Europe’s top IR leaders gathered in London to debate, discuss and learn
What did more than 170 IR professionals head to London to talk about at the IR Impact Think Tank – Europe 2025? Everything from volatility and uncertainty (of course) to what makes an award-winning IR team and how to untangle yourself from the spilled alphabet soup of ESG and making the most of AI for IR. Panels were mixed with live polls, roundtable discussions, collaborative sessions and networking.
We’ve picked five segments to share from the day, with tips on taking a break from PowerPoint to switching up your IR hat and much more. Click here to register your interest for 2026.
Less is more on investor days
If you want to put on a successful investor day, the first thing you need to define is what exactly you want to achieve, said Matthew Yates, managing director, Bank of America, who has a focus on chemicals. Speaking on a panel titled Delivering robust investor days during uncertainty: Planning and performance, he also talked about the practicalities and logistics of putting on such an event. ‘Some companies will hold an event annually. Some will do it maybe every three or five years, and I would probably encourage the latter end of that spectrum, because it’s more likely you’ll be telling people something new, something impactful,’ he said.
‘From a logistics standpoint, I would avoid trying to combine any sort of strategy update or capital markets day with quarterly or annual reporting. You very much want to have the focus on that longer-term message rather than get distracted by shorter-term issues.’
What Yates does appreciate however, is the combining of an event with some sort of physical aspect – such as a product demo, which fellow panellist Hannah Jethwani, head of corporate strategy and investor relations at YouGov, had also talked about. ‘Companies might also do a site visit, for example, but [it should be] something tangible that brings the message and the story to life – and also, quite frankly, providing a break from hours and hours of PowerPoint.’
The stigma of being the activist nominee has faded
Activists are becoming more sophisticated, said Adam Riches, senior managing director, Alliance Advisors, sharing thoughts on how much better prepared activists are today than a decade ago. ‘Activists have become more attuned to the materials they’re putting out – writing those deep dive attacks or critiques of individual directors. They’ve [also] become a lot better at sourcing director candidates.’ Using the example of Southwest Airlines in the US last year, where Elliott Management put forward a slate of 10 directors, he continued: ‘five of them were former international airline CEOs, so it was quite hard for the company to say these directors wouldn’t bring value to the company. That stigma of being on an activist slate, or that reputational reservation that directors may have had 10 years ago, has gone. When activists show up, they’re putting forward better individual candidates.’
And ESG continues to act as a trojan horse for broader corporate change
Speaking on the same panel, titled What is driving your stock and a new wave of shareholder activism in the region? was Irina Zhurba, director of investor relations and sustainability, Mister Spex, which went on to win the inaugural award for Best IR Impact at the IR Impact Awards – Europe 2025 later that evening. ‘Ultimately governance and ESG is a bit of a Trojan horse,’ she commented. ‘[Those themes are] the entry point, though the battle is actually happening in capital location and the end game is M&A.’
Zhurba also shared some advice, having been up against activists in three previous companies and managing an ‘ongoing activist attack right now’ at Mister Spex. ‘Everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, but when does, it’s really too late,’ she said. Her advice? ‘Really think about your equity story, really think about what’s missing in your disclosures, where the weak points are.’ And then, bear in mind that you’ll ‘most probably be targeted in those one or two meetings that you didn’t want to take because you think they’re useless’.
You need to understand the divergence happening in ESG frameworks
In another panel, titled New reality: Rethinking your ESG strategy, reporting and investor expectations, the room heard about the importance of understanding where different frameworks – from CSRD to CSDDD and even California state sustainability legislation – differ.
‘It’s understanding how the divergence impacts your operation,’ said Dr. Michelle de Jongh, managing director of ESG services at Inspired, and then making sustainability part of your day-to-day rather than a separate conversation.
‘If you were to pull the regulatory aspect of ESG reporting away and go to the roots of what we’re trying to achieve, you could actually have a conversation about ESG, and not mention the letters E, S and G.’ If you are building sustainability into your operations and ‘within your business, within your strategy, within your procurement strategy, your growth plan, the conversation [becomes] much easier, and issuers can then reframe it, depending on the audience that they’re speaking to.’
She also pointed out that, while specific data points matter, what is really important is the materiality. ‘Materiality is essential. Understanding what is material to your business and what isn’t helps you frame the conversation when you’re trying to battle questions around different reporting indicators.’
IR is a three-faced role
We often hear about how investor relations professionals are increasingly taking on new functions – in particular ESG responsibility, which can be time consuming without necessarily delivering as much ROI. A panel titled From good to great: Secrets of award-winning IR teams to get a seat at the table, heard from Graham Phillips, IR director, Schneider Electric, who explained that he sees IR as a three-part profession. ‘For me it’s one third partly sell-side analyst, one third being a buy-side analyst-slash-fund manager, and one third a sort of management consulting role.’ He pointed out that these ‘faces’ of IR are spread across the team, which has people in London and Paris, but that the head of IR must still be able to wear each of these hats.
Phillips shared how he and the team make those hats work. ‘Think like a sell-side analyst. You’re looking for new ideas every day to help get that equity story out there. Those could come from reading some of the research, they could be your own ideas. Now, we can use AI to try to skim around a few areas to see what’s there. And then, of course, we would divvy up a little bit of that responsibility, because we’re keeping an eye on competitors and customers who are usually listed as well. ‘Wearing the hat of the buy side-analyst is [a lot of] the same thing, but you’re also conscious of what their competing investments could be and you’re always looking to see how you can differentiate yourself against other sectors, or leverage information that may be coming up [to see] how that relates to your story,’ he explained. ‘The other hat is the hat of management consultants. What you’re trying to do is build relationships all the time within the business, so obviously the CEO and CFO, because you’re in fairly regular contact with them. But [it’s across the business too because], in a company like ours, most of the stuff is happening behind the wall. We’re not a bank or a utility or a car company where everyone knows the brand.’
