Recent discussion examined those special ingredients that help make events stick
What do investors want when it comes to capital markets days (CMDs)? Or other Street-facing events for that matter?
It was with that investor view in mind that Sylvie Harton, chief business strategy officer at Lumi Global – partner on the IR Impact Briefing: Making your 2026 investor meetings count – kicked off the conversation.
You can listen back to the full briefing online here.
‘We did a deep dive in terms of investor perspective and for me, there were three core takeaways that really stood out,’ said Harton. ‘First up is simplicity and focus. Investors want three to four core messages that connect to value creation. They really want to understand the bridge between your strategy and your financials.
‘The second takeaway was that accessibility is non-negotiable. Every investor should be able to attend, re-watch, access material, regardless of geography or time zone. Then the last piece is that authenticity builds trust.’
IR professionals on the panel – Marc Koebernick, head of IR at Siemens Healthineers and Steve Willoughby, senior vice president of IR, ESG and risk management at Revvity – shared some top tips they employ to deliver top-tier investor meetings.
Think proximity and bring your bench
Siemens Healthineers has only done two CMDs since listing in 2018, explained Koebernick. One was before the firm went public and the other was levered around a transformative $17 bn acquisition.
With a new CMD on the cards, given how ‘the company has evolved, the landscape around us has evolved [and] AI has become even more important,’ he continued. ‘There’s going to be a lot of Q&As. We’ll have all the segment management teams there – not only the CEO and CFO of each segment, but also specialists on certain topics.’
Then there’s the location and timing. ‘We’re doing in London – we want to be close to where the buzz is,’ said Koebernick. ‘And we’re doing it in proximity to a very large healthcare conference, Jeffrey’s Global Healthcare Conference – the biggest European healthcare conference. The idea [is to] use the traction of the conference to enable people to not have to travel twice: If I’m going anyway to London, I’ll duck into that CMD as well.’
He says the plan is already paying off. The number of people who want to come is proving us right: we’re at 110 people signed up, which is double our average attendance at big events in the past.’
Nurture your virtual relationships too
While the drive to build back in-person has been a big focus post-pandemic, Willoughby stressed the need to also cater to those attending your events virtually – making sure they are much more than an afterthought. ‘When you’re doing an investor day, having that hybrid option is a must have,’ he said, adding that when Revvity did an investor day a little under a year ago, ‘having the experienced look and feel – [something] similar for both those in the room as well as those on the computer at home or in their office, is also very important.’
Delivering that is something that takes work, he added. ‘It takes a lot of effort to ensure [the look and feel you want] when you’re using different types of audio, visuals or videos and has the same impact virtually versus in person.’
Despite his comments around virtual, Willoughby also noted the need to offer ‘something above and beyond the formal presentation’ for those making the effort to attend your investor day or CMD in person. The question, he said, is ‘how do you make it unique or special for those folks who are making the trip to London, to New York or to the company’s facility or headquarters?’ Going ‘above and beyond’ can be a real draw for in-person attendance, he noted.
Ask different things for different events
Willoughby and Koebernick also talked about the ways in which they gather post-event feedback.
For Willoughby, the way in which the company gathers feedback will depend on how big the event is, but the Revvity team run an active CRM program, ‘tracking every event, every conversation and every webcast, every that we do.’
For larger events like a CMD, ‘I always think it’s helpful to send out some sort of survey and ask for feedback on everything from How is breakfast? To How are the slides, how are the speakers? You can always try to improve.’
Willoughby also pointed to the simple act of asking What do you think? in an investor meeting. ‘Asking for feedback during investor meetings has been helpful. A lot of times investors are asking us questions over questions. It can be helpful to go back and say, What do you think of what we’re doing, or what we’re saying? How this is being interpreted? Oftentimes, people’s guards will go down when you ask them that and you will get some honest, true feedback.’
This last comment comes back nicely to Harton’s earlier comments around Lumi’s research on what investors want. ‘The best capital market days, from [the investor] perspective, feel like more of an open conversation versus a performance or a script. Investors value nuance over polish,’ she said.
‘They really want to hear the thinking behind decisions. They want to get a sense of your culture. They want to understand or experience the dynamics between the leaders, to really get a sense of the organization, its value, its culture and the bridge between financials and strategy.’
Click here to listen back to the full briefing online here or download How to deliver capital market days that impress investors & analysts, a Playbook from IR Impact and Lumi Global.
