BY ALEXANDRA WALSH
Crafting the right messages is only the first step in influencing investors. Effective delivery depends on confidence, speech patterns, and a host of nonverbal cues.
Today’s investors do more than just listen to earnings calls, presentations, and meetings. They use a range of advanced tools – both human and technological – to decipher the nuanced messages conveyed in investor relations (IR) communications.
Observing nonverbal cues like body language and facial expressions, analyzing vocal tone and inflection for emotional hints, and utilizing natural language processing and semantic algorithms to determine a CEO’s sentiment and intent is now the norm, according to David Pope, CEO of Speech Craft Analytics, and Dr. Abbie Maroño, a Behavioral Scientist at Social-Engineer, LLC.
The two spoke in a session, “The Investor View: Non-Traditional Tools for Assessing IR Messaging,” at the NIRI 2025 Annual Conference, which was moderated by Harry Blount, Founder and CEO of Baans Holdings, LLC.
Blount identified three objectives for the session: raise awareness and insight of the tools and techniques that investors use, provide insight into the verbal and nonverbal cues that the buy side looks at when making investment decisions, and offer insight into how to help management improve their communications to investors.
Why It’s Important
“We use artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced machine learning to understand what is in the mind of the speaker, and we analyze voice cadence to gauge their emotional state,” Pope said. “It is important for CEOs to put forward their best communication performance because the buy side is already analyzing them this way.”
Dr. Maroño explained that in her current role, she routinely trains personnel from the Secret Service, Homeland Security, and the FBI to read nonverbal communication and present themselves effectively.
“I also train CEOs, and it’s exactly the same,” Dr. Maroño observed. “Both the agent and the executive want to project an image of themselves for the goal they have. And both want to be able to read other people to elicit informationor to extract something useful, whether that is a confession or business data.”
Pope explained that AI can measure pitch changes, speech rate, and vocal tremors because when someone is nervous, their muscles tense, including the vocal cords, which creates micro-tremors detectable at 20 microseconds.
“From a management standpoint, it’s very important for them to convey their message in the most confident, compelling way possible, because investors view confidence as competence,” Pope noted.
“There are numerous examples of two companies delivering the same bad news, and one stock craters and the other goes sideways. So, the way we deliver messages is very important.”
“You should know where
the questions are coming
from; understand and
anticipate what the market
is likely to ask and prepare
to answer those questions,
ideally with numbers…”
The Confident Executive
A way to show confidence is to be fluid in your movements, Dr. Maroño recommended. “It’s very easy to spot an executive who lacks confidence, because you can see signs of distress,” she said. “Someone who is confident simply lacks signs of distress.”
She added that people calm down by rubbing their hands together, touching their face, or twiddling with their hair. They do this because there are numerous nerve endings in the fingertips, and when they touch their face or hair with their fingers, the signals sent to the brain quickly help them calm down.
“If you want to appear confident, the first step is to reduce those visible anxious behaviors,” Dr. Maroño said. “Confident people look like they’re moving through water. Their movements are very fluid and relaxed, and when standing, their limbs hang slightly away from their torso to avoid appearing confining.”
“We analyze every sentence because context is everything, and we measure speech rate, breath rate, vocal tremors, all the different ways we can break down the energy emitted by the executive’s voice,” Pope explained. “We want to know when the executive is confident and when they’re nervous and how that ties back to what they’re talking about at that moment.”
One important way executives can appear more confident is to slow down, as they often talk too quickly, adds Pope. “Most CEOs talk at approximately 180 words per minute or more, when they should be in the range of 140 to 150 words,” Pope noted. “When they speak quickly, they can make mistakes, use a lot of ‘ahs’ and ‘ums,’ repetition, other disfluencies, and get off topic, so slow them down.”
Pope says his second tip to a more confident, public-speaking CEO is to preempt the questions.
“You should know where the questions are coming from; understand and anticipate what the market is likely to ask and prepare to answer those questions, ideally with numbers,” advises Pope. “If the executive can field a tough question and give a solid, well-thought-out response with concrete numbers, they come across as credible.”
Video With a Smile
“Everything in your environment says something about you on a video call,” Dr. Maroño said.
“The way your CEO is dressed and the chosen background is communicating what’s important to them, and what their personality is like,” she explained. “Meanwhile, the audience is looking to see who the person is, what is important to them, and if they are trustworthy. Your background says something about you.”
Dr. Maroño points out that people now have fake screens that can be very distracting because they diminish the power of nonverbal communication. Her advice is to consider what the background reveals about your CEO and craft a backdrop that highlights the unique aspects of your executive that you want to showcase.
One flaw to avoid on video calls is to stay emotionally neutral when being appropriately emotionally expressive is essential, notes Dr. Maroño.
“On video, there is so much emphasis on the face that many people believe, especially in negotiations or high-stress situations, that the best strategy is to maintain a poker face. They think no one can read their emotions and use that against them,” Dr. Maroño says. “But in reality, we’ve evolved to look for cues of emotional expressivity. If I don’t see the expected cue, my brain considers the other person untrustworthy because I can’t predict their feelings.”
