Intro to an IRO: Marco Parisi, SECO
Today’s Investor Relations Officer is a leader required to have expertise in multiple areas – shareholder relations, strategy, finance, sustainability, communications, capital markets, ESG, and competitive intelligence. Nasdaq’s IntroToAnIRO feature highlights the IROs who perform this beyond the traditional role. Marco Parisi, Head of Investor Relations at SECO, brings us along his IR journey.
Marco was promoted to Head of Investor Relations at SECO in early 2021. He was a Senior Consultant with Deloitte before joining SECO in 2019 as a business manager. He holds a master’s degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Padua.
What are your top priorities and biggest challenges?
My top priority is to deliver clear and meaningful messages to investors and analysts. Every minute, market practitioners are flooded with a huge amount of information from thousands of companies worldwide. In this context, you need to find smart ways to make sure your messages are delivered effectively, especially when your news flow is so rich with new client wins, growing financials, quality M&A deals, ESG initiatives and so on. My next priority is clearly illustrating the peculiarity of our business: we are literally in the middle of a digital revolution, where a larger number of physical devices are becoming “smart” and able to generate data. In SECO, we deal with a lot of complex things like Artificial Intelligence algorithms, edge and cloud computing and human-machine interaction. These technologies evolve at an impressive pace, and it is so important to make sure that the financial community fully understands the value of these innovations in solving complex problems for our customers.
How long have you been in your role and how have you seen the role evolve in the past 2-3 years?
In the last year or two we have all reshaped our habits, Investor Relations is no different. We ran the IPO process in the middle of the pandemic and we had no choice but to have most of our roadshow meetings virtually rather than in-person. The good news is that we are starting to welcome investors into our headquarters in Arezzo, and you can really sense how they appreciate what we do when they see our R&D and Operations facilities. ESG is surely another hot topic of recent years: we want our business to be zero-impact, so we are making our emissions reduction goal the center of our day-to-day actions, which also involves our customers and suppliers. Companies delivering strong numbers are not enough for more and more portfolio managers, so communicating openly and transparently on how we reduce our environmental footprint, develop our talents and engage with our stakeholders is becoming more and more important.
How can the IRO best engage the investment community?
Keeping investors and analysts updated about the evolution of your business is the basis, but you have to find ways to make sure your message does not get lost among the thousands of emails investors receive every day. Also, in SECO we are all encouraged to think “outside the box” and bring new ideas to the table. For example, since time is such a scarce resource, why not record a few videos to illustrate—in 5-10 minutes—everything investors need to know when they first start studying our company? Why not prepare demos of our AI software platform at work, with top managers and customers walking investors and analysts through its benefits?
What do you enjoy most about being an IRO?
I really enjoy taking part in projects involving several departments, working closely with colleagues who have Finance, Sales & Marketing, Operations, R&D and HR backgrounds. It is very stimulating because I am constantly speaking to people who really know their field and I can always have a good overall picture of SECO. Then, I get to identify how these insights can be transferred to the market in the most effective way. Also, I love interacting with people with different nationalities and backgrounds: every time an investor meeting is about to start, you always get a bit of a thrill, and it is so satisfying when you see investors have understood your equity story.
What resources do you rely on to stay up to date on the capital markets?
A big part of my work week is about staying updated on what is moving the markets: macro-economic factors, U.S. and Asian market indexes and supply chains and corporate news from other players in our industry. Again, with so much information available, it is easy to get trapped by too much noise. This is why I prefer having just one or two tools where I can find quantitative information, market announcements and equity research in just a few clicks—they help me save a lot of time and money. Besides, it is so important to have a good network of trusted investors and capital market professionals. A quick chat is often an opportunity to get a good insight, and the answer to your question is often just one phone call away.
What advice do you have for the next generation of IRO?
Be curious and never be shy; ask a lot of questions! You can get brilliant insights from investors or analysts, they can provide you with fresh perspectives, and you can get a bunch of new ideas to share with the management team. Also, ask for a lot of feedback like, “How do you think we should improve? What do you not like about our company?” This is so important, as it gives me hints on how to communicate more clearly what the market expects to my colleagues. And finally, have a cup of coffee with your colleagues from Sales, Operations, R&D, and Finance. You will be surprised by the number of small details that help you get to know your company better.
What are the benefits you have seen from being a Nasdaq IR Insight client?
It saves me so much time when I need to get some relevant information on the spot. How SECO stock is performing against its comparables; how the markets are going; what is the latest news; when are the next corporate events; I can see them all in a single dashboard. Plus, I can easily find new leads, engage directly with them and count on a very responsive assistance service in case I need training on a new functionality.
MarketInsite
Nasdaq
Nasdaq’s Marketinsite offers actionable insights on a variety of market-moving topics. Learn from our thought leaders who are driving the capital markets of tomorrow.
Read MarketInsite's Bio