News and analysis
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The CFO: ‘Nothing opens a presentation better than something from r/dadjokes,’ says Reddit finance chief
Drew Vollero, CFO at Reddit, is used to doing things a little differently. He oversees the finance function at the social media giant at a time when its investor relations team are receiving plaudits for their unique approach to shareholder communications. The firm took home two trophies at last year’s US IR Impact Awards – for best innovation in shareholder communications and the coveted rising star award for Jesse Rose. Ahead of this year’s event, Vollero talks about where recognition like this fits into Reddit’s measure of IR success, how his own approach to IR has evolved across a career…
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People moves: Joshua Levine served up as Campbell’s head of IR as Rebecca Gardy retires
Consumer goods firm The Campbell’s Company has announced that Joshua Levine will be taking over the reins of its IR team, as head of IR Rebecca Gardy retires after a six-year tenure at the firm.
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‘Be the filter, be the synthesis’: How IR teams are staying organized and informed in volatile times
At a time when geopolitical events seem more unpredictable than ever, the capital markets are in a corresponding state of flux in 2026. For any IRO trying to both parse market events for their own understanding and to keep their investors and other stakeholders well informed, it poses an increasingly complicated challenge – one that requires keeping up with sector peers and macroeconomic events externally as well as keeping internal audiences abreast of developments.
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How IR teams are driving value with market intelligence in an increasingly passive market
The structure of the global equity market has transformed dramatically over the last three decades – and investor relations teams now operate in a landscape where passive capital is not just influential, but dominant. Passive strategies represented only a sliver of US equity fund assets in the early 1990s. Today, they account for more than half of the investable market, and their share is still expanding.
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‘I think of ChatGPT as the very keen intern’ – Five key takeaways from the IR Impact Forum – AI and Technology in London
AI is rapidly changing how investor relations teams gather data, communicate with investors and measure engagement. However, as AI usage continues to climb, new challenges emerge beyond mere implementation.
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‘I had four meetings, one in a restaurant with great Texas steaks’: Inside Infineon’s IR-only day in Dallas
If you’re going to travel from Germany to the US to roadshow, what’s a few extra miles here or there? For Alexander Foltin, head of IR and group treasurer at Infineon Technologies, it makes sense to try to maximize the return on a transatlantic travel – which is what brought him to Dallas and Denver last year. Foltin shares his wider thoughts on Dallas in the IR Impact Roadshow Report 2026, where you can also find tips, tricks and roadshow commentary from other leading IR professionals. ‘Dallas was first put on the map for us from the debt side,’ he…
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Negative growth, reaching out and stakeholders: Curbing jargon in investor relations
Most investor relations officers I know are expert communicators. They tend not to rely on jargon or buzzwords to tell their stories – in fact, most of their stakeholders can see through any obfuscation, or will pick up on any woolly language as a negative indicator.
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‘We believe many ESG-driven decisions lack objectivity’: NLPC director Paul Chesser on why companies should shun culture-war activism
For more than two decades, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) has positioned itself as a prominent conservative watchdog challenging what it sees as the growing politicization of corporate America. As director of the organization’s Corporate Integrity Project – an initiative that uses shareholder proposals and public campaigns to target corporations it believes are adopting excessively progressive policies – Paul Chesser embodies that mission.
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People moves: Former head of IR Matt Gugino takes over as CFO of Danaher
Matt Gugino, the former vice president of investor relations at Danaher, has been named as the life sciences and diagnostics company’s new CFO.
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Why stocks fall after earnings: The hidden power of tone, language and sentiment
Every quarter, many public companies face an all too familiar – and deeply frustrating – script: strong results, solid guidance, yet the stock price declines the moment results hit and the pressure continues through the next one or two trading sessions.
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TD Bank Group, Scotiabank and Intact Financial lead the shortlists ahead of the IR Impact Awards – Canada 2026
Three financial firms are leading the pack ahead of this year’s IR Impact Awards – Canada 2026, with TD Bank Group in the running for eight awards and rivals Scotiabank and Intact Financial contending seven categories ahead of a gala event in Toronto.
