Elizabeth Judd, Writer
“A year ago, I was at an investor dinner with our CEO when our phones flashed at the same moment with the same Bloomberg app alert, and we both chuckled. I hadn’t known he used it,” says Sonya Mehan, Senior Manager of IR at Open Text Corporation. Mehan relies on apps and other forms of social media to succeed at day-to-day professional tasks. “I honestly cannot live without my free Bloomberg app,” she says.
Using content aggregating apps, Twitter, and LinkedIn are excellent ways for IROs to gain skills for the future without expending enormous time and energy doing so. But if social media were all that IROs felt pressure to master, their to-do lists would not be nearly so daunting. The problem for many investor relations professionals is that the number of skills they feel they ought to acquire is large and varied – and every new task takes time.
Jennifer McCaughey, Senior Director, Investor Relations and External Corporate Communications, at Transcontinental Inc. in Montreal, views gaining skills related to core IR competencies as absolutely necessary in order to “remain marketable in your career.”
A few years back, when her role was “100 percent IR,” McCaughey feared that she was being pigeonholed and so she deliberately set out to master other areas of communications. For her, sustainable development and media relations were the next logical frontiers to conquer.
Given that there are many arenas in which IROs could up their games, IR leader asked a few seasoned practitioners and IR experts to select five specific goals and then offer some down-and-dirty suggestions regarding how to make progress fast. The list is hardly comprehensive, but social media, CSR or sustainable development, operations, media relations, and networking are five areas worth considering.
Social Media. Mehan contends that all IROs are going to have to know social media, whether or not their companies are championing it today. Although OpenText uses social media to tweet news releases, she observes that social media is not yet central to the IR role.
That said, she still experiments with apps because it’s almost impossible to grasp the power of social media from the sidelines. “Once you become a user – once you start to ingest the content you get from social media – that’s when you see the value of it,” she says.
Darrell Heaps, CEO of Q4 Web Systems in Toronto, offers similar advice: “You can’t really understand how a tool like Twitter works unless you’re actively using it. If IROs begin using Twitter from an individual standpoint initially, that helps them have a better frame of reference for how it can be used for their companies.”
Heaps urges IROs to give LinkedIn a second look, noting that it is evolving into “a very valuable professional social network.” He recommends experimenting with LinkedIn Contacts, a smart-phone app that integrates an individual’s calendar with his or her LinkedIn contacts. “Being able to see the LinkedIn profile of anyone you’re going to meet is incredibly valuable in the investor relations function,” he explains.
Finally, Heaps points out that certain social media tools can aggregate content for users, simplifying the job of the IRO. Specifically, he recommends Zite and Flipboard, which pull content from different sources on the Web, presenting the findings in a magazine-style format. He also relies on the portfolio app for Seeking Alpha, which lets users select companies to follow. Whenever a selected company is mentioned on Seeking Alpha, the user is alerted.
Michael Sider, an assistant professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business, points out that many IROs are reluctant to embrace social media before knowing whether it has lasting value or is “a mere flash in the pan.” While the fate of social media is still debatable, he notes that IROs should at least learn the rudiments. To this end, he recommends sending out links for existing content, such as conference calls.
CSR and Sustainable Development. A few years ago, when McCaughey decided to try to broaden her communications role within Transcontinental, she joined her company’s Sustainable Development Committee. To get up to speed quickly, she began reading about sustainable development and CSR, and attended several conferences devoted to these topics.
McCaughey is convinced that generalists can fare well in this arena because she can tap the necessary experts to offer their perspectives. Though she specializes in financial communications, McCaughey was chosen to be President of the Sustainable Development Committee just 18 months after coming on board.
McCaughey suggests that CSR and sustainability don’t represent a huge stretch for most IROs. By the time she was required to write the company’s sustainability report, she had many years of relevant experience from publishing the annual report. In addition, she notes that shareholders increasingly inquire about environmental and social issues, and so she and some other IROs have begun to take steps to deepen their knowledge of their companies’ sustainability initiatives.
Operations. IROs often focus on the communications skills they need to acquire, something David Carey, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets for ARC Resources, Ltd., calls “table stakes.” Where he’d instead advise IROs to devote their time and energy is to learning the intricacies of their own businesses. “You can really add value as an IRO by learning the industry you’re in, whatever industry it is,” he explains.
For IROs who want to deepen their organizational knowledge, Carey recommends finding an internal mentor. He advises more junior IROs to ask their IR Vice Presidents for help identifying a prospective mentor, “somebody within the organization to help you better understand your industry.”
Although this advice might be particularly apt for newcomers to a sector, it applies to more seasoned practitioners, as well. “At this point I have over 30 years of oil and gas experience, but I still reach out to the experts within the company – geologists, completion engineers, and marketers – to better understand my industry,” says Carey.
Carey is convinced that in recent years, the need to hone one’s technical expertise has increased. “Analysts’ questions have become more technical so if you’re hoping to provide a good service to the analysts and portfolio managers, you need to understand the business,” he explains. In other words, institutional investors have upped their games so IROs should up their games, too.
Media Relations. “When you’re answering questions from the financial community, you’re not going to see what you answered as a headline in the newspaper,” says McCaughey. “In media relations, whatever you say can end up on the front page.”
McCaughey, who added media relations to her other responsibilities at Transcontinental in February, recently spent two days working with a media trainer to prepare her for some of the new pressures she would face.
Media training is something McCaughey recommends for all IR professionals interested in broadening their experience. “We had mock-up interviews by video as well as by phone,” she says.
Even for IROs without direct responsibility for media relations, mastering the nuances of crisis communications is worthwhile. “If a crisis occurs that is going to affect investors, IR people should at least know where to turn to give their CEO or CFO good media training,” says Sider. When teaching, he often videotapes IROs as they answer tough questions and then provides feedback on their responses.
Professor Sider believes that analyzing both missteps and flawless performance can be another good way to learn the finer points of media relations. He regularly shows IROs clips of Stephen Duckett, former Chairman at Alberta Health Services, imploding on the air by continuing to eat a cookie while reporters ask him tough questions. In contrast, Michael McCain, CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, acquitted himself very well with the media after one of the company’s plants was associated with a listeria outbreak.
Personal Networking. “If I’m wondering which suppliers I should use, my first go-to is to pick up the phone and ask my peers, ‘Who have you used for surveillance? And how was the service?’” says Mehan. “I’ve been blown away more than once by the responses I get, positive and negative. My number-one network is my peer network.”
Although mastering sustainability or collecting the latest apps has a certain exotic appeal, Mehan argues that investing time and energy in joining organizations, reconnecting with mentors, and maintaining strong relationships with colleagues can be one of the best ways to achieve self-improvement goals.
Mehan praises her CIRI peer network, and characterizes industry organizations, alumni groups, and business mentoring programs as unbeatable sources of practical information.
Ultimately, participating in industry organizations and maintaining personal relationships can make an IRO more efficient, maintains Mehan. “I’m always turning to my professional IR network,” she concludes. “In five minutes, my peers will tell me honestly how a roadshow went or which vendor is best. I can always get answers.”