Case study: Chair and Trustee Recruitment | Clear Voice and Migrant Help

Clear Voice is one of the UK’s leading language service providers, offering interpretation, translation and transcription across more than 260 languages. Uniquely, it operates as a social enterprise wholly owned by the national charity, Migrant Help, with all profits reinvested to support refugees, asylum seekers and survivors of modern slavery.

Together, they form a powerful partnership that combines commercial excellence with deep social purpose. Following a period of significant transformation and growth, Peridot Partners was appointed to recruit a new Chair of Clear Voice, who would also serve as a Trustee of Migrant Help. This dual role required a rare blend of business acumen, inclusive leadership, empathy and someone able to steer a high-growth social enterprise while championing the mission and governance of one of the UK’s largest refugee support charities.

Context.

Clear Voice has grown impressively under the leadership of its CEO, transforming from a small operation into a multi-million-pound enterprise within three years. The business now delivers over 20 million minutes of interpretation annually, employing and training interpreters from refugee and migrant backgrounds. At the same time, Migrant Help has expanded to an income of over £58m, supporting more than 130,000 clients each year across asylum, resettlement and anti-trafficking services.

With both organisations scaling rapidly, the Chair’s role was critical in ensuring alignment between commercial growth and charitable mission. The successful candidate would need to bring strategic clarity, sound governance and emotional intelligence, while being a supportive but stretching partner to Clear Voice’s CEO and a trusted member of the Migrant Help board.

Brief and search.

Led by James Hunt, Head of Not for Profit Appointments, Peridot worked closely with the CEOs and boards of both organisations to design a recruitment process that reflected both organisations’ values of compassion, equity and ambition.

Our search focused on individuals who could bridge the gap between social enterprise leadership and charity governance. Candidates needed a strong understanding of commercial growth, risk management and technology-driven change, paired with a genuine connection to the experiences of displaced people.

We conducted a nationwide search across social business, public sector and mission-led corporate leaders, reaching beyond the charity sector to attract commercially minded candidates who also embodied empathy, integrity and humility. Diversity and inclusion were central to the campaign, with a deliberate focus on increasing representation across both boards, particularly from women and people with lived or family experience of migration.

Outcome.

We were delighted to support the appointment of Carina Kemp as Chair of Clear Voice and Trustee of Migrant Help. Carina is a highly experienced transformation and governance leader with an international career spanning the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. A former Global Programme Director at HSBC, she has since dedicated her leadership to the charity sector, serving as Chair of Trailblazers Mentoring and Woking & Sam Beare Hospice. Carina brings strategic clarity, strong financial oversight and inclusive leadership, with a passion for supporting people at pivotal and vulnerable moments in their lives.

Her appointment brings fresh energy and insight to both organisations, strengthening collaboration between Clear Voice and Migrant Help and helping shape a sustainable, compassionate future for their joint impact.