I-Day Playbook Series #2: Crafting your Investor Day’s Agenda
Continuing our Investor Day Playbook series, we move from the first step of crafting your main message to the next: designing your Investor Day agenda.
And by agenda, we mean the actual schedule of topics and speakers (not your hidden agenda 😉). The strongest agendas do two things: first, they anchor to your main message, with every session reinforcing what you want investors to take away. Second, they go beyond slides, mixing in formats like panels, customer conversations, or product showcases to keep the story fresh and memorable.
Let the main message shape the agenda
Many Investor Days default to a familiar order: CEO opens, business leaders present, CFO closes. That can work, but only if it reinforces your main message. The risk is falling into that sequence without asking whether it truly serves the story you want investors to take away.
The principle is straightforward but powerful: let the main message shape the agenda. Whatever your key takeaways are, the agenda topics and speakers should be chosen to reflect and amplify them.
Here’s how Atlas Components, our fictional example, did it. Their key takeaways directly shaped the flow of the agenda (see visual below). Alongside the usual CEO and CFO sections, they added a global energy panel to set context, gave the Supply Chain leader a prominent slot on resilience, and closed with a Product Showcase to highlight innovation. Each agenda item was intentional and reinforced what they wanted investors to remember.
Mix up the agenda to make it memorable
Investor Day presentations often run two to four hours. If it’s only slide after slide, the content quickly blurs together. Slides are important as they travel beyond the day and serve as a leave-behind. But, slides alone rarely make the story memorable.
So, here’s a handy principle for you: The most effective agendas balance slides with other formats that bring the message to life. For each agenda topic, ask: what’s the best way to make it stick with investors?
Atlas Components mixed it up by combining slides with other formats:
What makes Todd’s breakdown so compelling is not just what he says, but how he frames it.
If you found these insights useful, you might enjoy the full episodes:
- Global Energy Trends: Instead of management setting the context, an independent expert panel tackled market sizing and industry dynamics.
CEO Session: Standard “journey back” and “next chapter” slides, enhanced with videos showcasing marketing and R&D investments.
Supply Chain Leader: Combined slides with a live interview featuring a strategic AI partner to reinforce resilience and capabilities.
Business Unit Head: Presented Atlas’s “where we play”, “how we win” and competitive advantage through slides, then added a fireside chat with a customer for real-world validation.
CFO Session: Kept it simple with slides only, since financial performance is best communicated with clear numbers and charts.
- Product Showcase: Held after Q&A, this session moved beyond slides with interactive demos that let investors see and experience new products firsthand.
Together, these sessions strike the balance. Slides grounded investors in detail, while panels, videos, and customer voices made the story stick. The mix kept the agenda dynamic and memorable, while still delivering the substance investors expect.
Bringing it home
If you want your Investor Day to stick, two principles matter most when designing the agenda. First, let your main message drive the flow. Second, go beyond slides, i.e., add variety so your story resonates long after the day is over.
👉 Next in the I-Day Playbook, we’ll explore how to structure your story so the entire day’s presentation is easier to build and lands clearly with investors
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