See show notes for this episode: S 02 | Ep 12 What Leadership Looks Like When Trust Is Your Currency
0:00:03 – Alex Shevelenko
All right, you have to click the accept button. Good, okay, great. I'm going to click clap to let my team know we’re starting. Welcome to Experience-Focused Leaders. I am delighted to introduce Erik Carlson, president and CEO of Notified, a leading technology partner for investor relations, public relations, and all communications professionals. He brings over 15 years of experience in private equity, M&A, strategic finance, and, most recently—as we discussed—Erik has just become a dad right after becoming a CEO.
0:00:48 – Erik Carlson
Welcome to the pod, Erik.
Thank you, thank you, Alex. I think the last of those is the most important promotion.
0:00:56 – Alex Shevelenko
Well, that's why we figured we should start where it matters. But let's begin with the combination: you’re a brand-new CEO. Fortunately, you’ve led various other functions at Notified before, so it’s not a completely new start. And now you’re also a brand-new dad. How do you juggle this? I think everybody wants to figure this out. Even fathers and mothers among us maybe weren’t CEOs of a large organization when they had a baby.
So maybe let’s describe the size of Notified, the scale, and your experiences juggling these two “magical” roles.
0:01:44 – Erik Carlson
I’d be kidding anyone if I said that after three short months I’ve completely figured it out. It’s been a wild ride, a wild journey, and certainly an adjustment. Anyone who’s not a parent, regardless of the advice people give you, cannot be fully prepared for the day your child is born—when everything changes.
Looking back at my career, I’ll give you an analogy. I’ve held a lot of leadership positions over the last 10 years. I remember one of the most naive assumptions I made when I was CFO and took on a broader role as COO around 2021. I was already managing a global organization of about 85, and at the time, I was going to take on another 500 individuals in global operations. Today, we’re about 1,100 globally across 17 countries. I remember saying to someone, “Well, I’ve managed 85; I can manage 500.” In reality, that was a huge mistake.
Not only was the workforce much more geographically diverse, but I also had to change my style and how I engaged with employees. Working with people who have an accounting or finance background—while not everyone is the same—they tend to be financially minded and fit within a certain box. Scaling beyond that and tailoring my management style to a broader, deeper, and more diverse group was a big learning experience.
That formative time in scaling professionally revolved around trusting people and centering myself among those I really trusted. They served as a conduit, a voice, and a translation layer between my strategy and how it resonated at the ground level.
The parallel to becoming a dad is clear: you need a trusted network. At the end of the day, the person I couldn’t do it without is my wife. But having family and friends nearby, and being able to lean on colleagues so I can make a conscious effort to shut down at six o’clock in the evening, make it home for bath time and the last bottle, makes a huge difference. I feel fortunate.
We waited a long time to have kids, partly to create a support network. When I did have a child, I felt ready to step in and be truly present. I’m still practicing “presence with purpose.” When I’m home, I focus on those two or three evening hours to bond with my daughter. When I’m at work, I’m fully at work. It’s about being present with purpose and building a network you can rely on. That’s been my learning so far, but I’m still figuring it out—90 days in.
0:05:00 – Alex Shevelenko
That’s brilliant. I think we assume as parents that we help our kids grow up. My realization after three kids and playing a relatively minor role—aside from the initial stages—is that the beautiful thing about being a parent…
0:05:27 – Erik Carlson
…is it helps you grow up, 100 percent. I read a Harvard Business Review article recently that it’s better to work for CEOs with daughters. I’ve asked my team if they’ve seen a difference. Apparently not yet—but it’s early days, so we’ll see.
0:05:46 – Alex Shevelenko
I love your energy—it’s great. Let’s talk about your “baby,” Notified. You’ve joined the bigger family. I’ve met the CEO of EQ. Tell us a little about that acquisition, and what opportunities and challenges you see.
0:06:14 – Erik Carlson
I’ll approach this two ways. First, the excitement about the market fit. To be honest, Equinity isn’t a very well-known brand in the US. That’s an opportunity for us. It’s one of the largest of two primary share registers and transfer agents in the world—they power the public markets. They ensure shares are delivered and share plans are administered properly.
What’s exciting is the overlap with a company that powers capital markets and public markets, and the communication solutions we provide, which engage those markets. We start to build a compelling view of what an integrated, single-pane-of-glass experience can mean for buyers. Ultimately, what matters is how the market sees it.
I’ve been encouraged by conversations with IR professionals and CFOs in the first 30–60 days after Equinity acquired us. They see the combination of Notified and EQ as a single provider with intelligence on who owns shares, who to target, and the ability to act on that—through investor targeting, intelligence, and tailored communications.
It’s still early days. We’re in the midst of forming culture and building our story. But I believe 2026 will be transformative, not only for our business but for the market, as we bring these advancements and integrations to life.
0:08:13 – Alex Shevelenko
And for those in our audience who are not as familiar with Notified, there are some brands you own that they might recognize. Can you introduce these to us and give a little backstory—where you were part of a broader ecosystem, other players in the space—so people can understand how important they are?
0:08:35 – Erik Carlson
You know, maybe people are using them but aren’t aware of it, which is a great point. It’s something we continue to work on—building brand awareness in the marketplace. Look, I was the CFO of Notified for five or six years when we went through three brand changes. Nobody appreciates that disruption like I do, because I had to do the paperwork.
0:08:55 – Alex Shevelenko
And with three different branding agencies, no less.
