Elevating IR: A Discussion with John Gollifer, CEO of GCC Board Directors Institute

As you look back over that period of time, can you walk us through what you think has kind of fundamentally changed about the role of investor relations, the way it's situated within public companies, and what aspects of the profession do you think have been resistant to change? I really appreciated your comments about walking through the global landscape.

destinations and the way that the IR evolution has come to pass in that context.

If you could also touch on that, that would be terrific.

Yeah, I sort of look beyond the financials, of course, and to me, the most interesting part of the role, which I sort of ended up in.

So, yes, I was a banker for 15 years, a lot of which was in capital raising, whether debt or equity.

But again, it was financially driven from the modelling to the storytelling and to prepping companies that I worked with.

When I arrived at the Singapore Exchange, which had just gone public as the head of corporate strategy, all the communications functions, particularly the external ones, came under that umbrella of corporate strategy.

And I was the natural person to develop the IR role because we were a listed company, but also because of my banking background.

And it struck me fairly quickly that over and above just financial reporting, as you started with Mark, actually, there was a lot more to it.

And that evolution, particularly in the context of the Singapore market, which, to be fair, 25 years or so ago was unprecedented.

on sort of emerging market status but not particularly big or significant market that's changed of course today so quarter of a century on it's a lot bigger it's a lot more diversified and is positioned as a multi-asset platform for many many asset classes including a stock market with with equities listed as as with other markets but i think because of the role that i had in corporate strategy and reporting directly to the ceo who hired me my perspective was always going to be different so i was working closely with him in developing a strategy and at the same time it was pretty obvious to him because he recognized the banking background that i really ought to be focusing increasingly on invest relations And the second CEO who I then worked with took that a step further and tried to professionalize our efforts on the basis that if the exchange can't get it right as a listed company, how do you expect the other 800 listed companies, 800 at the time? I think like a lot of mature markets, that number may have shrunk for good reasons and and changed in in some ways but interestingly enough he and i think the chairman and that's an important point talking about reporting lines because in between the two ceos i actually reported to the chairman who also had a view on the market and what the market thought and investor relations so both recognized just as my first ceo did that this is an important role it's a strategic role And you should be setting an example and you can't really muck it up because otherwise that reflects badly on the rest of us.

And that reflects badly, more importantly, on the market as a whole.

And I don't know how well you know the Singapore Inc. approach, but their view was also that it would reflect badly on Singapore Inc.

So a very interesting role in a fantastic organization with very clear direct reporting lines who clearly got it and expected me to be the best that I could possibly be.

And the team grew to support that effort.

And over time, I would say back to the question, of course, it was seen as a strategic role.

And I think the evolution since that time, which is not that long ago, but For example, coming across ESG, which was towards the end of the first decade of this millennium, to having to do sustainability reporting for the first time.

And I remember by that time I was working with my third CEO of the exchange, given my 11-year tenure, and my second chairman.

And they took it as seriously as wanting to see what we were planning to put into the annual report and how that might come across.

And that chairman in particular had a particular interest in sustainability reporting, given he had come from the airline industry.

I remember proudly giving them the score that the GRI had essentially accorded us.

And I think it was something like a C or might have been a C+.

remember giving that to the chairman he looked at and he said john in singapore we do not do c or c plus you know that please come back to me again next time and make sure that we're where we should be we're a or a plus john so it was a immediate recognition i think of the importance of the role but also the changing role and the fact that you had to go beyond financial to include non-financials.

And again, in order to set an example, you better be coming out on top so that everybody else could think, okay, maybe we should try to emulate that.

So it was quite an instructive time with some amazing leaders, whether at the chairman level or indeed at the c-suite level and i think to go on from there given what david said about the roles thereafter so i went back to the uk after that period at the singapore exchange ran the ir society what struck me immediately was the differences in in the market development, which isn't surprising.