It’s hard to cosy up to products like oil and gas. That might explain why, after many years in the energy business, Renita O’Connell has found true love only weeks into her new job. Her new passion is Arthur: literary celebrity, children’s TV star, and aardvark. The animal sensation is only one of many products like Playskool, Tonka and Parker Brothers that she’s thrilled about as Hasbro’s new vice president of investor relations.
IR is a brand new function at Rhode Island-based Hasbro, notes O’Connell, who began her career in Morgan Stanley’s corporate finance department and was most recently Enron Corp’s IR director. In between she spent 14 years working for Mobil Corp in the US and London.
O’Connell has a straightforward, top-down strategy as she gets grounded at Hasbro: ‘We’re going to reach out and be more responsive,’ she says, admitting the toy industry is all new to her. Her task is made easier by the company’s outstanding story: ‘Hasbro is significantly undervalued compared to the S&P 500 and our major competition. My job is to close that valuation gap and help people understand what Hasbro is all about. And in terms of senior management talent and business focus, this is a different company than a year ago.’
Only weeks into her new job, O’Connell has already helped with a quarterly earnings release and analyst conference call and toy biz analysts are fast getting to know her. After seeing an analyst’s description of Hasbro as a toy manufacturer, she wasted no time getting him on the phone: ‘Hasbro is much more than a toy company,’ O’Connell informed the analyst. ‘We’re all about entertainment for children as well as adults.’ After all, you’re never too old to fall in love with toys.
