The end of the year is a time for reflection, of course, but this year it feels like there are a few more reasons to celebrate.
That might be because I’m fresh off the plane from our events in Hong Kong and Singapore, where we held the IR Magazine Forum & Awards for Greater China and South East Asia, respectively.
It may also be because we are celebrating success of our very own, after two of our journalists were recognized at the recent Aviva Investors Sustainability Media Awards for their work on ESG-related pieces.
Our deputy editor Garnet Roach was highly commended in the social article of the year category for her piece about the rise of ESG-skeptic voting policies among investors, while Noemi Distefano – our superstar reporter who, I’m sad to report, has left us for a new role this month – won the award for policy and regulation article of the year for achieving the impossible task of summing up the implications of CSRD for corporate reporters in under 2,000 words.
As their colleague, it makes me very proud to see both of them rightly recognized for their excellent reporting. We here at IR Magazine pride ourselves on having a small but mighty team that manages to keep abreast of a growing, ever-changing industry.
I think many of our readers will feel sympathy for the fact that most of the hard work of being a journalist is not something that is always richly rewarded. Often you can spend months working on a story only for the goalposts to shift, or for a key source to drop out, or for someone else to beat you to the story and take all the glory.
Those in IR may not be pipped to the post in quite the same way, but I know that everyone in the function puts in endless, thankless hours of work that go unnoticed. Until the IR Magazine awards roll into town, of course!
As we handed out our golden trophies in Hong Kong and Singapore, I was struck by how many winners noted that IR is a strictly team sport. There were no teary-eyed monologues about all the hard work that an individual had put in; instead, there were heartfelt messages of thanks to IR colleagues, sustainability teams or corporate reporting staff. Many thanked their CEO and CFO, or their boards.
One winner – Kevin Leung, IR director at China Resources Beer, invited everyone in the audience to enjoy some beer over Christmas. It’s a tough challenge, but one I’m willing to take on for the sake of good relations…
At any rate, as we start to wrap things up for the end of the year, I want to send a hearty congratulations to all of our winners from around the world. I'm looking forward to seeing what you get up to next year.
Speaking of which, keep your eyes firmly glued on IR Magazine over the festive period. We have some very exciting things to unwrap for you all next year.
What have you been celebrating this festive season? Let us know, either on LinkedIn or via email at [email protected].
Laurie Havelock
Laurie has been part of the IR Magazine team for more than a decade, starting out as a reporter and research editor before becoming editor in 2023. He was previously acting business editor at the i newspaper and deputy business editor at The Daily...
