Should I move from Strategy / Corp Dev to Investor Relations?

Hi,

I have worked for a fast growing company for a number of years in the strategy / corp dev team. The company has grown considerably since I joined, particularly in the last few years, and now does around $300m+ revenue. As such, it'll probably look to IPO in the coming years when conditions improve. Or it may look for a strategic sale.

At this company, I've also gained a significant amount of capital raising experience over the last few years. My role is strategy / corp dev but I also do our capital raising and otherwise pick up bits and pieces relating to our investors too. I've worked on all our previous capital raises. I've otherwise had extremely varied experience at this company all over the place.

I've been asked if I'd consider doing IR more formally as the company pushes towards an IPO with a view to doing it full-time post-IPO (unlikely as Head of IR as I don't have public market experience). In the event of a strategic sale, I'd likely carry on doing what I'm doing. It would be a gradual step-by-step move across to doing it more and more over time depending on how things go and what market conditions are like.

I feel this might provide some quicker progression as to be honest, there is no room for further growth in the strategy / corp dev team unless someone senior leaves, or I move to a product team (although I'm not sure I'd be good at this). But equally, I'm unlikely to become Head of IR here or really go anywhere beyond that. And my impression is the growth ceiling in IR is low. It's an annuity career and once you start, you tend to keep going forever.

I'm worried that by agreeing to this I might shoot myself in the foot and suddenly close my options and a lot of doors that I'd keep open by explicitly expressing I want to keep doing strategy / corp dev. But I'm also not sure it'd make that much difference given my background if I try IR for a few years especially if it involves an IPO process. And perhaps even make my profile more interesting / unique.

I'm okay analytically, I'd never describe myself as the most analytical person. I'm definitely a far better communicator, highly organised and have strong EQ. Which leads me to think maybe I'm just better suited to this regardless of my preferences.

I'm still quite young, in my late twenties and unsure what to do. I worked in investment banking before this but did not enjoy it at all.
I looked around and most of the previous posts seem to relate to IR in PEs etc. rather than operating companies. I'm not sure there's any major differences but be good to know if there is.

I'm really looking for some context, pros / cons of this specific scenario and whether doing this would be considered a good idea or whether I should try and avoid it. And whether anyone has done something similar and what happened! My current thinking is it's probably a bad idea longer-term but a good idea in the short-term. However, I'm not sure even if doing this for a few years, what my exit options (if any) would look like. I'm not sure I'd want to do this forever. I'm also not really sure where strategy / corp dev leads though, at least not at my current company. I feel like both paths might be a bit of a dead end but ideally want to stay where I am given the momentum my company has.

TLDR; work in strategy / corp dev team at a rapidly growing company. Also worked on our previous capital raises. Looking to IPO in next few years. Been asked if would like to put in motion steps to do IR full-time. Not sure if a good idea or not?