Back to the future: how IR has changed over 17 years

When friends and colleagues ask why I decided to make the big (and unusual) leap from IRO to IR consultant, I answer quite clearly: I wanted to go back to ‘the future’ of IR – to take on new challenges, expand my horizons beyond the technology industry, and up my IR and strategic communications game.

Until January 2015 when I joined Edelman, I was head of IR and corporate communications at Veeco Instruments for 17 years. Veeco is a small capitalization technology stock with a big capitalization IR program. It was a rollercoaster of ups and downs in a highly cyclical sector, the peak of the cycle being very rewarding, while the troughs brought many challenges as well as excellent opportunities to enhance our reputation. With more than 20 sell-side analysts, a global shareholder base, an accounting crisis, one CEO and two CFO transitions, more than a dozen acquisitions and several equity and debt offerings, investor relations was always in the mix and held a prominent role at the table.

While I started my career with cross-border IR communications consultancy firm Dewe Rogerson, it has been quite a while since I was last an IR consultant. When I left Dewe Rogerson in 1997 to join Veeco, my hair was certainly bigger and curlier, I had a closet full of brightly colored pantsuits and a few less lines of distinction on my face. My daughters, one now a junior in college and the other about to leave the nest, were just babies.  

Past developments
But that’s not all that has changed in 17 years. Flashback to the late 1990s: the rapid rise of the internet was fueling a bubble that would soon burst; a roaring stock market provided capital for a wave of global merger mania, until the Asian financial crisis hit; the euro was a new currency concept and experts were unsure how it would affect global business; and the Titanic was crashing into icebergs at a theatre near you.

Hier geht's zum vollständigen Artikel, erschienen im IR Magazine.