Top 10 Superpowers for Investor Relations
A few weeks ago, at our staff meeting, someone asked the question, “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek exercise, but it got the entire staff thinking that superpowers could definitely be helpful to investor relations executives.
Invisibility, time-travel and emotional healing (we IR folks often are sounding boards for public company executives) were just a few of the many great, fun ideas presented.
Imagine the possibilities of being able to go unnoticed during investment committee meetings to learn what portfolio managers and analysts are saying about the companies we represent. Or a CEO visiting the future to identify market trends and adjust the business accordingly.
With AI and ChatGPT all the rage, we then took our impromptu brainstorming session one step further. Including some of the comedians on our staff, we came up with ten more “superpower” scenarios that someday may even be possible for use in investor relations:
- Instantaneously writing award-winning press releases and smooth-as-silk quarterly conference call scripts, while creating drop-dead-gorgeous investor decks.
- Coming up with great, believable reasons for missing guidance. (Akin to the children’s excuse, “It’s not my fault, my dog ate my homework!”)
- Filling three contiguous days of back-to-back virtual NDR meetings with avatars who look just like humans and who hurl nothing but glowing compliments at the CEO for a great performance.
- Having one of those avatars call the CEO the next day just to congratulate him or her yet again for a wonderful performance.
- Preparing proxy proposal language so convincing (and confusing) that it entices institutional investors to vote ‘yes’ for a poison pill proposal at the annual meeting.
- “Finding” enough ‘yes’ votes, if needed, to win a vote for a poison pill proposal, just in case the institutional investors were smart enough to figure out the confusing language.
- Securing a positive front-page story in the Wall Street Journal (which we have done before) and having the CEO send you a huge Thank You and a very special bottle of wine, but with no bonus. (AI and superhuman powers do not always work fully.)
- While rushing around New York on an in-person road show to raise multi millions of dollars, breaking your ankle while stepping out of a taxi on Maiden Lane, and then miraculously, it heals before you even get your driver’s license out of your wallet to show the lobby security officer.
- Having dinner at Masa (prix fixe, $750) with an investment banker after a highly successful, long week on the road raising funds, then returning to your hotel room afterward to learn that you just won the biggest lottery ever.
- Calling the investment banker the next morning to say you just resigned from the company, then saying, “I’m outta here!”
In all seriousness, many of us have real superpowers we use daily on behalf of our clients. Quite often, these abilities took decades to perfect, which range from providing sound, creative counsel to developing smart, succinctly written content. And it goes on and on from there.
The world of investor relations is quite complicated, so it’s a good thing that our entire team has the right superpowers to navigate an often challenging and ever-changing landscape, while having a little fun along the way.
Laurie Berman, lberman@pondel.com and Roger Pondel, rpondel@pondel.com
