Last week, I had the pleasure of attending NIRI's Senior Roundtable Annual Meeting (SRT), held this year at the amazing Ritz-Carlton Bacara in Santa Barbara, CA. This year's event "Adapting IR to the Future of Capital Markets," marked the 25th anniversary of the Senior Roundtable Annual Meeting. The SRT gives senior leaders from the IR profession an opportunity to gather once a year to exchange ideas, network with their peers, and further their professional growth. It is one of my favorite events to attend, and one that we at IHS Markit are honored to participate in each year.

There were some great takeaways from the panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and the conversations over lunches, hallway chats, and yes, even a wine tasting (we were in Santa Barbara in a beautiful setting after all!). I was joined on the trip by my colleagues Kevin Roy and Michael Miller, and we all came away with fresh perspectives on the key issues for not only IR, but the corporate world and global economy. Our key takeaways:

ESG Investing
Every company has its own ESG journey, and successful companies will be those which:

• Understand the Environmental, Social, and Governance issues impacting their industries
• Develop reporting and analytical frameworks which are consistent and highlight progress
• Establish KPIs that are aligned across their organizations and can be supported by data
• Prioritize ESG as a company-wide initiative that is an essential part of the company's mission

Alternative Data & Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
Understanding how your investors are using both is critical in the following ways:

• Enable you to explain drivers of your daily and longer-term stock performance to executives
• Understand how quantitative strategies will continue to impact your company's shares
• Keeping up with rapid developments in alt data and A.I. will enable you to stay informed and keep your executive team up to date on the latest trends

Evolution of Corporate Access & Impact of MiFID II
IR teams are increasingly being asked to do more with less as MiFID II takes hold and the sell-side continues to evolve.

• As a result, IR teams will need to take on a more active role in reaching out directly to the investment community
• Interestingly, some companies are relying more on corporate sponsored research

It was a fantastic 2 days as we discussed these topics and many more. At IHS Markit, we are focused on helping our clients to navigate through these issues and many more. Here are some recent examples:

• ESG - Brian Matt recently sat down with NYSE to discuss ESG at length on a podcast
• Alternative Data - Ed Chidsey recently published some thoughts on alternative data sets
• Corporate Access - Ari Davies published a fascinating piece on navigating the world of "DIY" investor relations

We will continue to advise on developments in all these areas, so keep an eye out for more content in the new year on these topics and more in 2020.

In closing, I'd like to say congrats to NIRI on 25 years of the SRT, and we look forward to many more years of this excellent event in the future!

Posted 17 December 2019 by Michael Miller, Executive Director, Investor Relations Advisory, S&P Global Market Intelligence

S&P Global provides industry-leading data, software and technology platforms and managed services to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in financial markets. We help our customers better understand complicated markets, reduce risk, operate more efficiently and comply with financial regulation.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.