FP for Forbes: Rules of the road for successful investor communications

Moira writes for Forbes: "Many companies endure the arduous process of becoming public yet fail to optimize their access to capital, primarily due to ineffective engagement with Wall Street."

Having advised CEOs and CFOs of many newly public companies, I have witnessed almost every investor relations mistake possible. The game of dodgeball is at the top of the list, with excuses like...

• Our results for the quarter aren’t that great, so let’s not have a Q&A session on our earnings call.
• The metrics we provided on our recent IPO roadshow are no longer the right ones, so we need to change them or stop providing some of them.
• The timing isn’t right to meet with investors—our business isn’t doing that well, so we don’t have a great story to tell for now.

Reflecting on this arsenal of experience, I framed the following: Rules of the road for successful investor communications...