Becoming a strategic partner to the management team elevates your Internal position in the company and establishes that you are now thinking outside of the traditional IR lane.
touched on every piece of the corporate puzzle from the investor relations seat.” “Now you have investor relations officers stepping
into a CFO track and thinking about a CFO role for their next step,” McDermott says.
The Skill Set Ahlstrom points out that when you get to a senior IR level, your job changes. “It is no longer about reading reports or doing
presentations and making sure that you’ve gotten the investor targeting right and such. Now, it’s really more about your business judgment,” Ahlstrom sug- gests. “And that’s because the issues you’re dealing with are now across company, across country and potentially global.” According to Ahlstrom, to transition to CFO,
you have to show the general business acumen that somebody has recognized in you along the way and that puts you in consideration for that senior-level role. “I think IR is a great place to start building all of that, and the relationships that you have are probably the most important thing,” he says. “We bring to the table an understanding of the strategy or the industry or the dynamic between us and our shareholders in a way that adds enormous value.” Tat value might even be an IRO’s ability to go out
into the organization and hear things from depart- ments that will not get back to management, but are being talked about, Ahlstrom suggests. “If you can bring that back in a way that’s actionable, somebody eventually will say, ‘Hey, this person can do more.
niri.org/ irupdate
Let’s give them a shot at x.’” Shettigar thinks he underestimated the power of the IR function and the combination of communi- cations when he was readying himself to be CFO. “I already knew the nuances of engaging with investors, going to conferences, knowing the company’s story, the business model and so on,” he says. “And then, having a background in treasury, and a background in financial planning and analysis, corporate com- munications, corporate development and strategy, all of those came together very nicely in order to prepare me for a CFO role.” Royce agrees that finance skills are important but cannot be the only skill set on the path to CFO. “It was really more the other part of IR that’s
intangible that was so valuable in preparing me for CFO,” Royce believes. “It’s being able to break down complex topics and explain them to people. It’s the ability to put pieces together and create an overall narrative. It’s really understanding and reading people, reading a room, reading reactions. It’s seeing what’s working, what’s not, when to talk, when not to talk, when to talk more.” Royce adds that all those skills are underappre-
ciated, and IROs often assume that everybody has them. “I think some of these other qualities that IR requires, and you sometimes just take for granted, help you make the leap to CFO,” she says.
The Strategic Partner All four IR experts believe that becoming a strategic partner to the management team elevates your in-
IR UPDAT E ■ S UMMER 2 0 2 3 31
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
