How We Help IROs with Their Highest-Stakes Presentations
Every week, we share insights, thought leadership pieces, and useful resources we think are worth your time. This issue is a little different. Once a quarter, we pull back the curtain on what we actually do for IR teams and how we do it.
If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to bring in a presentation partner for an Investor Day, your general investor overview deck or earnings storytelling, this is the issue for you. We cover the types of projects we take on, the results we’ve driven, how we work, and the questions IROs most commonly ask before engaging with us.
Question 1: When do IROs typically bring in a firm like OUTKREATE?
A few common situations include:
- You’re preparing for an upcoming Investor Day and need a presentation that doesn’t just inform investors, but shifts perception and makes your company story stick.
- You’re new in your role, or there’s been a CEO or CFO change, and leadership wants more effective earnings storytelling along with upgraded presentation materials.
- Your general investor deck is showing its age. The equity story is not compelling. If it’s not helping you attract or convert new investors, it’s time to update and up-level it.
Across these situations, we help IROs craft investor presentations that land with clarity, conviction, and confidence. Our team of senior experts partners with you on both narrative development and visual design.
Question 2: Why not do it in-house? Why bring in an outside partner?
Having worked with multiple IR teams, including those at mid and large-cap companies with strong internal design resources, we’ve seen three key reasons they turn to us.
- Internal teams aren’t built for investor storytelling.
Internal design and comms teams excel at customer and employee messaging, but investor materials are different. They demand clear judgment, not just execution. You’re selling a thesis to a discerning audience. The story must be financially sharp, credible, and visually confident. This requires a hyper-focus on investor presentations, which is where we come in.
- It’s hard for IROs to find time for strategic work.
Much of the year is consumed by earnings prep, follow-ups, NDRs, conferences, and leadership requests, leaving little space to step back and refine the story. We bring expertise and speed so important initiatives like revamping investor materials actually move forward.
- For big moments, you need a true extension of your team.
Investor Days are complex and high-stakes. You already have a lot on your plate to get these events right. We take on the heavy lifting when it comes to the presentation work: story development, slide design, iterations, and coordination with internal leaders. You focus on the bigger picture. We focus on the deck.
Question 3: What outcomes can we expect from working with you?
Here are a few recent projects that show the kind of outcomes we drive. Each one was a true partnership: we bring the presentation expertise, the IR team brings the business knowledge. The best results happen when both sides are fully in it.
- Hershey 2026 Investor Day: Partnered with Hershey’s IR team over 10 weeks to turn a detailed strategic plan into a clear, cohesive Investor Day story at the NYSE. Five presenters, three breakouts, one connected narrative, a bold new visual identity, and an iterative process built to make the IR team’s life easier. [View the Case Study]
- “Armstrong (AWI) Investor Presentation: Partnered with Armstrong’s IR team to build a sharp, clear investment thesis around the company’s market leadership, growth strategy, and execution track record. AWI’s forward EV/EBITDA re-rated from 9.4x to 16x over two years, driven by strong company performance and the kind of clear, confident messaging that helps investors understand the full picture. [View the case study]
- “Belden Q2 2026 Earnings Presentation: Built new slides from scratch to help Belden communicate how a recent acquisition strengthens the company and accelerates its path to long-term targets. The IRO shared that the earnings deck received many compliments from management. [See the full deck]
- FICO Earnings Presentation: We transformed FICO’s earnings deck from a prepared-remarks companion into a standalone communication tool. The slides now carry the narrative. Prepared remarks were cut roughly in half, not because content was removed, but because the deck does the talking. [See before-after]
- Campbell’s Investor Day: Built a consistent, confident story across multiple speakers for a large, comprehensive presentation. Campbell’s went on to win the IR Impact Award for Best Investor Event. Watch CIRO Rebecca Gardy share how we helped shape the deck. [Watch now]
Question 4: What types of presentation projects do you typically help with?
Most of our work falls into three categories.
We support the full arc from conception to delivery. That includes the agenda, key messages, content development, and complete presentation design.
