What's the deal with Corporate Investor Relations?
Not much at all has been written about corporate IR at a public company here. Wanted to see people's thoughts on the career path, comp progression, transferability to other roles, etc? For context I'm coming from 2 years of IB experience as an A2A associate. From my understanding, the only "high finance" people that exit into this are from ER.
I may be naive but this seems like a much more interesting role than other typical exits. Seems like it's a lot of relationship-building, public markets exposure, "wining/dining" with investors (again correct me if wrong), giving presentations and not as much fundraising stress compared to Buyside IR?
I'm not interested in continuing M&A/diligence related work hence my apprehension towards typical exits like corp dev or PE. Would like to be in a more public markets oriented role.
Curious to hear people's thoughts if this is a dead-end or good path to pursue?
Definitely one of the more interesting “corporate exits” given its Street adjacent nature but agree it’s rarely talked about on here. In the right seat, you’ll have very high exposure + access to senior management and a role in broader company strategy. Also will likely get improved work/life balance while still maintaining aspects of working in public markets (keeping up sellside/buyside relationships, access to sellside research, still have to talk to your favorite hedgies, etc.).
Downside is taking the initial corporate pay cut + there is a very limited amount of good seats out there. Lots of examples of IR folks being promoted into CFO/senior management roles though (MSFT, KMI, UAL come to mind), so don’t think career progression is necessarily constrained if you approach the role with that in mind.
Great, thanks for the write-up. I assume given IR teams are relatively small and the responsibility involved that if you are able to stay aboard the comp progression would be relatively significant, despite the initial paycut? Or do even more senior IR heads not make much on the corporate side
Would say it’s company/industry/background dependent, but heads of IR can pull reasonably high pay especially if taking on another responsibility (treasurer, corp dev are common).
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Following. Also curious on this given it seems like a more "exciting" exit than other choices. No idea on compensation but I do know this tends to be more of an ER exit. Perhaps for disgruntled HF guys too?
Can confirm- IR is an elite corporate role.
I ride the company jet a few times a quarter to investor conferences, internal company meetings, investor dinners. Have had some incredibly luxurious experiences- dinners at exclusive clubs, at palatial homes of HF partners, conferences at top destinations. Grab drinks with the CEO and CFO back at the hotel.
IR is one of the first to know about any corporate crisis, impending M&A, or financing. IR is a key consumer of all business results presentations or M&A/financing rationale so that you can prepare for the earnings call and Q&A or investor conferences and calls. Front row seat to the results and go-forward strategy.
Downside is that if you plan to stay in IR, or if you don't broaden your experience (take on FP&A or treasury or other responsibilities) there is only so high you can go. Some companies make their IR person an SVP, but it seems to be only if they have other responsibilities. For many companies it tops out at VP.
However, with the amount of exposure you get in IR, taking on another department is a natural fit- many IR folks also lead FP&A or Treasury. Finally- if you're looking to be a CFO, the people skills side of IR gives you an edge, especially considering most other finance/accounting types have very few opportunities to hone their external-facing people skills.
Most often, if you are new to IR (and didn't come from ER or maybe AM/HF) you have to come in as a manager (or maybe director) and work your way up, since in-depth knowledge of the company is valued.
Comp seems to be in line with corporate titles, though maybe heavier on the stock side. There are a few comp studies out there- here are some general numbers in the format of base/cash bonus/stock grant:
Manager: 130k/20k/20k
Director: $200k/50k/50k
VP: ~300k/100k/150k
SVP: ~350k/150k/250k
Thank you for writing this up, one of the most insightful posts on Corp IR on this site. I'm not sure what your background is but I did want to ask if that if you had to do it all over again would you still pursue this same path rather than another exit (i.e. buyside)?
I know this is tough to answer, but the reason I ask this is because after 2 years of IB (A2A) the current comp I'm seeing for junior IR positions is much lower than you listed and I don't know if it's just because there aren't many openings out there or if this is just the trade off I would have to make. Makes it a bit tricky when I see peers from my analyst class go to the buyside or even corp dev and make more.
I essentially want to see if this is a field where your income can come scale quickly despite starting low (i.e. get to VP with ~5 years experience in the field)? Is it perhaps a better idea to target larger-cap public companies or more small $5BN marketcap nasdaq listed companies? Thank you very much
Great answer. And agree with a 'VP ceiling' being a potential downside. In addition to Treasury and FP&A, corp dev is another team that IR leaders can run.
Echoing Manager in Corp Fin but would note the work load varies wildly depending on the company.
At mine, IR does 1-2 presentations a month with investors or publicly. And then there’s the competitor research, internal meetings/presentations, and analyst models/consensus to review.
Probably around 50-60 hours of real work a week which is a breeze compared to IB but not nearly as chill as Corp fin if that’s what you’re going for. Something to keep in mind considering the pay will be similar across corporate functions.
Also, it’s a bit more high stress as you really need to not be mistake prone.
Much thanks for the insight. Could you share any color on if there is more comp or upside in exchange for the role not being "as chill as Corp fin" (assuming you're referring to roles like corp dev?). Or is the trade-off that the role is more interesting / less technical than other corp fin roles? It's interesting because you see a number of ex-HF backgrounds in the space so you would think there needs to be a pretty decent level of comp for those guys to make the jump.
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Following. Starting a role as IR Associate for a large public company so this is super helpful.
PM'd!
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