Investor Relations

44INVESTOR RELATIONSThe IRO identifies who shareholders are and constantly strives to learnmore about them. This is a vital step in developing and implementing theInvestor Relations strategy, as we shall see in Chapter 3.The IRO helps select providers that will work directly with the IR departmentto develop the company Web site, organize conference calls, arrangeprinting, and logistics, and so on.The IRO writes the job descriptions for the IR department staff, and coordinatesand oversees the IR team.The organizational ideas and recommendations are meant to convincemanagement to develop an Investor Relations strategy that is innovative bothin terms of content and form. Efforts should be geared, among other things,to improving transparency and creating new, easy-to-maintain, analyst- andinvestor-friendly tools.The ethical standards set out by domestic or international InvestorRelations associations shall be applied along with any regulations in effect.Within the company, the IRO will develop and promote policies for InvestorRelations and corporate disclosure. In order to do so, the IRO must be ableto get familiar with changes in regulations and make sure that a clear understandingexistsas to what must be disclosed and when. Deputy Investor Relations Officer (deputy IRO). The deputy IROshould be prepared to step in at any time to respond to questions askedby analysts, investors, or potential shareholders if the IRO is unavailable.The deputy IRO should know as much about the company as theIRO, be as knowledgeable and reliable, with a similar financial background.With a solid understanding of the company, the deputy IROmust be able to explain exposures, performance, and positions to theinvestment community.The deputy IRO’s name may appear on financial or strategic pressreleases, next to the IRO’s. Certain organizations elect to have the IROhandle all relationships with fund managers, while the deputy IRO will bethe primary contact for sell-side analysts. Others allocate contact responsibilities,depending on the region of origin of investors. Needless to say, thedivision of labour varies from one company to the next. Companies that arealso listed on a foreign market may want to appoint an IRO in that country.The deputy IRO helps to gather financial data, capital market intelligenceas well as the industrial, technical, technological, commercial, and strategicinformation used to craft the company’s Investor Relations program.The job can be a testing ground to see whether the person is fit to becomethe IRO later on.IR information systems manager . This position plays a key role in thesuccess of the Investor Relations program, notably because it managesthe tools with which the efficiency of the program will be measured. This