Top 10 of 2018: The best of IRmagazine.com

In the year that gave us Mifid II, the Trump vs China trade war and some notorious CEO Twitter fails – we’re looking at you, Elon Musk – we take a look back at what the world of IR professionals were clicking on most. 

In first and second place, respectively, are episode 93 and episode 95 of our newly sponsored Ticker podcast, coming to your from the Citadel Securities post on the floor of the NYSE.

Episode 93 of the Ticker sees host Jeff Cossette talk to Alex Stanton, CEO of Stanton PR, about how to navigate the next, inevitable downturn and what has changed in the decade since the global financial crisis. Also on episode 93 is Radek Barnert, CEO of WeConvene, looking to the future and what IR needs to know about the potential offered by virtual reality. 

Episode 95 of the Ticker features Alpha IR Group’s Robert Winters talking about the auto and truck supply sector, which he says still has plenty of room to run as he offers advice on how IROs can reclaim the narrative. We also hear from Corbin Advisors’ IR guru Thang To, who shares tips on planning a best-in-class investor day event.

In third place in the IR Magazine online top 10 is the first of a number of articles tackling the intricacies of Mifid II – which came into force on January 3, 2018 – in which Andrew Holt looks at how corporate access is moving to a direct model post-Mifid II. 

Highlighting the ever-present interest in IR careers and the changing role of the IR professional, the fourth place spot actually goes to an article written in 2016 titled The five functions of investor relations. The guest post by Kristin Köhler, CEO of the Center for Corporate Reporting in Zürich, Switzerland, comes off the back of research that claims ‘a standard job description is an illusion. There is not one, but five roles IR departments play: fulfilling the regulatory duty to provide information, communication, marketing, finance and integrated activities.’

Fifth place is another, albeit more specific, careers piece, detailing the decision by London and Dublin-headquartered consultancy Powerscourt to create a full-service IR team. One new team member – Marina Calero – who has been doing internal IR for specialist housebuilder McCarthy & Stone, recently sat down with McCarthy & Stone CFO Rowan Baker to talk crisis management with IR Magazine.

For both the sixth and seventh place positions, we return to the daunting regulation that is Mifid II. The first of the two is by guest author Michael Hufton, founder and managing director of ingage, kicking off the year in a piece titled Mifid II: The rubber hits the road. Flowing smoothly into seventh place is another piece by Mifid II expert Holt, who interviews Hufton on how the regulation is pushing corporates to internalize more aspects of the IR role that had traditionally been filled by brokers.

Showing that, like a fine wine, a good article on IR careers ages beautifully and continues to accrue value, a piece by IR Magazine editor-at-large Laurie Havelock (who many of you will have seen globetrotting our events this year) written in 2015 takes eighth place in 2018. Titled Seven questions to expect in an IR interview, it’s clear this one is of perennial interest.

‘Was Mifid II the 2018 version of the Millennium Bug?’ asks guest author Mark Robinson, head of EMEA issuer services at London-based RD:IR in his August 2018 article, titled Mifid II: Prepare for impact. Returning to every IRO’s favorite European regulation for the ninth-most popular article of 2018, Robinson predicts that real change is set to kick in soon. 

Finishing up the top 10 of 2018 is another guest post – this time from Scott Payton of Bowen Craggs – sharing eight tips IROs can learn from the world’s best IR websites.