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People moves: Dana Nolan hands on the IR baton to Tom Speir at Regions Financial
Dana Nolan, the long-serving head of investor relations at Regions Financial, has announced that she will retire in April after a 37-year career with the company.
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Why companies and investors need AI performance scorings
During the panic of 1873, 36 percent of corporate bonds in the US defaulted and over 100 railroad companies issuing bonds collapsed. There were no scorings or ratings to objectively assess the underlying financial strength of these bonds.
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‘Start with the objective, not the technology’: Infineon’s Daniel Györy on ensuring AI drives value for his IR program
For Daniel Györy, senior director, investor relations at German semiconductor firm Infineon Technologies, AI is only worth using if it can ‘meaningfully’ improve an IRO’s day-to-day work.
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‘We went public into a bear market’: Lithium Royalty Corp’s head of IR on the buy-side-into-IR learning curve
Lithium Royalty Corp’s IR lead didn’t come to the profession through the more typical paths of corporate finance or a transition from the sell side. As Jonida Zaganjori tells IR Impact, she took on her first IR role fresh from working at a Toronto money manager, an experience that has guided her approach to relationship building on the other side of the table. You can read more from Zaganjori in the IR Impact Global Roadshow Report 2026, where she shares her views on divvying up the CFO and the CEO’s time as well as her favorite city to visit. We…
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People moves: Former summer sales intern promoted to lead IR at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co
Sara Walsh, who started her Arthur J. Gallagher & Co career as a summer intern, has been named as the global insurance brokerage’s new investor relations lead. She has been with the company for almost 20 years, holding positions of increasing responsibility in corporate finance and treasury. She became a Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder in 2016 and was recognized by Business Insurance as a ‘woman to watch’ honoree in 2025. ‘With Sara’s strong financial background and understanding of the capital markets, she will be a terrific leader of our investor relations, corporate finance and treasury functions,’ says Douglas Howell,…
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How can IROs increase annual report visibility in generative AI?
Generative AI (genAI) has become a central gatekeeper between companies and stakeholders. A growing number of investors use large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT to research companies, challenge investment ideas and analyze financial and market information. But how visible are annual reports as sources in these systems? And how can IROs improve the visibility of verified financial disclosures? The shift in information usage creates new risks for IROs. LLMs can hallucinate or generate plausible but incorrect answers, especially when relying on third-party sources such as Reddit or Wikipedia, which are quite prominent in genAI. User-generated content often mixes facts…
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Moody’s leads the way with five nominations ahead of the IR Impact Awards – US 2026
GE Aerospace and Orthofix Medical follow closely with four nominations each, alongside other notable names including last year’s winners Duolingo and Reddit Financial intelligence and credit rating company Moody’s leads the pack ahead of the IR Impact Awards – US 2026, gaining the most nominations across categories such as best innovation in shareholder communications, best IR website, best sell-side […]
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‘IR must retool to nudge machines instead of humans’: Vodafone’s Matthew Johnson on how the profession will need to adapt to a new era
Matthew Johnson, Vodafone group communications director, is a former skeptic when it comes to AI. But, a quick demo from an AI-minded 25-year-old turned him into a convert and soon, IROs can hear first hand about Johnson’s approach to this rapidly evolving tech. As he prepares to talk about the investor and analyst approach to AI at the upcoming IR Impact Forum – AI and Technology Europe, which takes place on Thursday, March 12 in London, we caught up with Johnson to hear more about why the topic – and the tech – resonates with him. You can also hear…
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Enabled from the top: Why IR success in 2026 is ultimately a C-suite decision
The IR function has always existed in the space between what a company believes about itself and what the market actually hears. In 2026, with AI tools increasing access to data, that space has become wider, noisier and far more consequential.
