendered three different ways in the discussion.
Remote and hybrid boards
Directors joining from another country are covered by remote simultaneous interpreting on the platform the meeting already uses, with a tested audio chain rather than an improvised one.
Process
How a board assignment runs
Confidentiality first
The NDA is signed before the board pack leaves your side.
Interpreter pair
Two interpreters per language, matched to the sector and to governance work.
Preparation
Board pack, prior minutes, financials and glossary studied in advance.
The session
Simultaneous delivery with equipment, or remote on your platform, with technical support throughout.
Straight answers
Questions we are asked about this assignment
How many interpreters does a board meeting need?
Two per language for simultaneous interpreting. Accuracy in unrelieved simultaneous work declines measurably after roughly 30 minutes, so a pair alternates through the session. A short meeting of under an hour can sometimes be covered by one interpreter, and consecutive interpreting for a small bilateral board can also be run by a single professional.
What material should be sent before a board meeting?
The agenda, the board pack, the previous minutes, the financial statements under discussion and any internal glossary or defined terms. All of it is covered by the confidentiality agreement, and material sent in advance is the single biggest factor in how fluent the session sounds.
Can interpreters stay for the closed session?
Yes. Interpreters routinely remain for closed or executive sessions, working under a signed non-disclosure agreement and the professional duty of secrecy that applies to everything heard in the room.
Do you interpret remote and hybrid board meetings?
Yes. Remote simultaneous interpreting is delivered over Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Webex, with the audio chain tested before the meeting. Hybrid setups, where some directors are in the room and others join remotely, are handled with the same equipment planning as an on-site session.
Can you also translate the board pack and the minutes?
Yes, and doing both with the same firm is what keeps defined terms consistent between the documents and the discussion. Translation is delivered by named linguists under the same confidentiality agreement.
Where can you cover a board meeting in person?
In Brazil from the São Paulo headquarters and the Brasília office, and in the United States with interpreters and equipment on the ground in New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Anywhere else is covered remotely, or by an interpreter travelling with the team.
Tell us about the assignment.
Dates, city, languages and the kind of room you will be in. You get the interpreter profile, the setup each session needs and a scoped proposal.