Wall Street analysts as investor relations officers

This paper examines the practice of hiring financial analysts as investor relations officers (IRO). We posit that analysts-turned-IROs (AIROs) have a competitive advantage in communicating with investors, thereby lowering effort expended by investment community to process corporate disclosures. Using unique manually-collected dataset on employment history IROs compiled from LinkedIn, Capital IQ, RelationshipScience.com, and appointment press releases, we show disclosure readability 8-K 10-K filings improves companies are more likely host analyst/investor days after former IROs. Most importantly, find increases analyst following, institutional stock liquidity IRO. conclude both network channel at play relation between AIROs increased interest community. Overall, our findings suggest firms benefit Wall Street