Intro to an IRO: 2020 Insights

This year, investor relations officers have dealt with unprecedented conditions as the coronavirus pandemic initially roiled the markets and disrupted business operations around the world. Even as the outbreak continues to surge heading into the new year, we highlight some of the Investor Relations Officers who perform beyond the traditional role of the IRO, covering a wide array of global companies in various sectors with a combined market capitalization of about $230 billion.

The IROs

• Massimiliano R. Riggi is Head of Investor Relations and Business Insight at Poste Italiane, the largest logistics operator in Italy.
• Brian Cronin is Vice President and Head of Investor Relations for consumer banking giant Sallie Mae, helping families save, plan and pay for college.
• Vittorio Pracca is the Director of IR and Head of Special Projects at Azimut, one of the world’s best-performing asset managers in 2019.
• Amit Bhalla is the Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at the London-based Schneider Electric, which has 135,000 employees worldwide and a presence in over 115 countries.
• Stefanie Layton is the Director of Investor Relations for Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, an investor-owned electric utility holding company based in Phoenix, Arizona, with consolidated assets of about $18 billion.
• Tom McCallum is the Head of Investor Relations at Zoom, providing video telephony and online chat services through a cloud based peer-to-peer software platform.
• Ken Gianella is the Vice President of Investor Relations and ESG Strategy at Itron, which offers products and services on energy and water resource management.

Dealing with the Coronavirus Pandemic

As the coronavirus spread rapidly across the globe, countries imposed travel restrictions and many companies shifted to remote operations, forcing investor relations teams to reevaluate their strategy. For some organizations, operations had to adjust quickly, implementing new health and safety measures while asking most employees to work from home. Some companies even saw business accelerate during the pandemic.

“At Zoom, we found ourselves very rapidly being part of the critical infrastructure for people to connect around the world,” said McCallum, who noted that Zoom went from 10 million daily participants to over 300 million daily participants in just a couple of months. “For me, this included helping the financial community and a number of public companies looking to connect and be productive in the new virtual world.”

Pinnacle West Capital, meanwhile, swiftly implemented its pandemic plan, moving as many employees as possible to a work-from-home environment while adding new protective measures for critical workers.

“As an electric utility, our top priority is to continue providing reliable power to our customers ensuring the health and safety of our team,” said Layton. “Our power plant and field crews enacted new requirements and protocols, including health screenings, stricter PPE, hygiene and cleaning requirements, physical distancing, segregated teams and staggered shifts.”

Gianella noted that Itron’s strategy did not change during the pandemic, “if anything, it has been reinforced.”

“As the primary conduit between investors and our company, being honest, forthright, and consistent is very important as an IRO,” Gianella said. “Our core tenet is to distill and communicate complex situations into clear, easy to understand information for our investors. The pandemic has not impacted our strategy or the approach to our investors.”

 

Insights for the Next Generation of IR Leaders

Given the rapidly evolving nature of the investor relations role, especially amid the pandemic, our featured IROs urged the next generation to not only listen and communicate with stakeholders but also have a solid support system.

“First, love the company you represent. There will be good days to celebrate, but there will be hard days when you must pick up the pieces. You must believe in the work you are doing. Secondly, make the job personable. Return phone calls quickly and treat every investor equally. Lastly, surround yourself with a supportive team. This is a hard job. You must have a good support team at work and at home. You will spend a lot of time on the road, so having a good support system is important,” said Sallie Mae’s Cronin.

Poste Italiane’s Riggi echoed those sentiments, emphasizing the importance of transparent communications.

“Listen to all stakeholders both internally and externally and find your own way to communicate and establish credible relations,” said Riggi. “Always be passionate and energetic in what you do.”

“My advice to the next generation IRO would be to seize the challenge of being in IR at a time when the ground rules are changing. With more direct interaction with investors as the role of the sell-side is being redefined, it is a good opportunity for IR teams to beef up resources and caliber,” said Schneider Electric’s Bhalla. “Further, with increasing focus on sustainability and the advent of great digital technology, I foresee a lot more virtual roadshows and interactions.”

Leveraging Nasdaq IR Intelligence

“We have been working with Nasdaq for the past few years and will continue to do so in the future,” said Azimut’s Pracca. “Their global reach and insights provide us with valuable information that we use on a daily basis to improve our shareholder engagement and interaction.”

With the investment landscape constantly changing, Bhalla leverages Nasdaq IR Insight to keep up with the capital markets. With Nasdaq IR Insight, his team is “up to speed on market developments, research reports, stock movement and financial analytics.”

Itron’s Gianella noted that “Being an IR Intelligent Client allows us to ‘expand our team’ by leveraging the Nasdaq technology along with their surveillance and market insights team. The support from Nasdaq allows us to easily keep a pulse on the buy- and sell-side activity. Combining the people and the technology from Nasdaq has been a huge success in keeping our executive team informed.”

Similarly, Salle Mae’s Cronin said he relies on the Surveillance team daily.

“We used their team for analysis when we initiated our dividend and buyback. Recently we used their services for a Perception Study, which was great,” Cronin said. “Next year, we will begin using their Investor Targeting help. As you can see, they play an important role in my success.”

“I firmly believe [that] time is one of our most valuable assets,” said Layton. “Without insight into the effectiveness of our targeting, I don’t have adequate data to assess whether our time is being spent wisely. Now I can back up the ROI on our targeting efforts more effectively.”

 

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