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People moves: Ryan Burke takes over IR at Equinix as Seth Woolf departs THOR Industries
Data center operator Equinix has brought in Ryan Burke as its new vice president, investor relations, following the departure of former IR chief Chip Newcom last year. Burke joins the Nasdaq-listed company after seven years in the IR team at Public Storage, where he served as vice president, investor relations and latterly added strategic partnerships to his brief.
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Why capital allocation is the new equity story in the AI era
A familiar pattern is dominating the current earnings season: companies deliver clean beats on revenue and earnings – then see their shares wobble or sell off as management outlines higher-than-expected capex and a longer-dated investment phase. Alphabet and Amazon are prominent examples, but the takeaway for CFOs and IROs is broader: capital allocation has become the equity story. In an AI-driven market, the debate is no longer simply about growth. It’s about how that growth is funded, how long elevated investment will persist and what returns the capex is expected to generate. Investors aren’t punishing ambition; they’re repricing capital intensity,…
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US boards answer to all shareholders, not just the loudest ones
There is a growing habit – mostly American, often loud – of treating ESG as a single cultural package: climate, DEI and whatever social flashpoint dominates the cycle. It makes for sharp copy. It is also a category error in the markets where stewardship decisions are actually made. In the UK and EU, ESG is regulated process: rules, disclosures and supervisory expectations designed to surface financially material sustainability risks. Think less ‘cause’, more ‘cash flow’. Across the UK and Europe, faith-based investing has long been expressed through formal, responsible-investment practice rather than culture-war branding. Since the 18th century, Church and…
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‘The next major challenge will be integrating AI in a scalable and value‑adding way’: Finnair’s Emilia Rannanniemi on approaching AI for IR
Emilia Rannanniemi, senior investor relations manager at Finnair, will be speaking about how she uses AI-driven market analysis to help benchmark her team’s IR performance and to free them up to concentrate on more strategic activities.
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The Polish miracle: How IR is finally catching up in the ‘second Japan’ predicted to outstrip the UK’s GDP
A new wave of Polish tech firms are bringing IR into the spotlight – shown by record attendance at the Polish IR Association conference at the end of 2025 Something is changing on the Polish IR scene. While the country’s economy has been booming – and booming – it is only in the past year […]
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How investor relations teams tackled roadshows last year
How long did you and your IR colleagues spend on the road last year? According to our latest research, you were travelling an average of 12.1 days for in-person roadshows in 2025 and a further 5.4 days on virtual roadshows. In total, according to our deputy editor Garnet Roach and the IR Impact research department, that means our readers spent a total of 3,520 days travelling for roadshows last year – or, if you like, a total of a decade.
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The CFO: ‘Good investor conversations are indicative of really good IR,’ says Essentra finance chief
Rowan Baker talks to IR Impact from inside the world of hidden – but essential – components In our first installment of The CFO for 2026, we talk to Rowan Baker, Essentra finance chief, about what she looks for from investor relations, why should moved out of the capital markets and back again and why being lower profile but essential helps drive a ‘great business’.
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People moves: Qualcomm brings in Brett Simpson as Jeanine Wai takes over IR team at Chevron
Nasdaq-listed semiconductor producer Qualcomm has appointed Brett Simpson as its new vice president of investor relations, in a move effective immediately. Simpson joins the company after more than 25 years as the co-founder and partner of Arete Research, where advised the world’s largest technology investors with expertise in semiconductors, AI computers and advanced technology supply chains, Qualcomm notes in a press release.
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Global Roadshow Report 2026 available now
Where are companies travelling when they go on the road? Which brokers are putting on the best roadshows? Which members of the C-suite are putting in more time for these vital events and are they more likely to attend in-person or virtually? These are just some of the insights you can pull from IR Impact’s […]
Spotlight Content
Off-season engagement highlights shifting views on ESG
Companies ponder how to keep talking about sustainability We’re coming to the end of ‘off season’ – when many companies go out on the road to engage with key institutional investors ahead of their annual shareholder meeting. According to a recent IR Magazine survey, around two thirds of IR teams say they have a program…
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