The IRO's Role and Opportunity with Investor Engagement and Proxy Messaging

Monday, June 3, 2019 | 1:30PM - 2:30PM | Room: Grand Sonoran H  |   Corporate Governance, Board Relations, and Strategic Collaboration

 |  Christina Maguire | Ronald M. Schneider | David Chun | Shawn Tabak | Simona B. Katcher | Victoria Hyde-Dunn |

Leveraging the investor relations skill set to gain a seat at your company's proxy and corporate governance tables, and increase your positive visibility to the C - Suite and Board. Proxy statements have traditionally been viewed as SEC-compliance documents and "owned" primarily by company legal officers. Increasingly, a range of institutional and other investors are expecting companies to explain their corporate governance practices, mix of board skills and expertise, and executive compensation programs in terms of how they tie in with and support the company's business strategy. Accordingly, many company proxy drafting and investor engagement teams are expanding beyond legal to include finance/investor relations, corporate communications, HR/executive compensation/benefits, and even CSR/sustainability teams. This cross-functional panel will explain the need for such a collaborative approach and suggest ways IR professionals increasingly benefit the process -- and elevate their visibility at their companies.

Learning Objectives:
  • Learn about the evolution of proxies from compliance to communications documents, based primarily on expanding investor areas of interest
  • Hear how leading IR professionals are leveraging their communications skill sets to inject necessary context into company descriptions of their governance, board skills mix and executive compensation programs, and how this is helping to secure investor voting support and mitigate the impact of negative proxy advisor vote recommendations