4 Takeaways from Wendy’s Investor Day that any IRO can use

We didn’t work on this one. But over the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing several recent Investor Days. Wendy’s 2025 Investor Day stood out. It stood out for how it was built: clear storytelling, a tightly aligned strategy across presenters, and a well-paced design that never felt overwhelming, even...

The Case for the Earnings Shareholder Letter

We’ve been noticing a shift lately, especially at tech companies (think Airbnb, Duolingo, Block, Roku, Netflix), where the earnings shareholder letter is no longer just an add-on. It’s becoming the core of their quarterly messaging. As expectations around earnings communication shift, and with IROs looking to simplify their process, this...

3-2-1 on Sharpening Top-to-Tops, Leading Category Conversations, and more

3 Insights Worth Your Attention I. How to Pressure-Test Your Story to Turn Top-to-Tops into Real Conversations A strong Top-to-Top or JBP story isn’t just about what you want to say. It’s about anticipating how the conversation might go. The best teams don’t just align on strategy and messaging. They...

Navigating Uncertainty: How Hershey Strengthened Investor Confidence at CAGNY Conference

In early 2025, various news outlets reported that The Hershey Company was preparing for record-high cocoa prices and evaluating strategies to manage commodity volatility. On February 18th, Hershey took the stage at the CAGNY Conference, a key investor event for major CPG companies, to address these challenges. For Hershey’s Investor...

How to Stay on a Fund Manager’s Radar

“You wouldn’t believe how many meetings I sit through where, by the end, I still have no idea what the company is trying to say.” That’s Sid Chand Lall, a fund manager at Marlborough Group (a UK-based investment management firm) overseeing $15 billion in assets, speaking on the Enquire podcast (a great listen for top IR...

Is Your CEO Robbing Impact from Your Investor Message?

There’s an unspoken reality in Investor Relations: No matter how well you craft the investor narrative, your CEO has the final say. And sometimes, their delivery robs the message of its impact. It’s a tough spot. Your job as an IRO is to ensure that investors walk away with a...

How We’re Helping IROs in 2025

Most weeks, we focus on sharing useful content. But every now and then, we take a moment to talk about how we’re working with IROs and how we can support you in 2025. We essentially do two things for IROs: 1. Done-for-you Investor Presentation Services: We build clear, compelling, investor-friendly...

Why Brands Need to Embrace a Fanatical Purpose

Read, react, and discuss on LinkedIn! At the CMA Conference hosted by Category Management Association, Doug Stephens, founder of Retail Prophet and a leading expert on the future of retail, shared a powerful message: Traditional ways of competing in retail are dead. Competing on selection, convenience, pricing, or product? That’s...

Getting Better Answers from AI: A Smarter Approach for CatMan Teams

One of the most practical takeaways from the CMA 2025 Conference came from Colin Ching and Liliya Babraunichaya at Microsoft (big thanks to them!). They shared a simple yet powerful way to get better results from AI—one that I immediately started using. It’s called the GCSE Framework, a structured approach...

A Call To Rebrand IRO to Chief Strategic Investor Engagement Officer

By Mark Hayes Business functions are judged not just by their outcomes but by their strategic impact on a company’s growth, sustainability, and competitiveness and branding matters. The demands on the Investor Relations Officer (IRO) market have evolved, so too has the role of the Investor Relations Officer (IRO). The...

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