Who Gets the Meeting? A Buy-Side Q&A on Investor Access

The operating assumption in investor relations (IR) has been straightforward: more outreach equals more opportunity. Book more meetings, run more roadshows, build a bigger pipeline. The logic made sense when it was access that was the constraint. But it isn't anymore, and that changes how IR teams should spend their time on corporate access.

At this year's IR Society Annual Conference in London, Michael Roper, VP Sales, EMEA, sat down with three senior voices from the buy-side and governance community to test that idea: Alex Bibani, Senior Portfolio Manager at Allianz Global Investors; Matthew Cooke, Portfolio Manager, Active Equities at Legal & General; and Rob Hardy, an independent Corporate Governance and Stewardship Consultant. Between them, they cover the investment decision, the screening that precedes it, and the stewardship lens that increasingly runs alongside both.

Discover what buy-side investors really want from corporate access in 2026 — and why relevance, not volume, is the new standard for IR teams.