Co-chair Letter/


As an IR practitioner, you know that our profession is, well, different. Unlike succeeding as a doctor, lawyer, or a banker, winning in the profession of investor relations relies on mastering a set of skills that, generally, are not found in one individual. The best IROs are adept in a range of domains, from accounting, finance and communications, to business management, stakeholder relations and the regulatory landscape. The best IR professionals can reach across and within organizations and create deep relationships. The best manage up, down, laterally and externally. The best IROs keep up with news flow on everything from economic data, geopolitical changes, industry news and what is happening in their own companies.  


It is a huge challenge. And let’s face it – we love it! But we also know we don’t do any of this alone. Critical to our ability to deliver a strong investor relations program is galvanizing people within our organizations and influencing key stakeholders beyond our organizations.  

Hence the theme for this year’s Conference, IR – Influence & Impact. Very few roles within a company engage with such a broad cross-section of stakeholders, which puts IROs in an excellent position to influence for impact.  

We kept this IR superpower in mind in building CIRI’s Conference program. We aimed to capture the issues and trends in investor relations today that will increase your influence and impact as an IR leader. Hearing the latest innovations investors are applying to gather and use big data to inform their views on your company, as you will in our opening session and exploring all the value to be had from capital markets players you don’t otherwise hear from, as you will in the maximizing relationships session, are just two of many issues we are excited to explore this year.  

Gaining knowledge on broader topics, as you will with an overview of the Canadian economy and the session on blockchain, is useful to influence for impact as well. These are areas we need to understand in the context of our IR lives and our everyday ones too.  

As valuable as we think these sessions are, we feel it’s through the informal conversations with our IR colleagues that we will get some of the best takeaways from the Conference. So, please don’t be shy about speaking up and taking part. It’s the best way to make sure you leave this year’s Conference inspired, well-connected and well-tooled.  

Before closing, we wanted to send out a special thank you to the 2018 Annual Conference Committee members, whose consistent contributions over last six months have resulted in something we are proud of and that we hope will be truly valuable to you. And finally, we couldn’t have come together without the help of our sponsors, who are also our much-valued partners in IR. So, a heartfelt thanks to them as well, for all of their support.   


Sincerely,

Janet Craig
Principal
Endeavour IR

Katie Keita
Director, Investor Relations
Shopify Inc.