Kevin Lin

Kevin has been working at the highest level between Britain and China since the mid 90s. As the Lead Interpreter (Chinese) of the Foreign Office of the British Government, he has interpreted for the Queen, past and present Prime Ministers, leaders of opposition parties and for both Houses of Parliament.

He was with David Cameron when he visited China in Nov 2010 and prior to that had accompanied Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to China. He regularly works in subject areas where the margin for error is zero - Tibet, Taiwan and Human Rights among them. His repertoire ranges from climate change to law, from economics to insurance, from engineering to derivatives.

Kevin has in-depth understanding of the critical issues across the spectrum of corporate communications in Chinese from branding, marketing, human resources to document development, web content and day-to-day correspondence. Underpinning that is his insight of how western messages and images are perceived by Chinese and how the Chinese language is evolving under the avalanche of western consumerism.

In recognition of his services to UK-China relations, he was awarded an OBE in 2011.

Kevin regularly gives lectures or workshops at leading universities and organizations in the UK as well as in China on cross cultural communication, interpreting and translation. His textbook on interpreting has become a must-read in mainland China and Taiwan where he is widely considered a leading authority in interpreting. His text book on translation is fast becoming a best seller in China.

Prior to setting up his own company, Kevin had spent seven years at the BBC World Service producing TV and then radio broadcast materials in Chinese for China. The challenge was to make British events relevant to China.

He has a BA in Economics, an MA in English Literature and a PhD in Linguistics. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, a Fellow of the China Centre of the Management School of Lancaster University and Guest Professor of four universities in China.

Companies and organizations that have benefited from his expertise include:

British Airways
British Aerospace
British Council
BP
British Standards Institute
Cable & Wireless
China Britain Business Council
Clifford Chance
The Corporation of London
Great Britain China Centre
HSBC
the London Stock Exchange
The Lord Mayor of London
Prudential
Royal Bank of Scotland
Royal & Sun Alliance
The Scottish Executive
Tesco
Cambridge and Oxford
and many others.