Useful resource: A library of insights, frameworks, examples, case studies, and more: Investor Day Insights
We bring a proven structure to shape your earnings story, simplify the message, and build a presentation system that works quarter after quarter.
Useful resource: Earnings Presentation Framework.
Whether it’s for NDRs, investor conferences, or general outreach, we help sharpen the investment thesis, clarify the message, and elevate the presentation.
Here’s what we presented at NIRI ’26 on building a one-page investment thesis for investor presentations: Investment Thesis Framework.
Question 5: What does the timeline and process look like?
Every project is different, but here’s what we typically recommend.
Investor Days:
We recommend kicking off presentation development 12 weeks before your Investor Day. That gives us the runway to enhance the story, enhance / develop content, design slides, and iterate across multiple presenters. We run Investor Day projects in three clear phases.
Want to know about our process? Reply to this email, and we’ll send you our detailed phase-by-phase Investor Day roadmap.
Earnings Presentations:
We typically recommend starting 5 to 6 weeks before your earnings date. The first half focuses on shaping the narrative and content. The second half is dedicated to building a presentation system you can use quarter after quarter.
Our recommendation: the best time to start is right after you’ve wrapped up your current earnings cycle. That gives us the full runway to build something strong before the next cycle.
Investor Overview / Conference Decks:
Also 5 to 6 weeks. First half on content and narrative. Second half on design.
A note on planning ahead:
Our capacity is limited, and we work with a select number of IR teams at any given time. For Investor Days, we recommend reaching out at least 6 months in advance so we can block the right resources. For earnings and investor overview projects, the earlier you engage and block our bandwidth, the better positioned we are to deliver our best work.
Question 6: How are you using AI?
AI is changing how we work with IR teams. We use it to accelerate thinking, not replace judgment.
We use a variety of paid, professional AI tools, and we ensure your confidential information remains secured.
Research and synthesis
We use Claude and Gemini to analyze publicly available earnings materials, conference presentations, and podcast appearances to understand how leadership talks about the business in their own words. This helps us build messaging that feels authentic and aligned from day one.
Narrative and storytelling development
We use Claude to develop and pressure-test outlines, draft strawman slides, and create an initial version of the presentation that gives IROs something concrete to react to. It’s always better to refine a draft than start from a blank page. This approach speeds up brainstorming significantly, and we’ve found that IROs respond better when they’re reacting to a version rather than building from scratch.
Design
Our designers use AI responsibly and selectively. We use Gemini’s NanoBanana to build custom photography and visual assets that companies often lack. Designers also use AI to prototype layouts and quickly get up to speed on complex industry terms and business models.
LLM-friendly Presentations
Increasingly, we design presentations that work for both humans and AI. Analysts and investors are increasingly using LLM tools (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) to research companies, extract data, and compare investment cases. A well-structured, detailed deck performs better in that environment. We think about how slides read when parsed by an LLM so that you can land your message with your audiences.
Here’s what we don’t do.
- We don’t use AI with confidential or material non-public information.
- We don’t rely on AI for facts or data validation. We use it strictly for synthesis, structure, and narrative framing.
AI helps us get to smarter stories and engaging visuals faster while keeping trust and confidentiality non-negotiable.
Question 7: What's the next step?
If any of these sound familiar, it might be worth a conversation:
- Your investor overview no longer reflects where the business is today, and you want to sharpen your investment thesis before your next NDR or investor conference.
- You’re planning an Investor Day in the next few months and need a partner to help with storytelling and / or design.
- Your earnings presentations need a stronger narrative and / or an easy to build presentation system.
Here’s what happens when you reach out.
We’ll spend time understanding your business, your upcoming presentations, and what you’re trying to accomplish. We’ll review your existing materials, share honest feedback on what’s working and what could be stronger, and walk through examples, frameworks, and ideas that are relevant to your situation.
Even if we’re not the right fit, you’ll walk away with something useful. That’s how we like to start.
Learn more about OUTKREATE’s Investor Relations Solutions
We help Investor Relations teams to ELEVATE presentations for any occasion – be it your Investor Day, General Overview, Quarterly Earnings, Investor Conferences, ESG Updates.
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