Hello and welcome to our new podcast series Centre Stage. I'm Ben Shaw, a director and part of the coaching team at Bladenmoor. In Centre Stage, we'll tackle the issues that business communicators face, from investor and brand communications to ESG to employee engagement.

In each episode we'll be joined by guest speakers from a range of industries to hear what they think works,

how they solve problems and what they see as the latest trends.

In our first episode, we're focusing on investor relations, which I spend a large amount of my time working on,

often supporting clients communicate financial results and explain their businesses at Capital Markets Days.

Our first guest is John Smelt, currently head of corporate affairs at Petra Pavlosk,

and a founder of the IR Consultancy Scout Advisory.

John has also spent many years as head of IR at Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest mining companies with a market cap currently

just under £100 billion. As you're here in our conversation, John doesn't pull any punches on what the

challenges of IR are and what people need to do to be successful.

Hope you enjoy it.

John Smelt, head of corporate affairs at Petro Pavlosk and the founder of Scout Advisory and IR Advisory firm.

You have been around the block in investor relations. You've worked at some mid-sized

businesses and also at very large corporates, notably Rio Tinto. How is IR changing? Where is the

process of explaining and selling the shares going right now.

You're right, Ben. I am quite old. And I have been found the block a few times. But I'll take it as a

compliment. Experience. You're experienced, John. It's changed a lot. You know, I think it's gone from being a sort of fringe activity to being much more central to the way a lot of the companies think.

Because it's not just about putting out material. It's about whether that activity is a central part of how

you actually think about your business and how you make decisions in terms of your relationship

with the providers of capital. And at its best, that that's what it's developed into, whereas I think

it was originally just a different way of putting out a press release.

For anyone who spent any time thinking about IR, there is a piece of legislation from the EU

...