Dr. Maroño recommended that before introductions have even begun, executives should be ready with a smile. “When we see a smile, it increases oxytocin, which creates bonding,” she said.
The In-Person CEO
Whether a CEO is delivering a speech via video or is interacting with a group in person, there are some differences and some important similarities in both situations, Dr. Maroño explained. “In both scenarios, it’s really important that your executive’s nonverbal messaging matches their verbal channel, and that there’s congruency between both.”
Dr. Maroño says the real difference when your executive is communicating in person is whether they’re trying to command a room, in which case they should be a little bolder and a little bigger.
“Everything is about the executive speaker taking control of that space because they have confidence, which equates to competence,” Dr. Maroño said. “But there’s a really fine line between confidence and dominance, and when we look at perceptions of trustworthiness, when people are acting dominant in nonverbal ways, it decreases perceived trustworthiness, and it decreases liking.”
Dr. Maroño pointed out it’s important that the executive is receptive to an audience’s nonverbal cues. One way of achieving this is by engaging in nonverbal mimicry, such as adopting the listener’s body posture or copying other movements.
When the speaker moves their torso, it creates an alignment that has also been shown to increase oxytocin, facilitating bonding, Dr. Maroño said, noting, “This is a really common method in negotiations, and the research has shown that it creates more cooperative negotiations because it creates rapport, trust, and closeness.”
Dr. Maroño suggests that the CEO demonstrate their receptiveness to the audience by showing active listening cues such as nodding along, repeating back what an audience member says, and using their language.
Dr. Maroño also noted that lower body movements are crucial for perceptions of trustworthiness because they are linked to empathy. “You want to make sure your CEO is paying attention to what their lower body is doing,” she said. “If they’re participating in an in-person meeting or in a group, they should face the person speaking to show they’re engaged.”
Executive Buy-In
To gain executive buy-in on the importance of their nonverbal communication skills, Dr. Maroño advised stepping back to consider what the CEO wants.
“Instead of asking, ‘How do I get the CEO to do what I want?,’ try to understand why they do what they do and what they want to achieve. Then, reverse engineer it,” Dr. Maroño suggested. “Figure out what their communication style is, what matters to them, and then craft your message in a way that matches their style, instead of using your style and trying to get them to see your point of view. You want to really step into their shoes and speak their language.”
Pope added, “When I was in graduate school, I had a professor who, every time he wanted to get our attention, would say, ‘Now I’m going to show you how to make money,’” recalls Pope. “So, if I were talking to the CEO, I would use the term ‘stock price.’ Companies whose management is confident when they speak outperform those that are nervous.”
Next, Pope said he would point out to the CEO that AI-generated measurables of how someone performs while speaking is an impersonal score of their performance.
That empowers the next step, which Pope said is to benchmark the CEO to see how they compare to their peers. He added, “What management team isn’t competitive? They want to know their ranking!”
Once you’ve measured the executive’s performance, you can recommend corrective actions so it’s no longer a slight on their performance,” Pope said.
“You’re basically encouraging them to improve, and who doesn’t want to improve, especially competitive executives? It’s all part of the effort to put their best foot forward for the company’s success.”
Room for Improvement
Pope explained that his company creates a baseline for every speaker, but never compares two speakers – a speaker is only compared to themselves. “We look for what is anomalous to what the speaker is saying compared to their own baseline,” he said. “That’s important.”
A simple trick Pope shares with executives is to use shorter sentences. “You’re trying to reduce their cognitive load by removing anything that creates stress, makes them uncertain, and is going to lead to mistakes,” explains Pope. “Cognitive load is also reduced through preparation, use of numbers, shortened sentences, being very concise, and not trying to give long, elaborate answers.”
“If you want your CEO to improve as a communicator, the best thing to do is first identify what they’re lacking and what is undermining their perceived confidence and trustworthiness,” Dr. Maroño said. “Identify those essential elements, learn about them, and try to change just those. Then identify the behaviors that create the perception your CEO wants to project and practice, practice, practice.”
Dr. Maroño said the goal is for the CEO’s nonverbal communication to become part of their natural behavior, so they do it automatically.
“One measure we use is called the Gunning Fog Index, which calculates the number of years of education one needs to understand what somebody’s saying,” Pope explained. “For earnings calls and business, we look for grade 11. What does reducing the complexity of language mean specifically? Reducing sentence length and the number of polysyllabic words”
Pope emphasized that investors value clarity and transparency, and they will reward it. “You can run your executive’s remarks through a Gunning Fog Index or similar calculation to see how educated somebody has to be to understand what they’re saying,” he said. “If you see something like a score of 17, forget it. Nobody knows what your CEO is saying.”
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Alexandra Walsh is Senior Publishing Consultant for Association Vision, the company that produces IR Update for NIRI; awalsh@associationvision.com