Wealth Management Investor Relations Specialists

Since the 1950s, corporations have employed investor relations (IR) specialists to provide financial information to shareholders. But the field really began to grow in the 2000s, after a series of corporate scandals (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG, etc.) prompted increased government scrutiny of corporations and the banking industry and fueled growing investor calls for financial transparency. Two major pieces of federal legislation—The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010—instituted much more stringent regulatory control over the financial industry (including requiring investment firms to provide more documentation regarding their operations to both regulators and investors). As a result, demand greatly increased for IR specialists.  

The National Investor Relations Institute was founded in 1969. It is the largest professional investor relations association in the world, with more than 3,000 members. The Canadian Investor Relations Institute was founded in 1997. It has more than 500 members.