0:09:00 – Erik Carlson
Exactly—branding agencies, changes in legal entities. We became a bit of a joke in the marketplace for a long time. But that’s what happens when you’re owned by a holding company and private equity—there are dynamic changes. I think we’ve landed on the brand, and we’re now really focusing on building awareness. I appreciate the question.
You mentioned we’re a leading IR and PR communications provider. But what does that really mean? We serve two primary buyers: public relations and investor relations. We’ve built this over the years on world-class assets acquired from a number of organizations. There’s heritage in this business from legacy NASDAQ, Thomson Reuters, and MarketWire in Canada.
What we’re endeavoring to do is take the GlobeNewswire brand, which many recognize, and build on that heritage to offer a broader communication solution. For PR, that means not just distributing over the wire, but thinking strategically about how to take core content and distribute it more widely—meeting audiences where they are. It also means providing PR measurement and media contact databases so that you can target journalists effectively.
On the IR side, it’s everything you need to communicate with the market. Practically, that means we support 4,200 customers. We deliver IR website hosting and provide content strategy. We manage earnings events, AGMs, investor days, and regulatory filings—including press releases related to earnings announcements, director announcements, and other corporate communications. We aim to be a one-stop shop covering both PR and IR.
I continue to be bullish about the combination because we’re starting to see those teams work much more closely together. In fact, I met a client last week who has taken on a dual role in CorpComms and IR. That’s becoming more common in both industries.
0:11:06 – Alex Shevelenko
I agree. And for the sake of some of the Relay2AI customers listening, one reason I’m excited to have Erik on the call is that Notified powers IR sites for some of our shared customers. For example, a customer may have an annual report or a sustainability/ESG report. They want to leverage Notified’s infrastructure, but they also want more than a downloadable PDF—they want an AI-ready, more engaging, richer experience that is discoverable by AI answer agents like Perplexity or OpenAI. That’s how it delivers more value.
We don’t want to host the entire IR website or provide the full range of services that Notified does—that’s the fit.
And, as you mentioned, Erik, IR and PR teams sometimes overlap. They talk to each other, and there’s often someone in branding who sets the standards. Those people are also our customers. They might start with the annual report because it’s the most important document, then move to a branding report for their PR and brand story narrative. Running both through the system creates natural synergy. Once you have people supporting both functions, it works really well. We see this happening in the market.
0:13:02 – Erik Carlson
I totally agree. Before we even jumped on the podcast, we talked about the big synergy between our organizations, and also the opportunity. There’s so much work put into annual reports, and any of your listeners or customers know that better than anyone. The reality is that our industry is not taking full advantage of all that work.
Being able to chunk or splice the content into atomized pieces for campaigns, or to reach audiences in different places—whether that’s a social card for LinkedIn, more engagement on an earnings call, an investor day, or an AGM—is largely untapped. In the US and Canada, this is a real white-space opportunity. Europeans may be a little further ahead because of a longer focus on annual reports, but this remains a greenfield opportunity in the industry.
0:14:07 – Alex Shevelenko
Well, look, having worked with some Europeans, I think there’s still plenty of opportunity around the world.
They invest more, maybe in certain themes. I love that you brought up the word atomized content. I don’t think people in non-regulated industries care as much about that, but those of us who serve this market realize there’s an interesting challenge: how do you deliver something deeply personalized and relevant to a particular individual at a particular point in time? Right, no-brainer, right?
But then, if that is a random piece of content, isolated from everything else—just an image somewhere—and you can’t do anything with it, you’re hoping and praying that someone somehow downloads that PDF, saves that image, and remembers it. The opposite is: what if it’s connected, in the broader context and tissue of your IR site or report? Then you’re not only able to get attention and relevance, but you can say, “Okay, we take that little piece of attention. If you’re interested, we extend it, draw you in, and create a richer experience.” We get more mind share, tell more of our equity story or brand story.
I somehow fear that when corporate folks try to mimic what’s happening on TikTok or in consumer marketing, they’re missing an important beat: you’re supposed to build trust. You’re not just supposed to get a message out there and spray-and-pray that it works over time. Your audience is so valuable that any ounce of their attention is priceless. I feel like there’s still a gap in people figuring that out. What’s your take on that?
0:16:38 – Erik Carlson
Yeah, I think that’s true. We also have to remember that the audience most of us are engaging with in our community is more discerning. Some may see TikTok-type content and automatically dismiss it. The real art is figuring out how to earn that engagement, how to get attention—and then, when you earn it, what do you do with it?
From a communications or investor management strategy perspective, you need consistent themes across two quarters, four quarters, or three years—signposts that say, “I got your attention on this. You’re now engaged with my brand, my equity as an issuer.”
Then you pull them back to the story you’ve been telling authentically, in a trusted way, quarter over quarter. It shouldn’t feel like marketing—it should feel like you’re guiding people toward the organization’s strategy. That repetition, authenticity, and authority builds trust. We set targets—whether three-year or five-year plans—and communicate transparently and consistently. Investors see updates, maybe flashier ones to re-engage them, but the story is the same: we’re executing our strategic roadmap. That promise of delivery and execution builds long-term investors.
0:18:20 – Alex Shevelenko
Absolutely. One thing I’d love your take on: how are you thinking about investor days?
0:18:29 – Erik Carlson
I always…
0:18:29 – Alex Shevelenko
I think this is where you launch a five- or ten-year plan. Typically, that’s the opportunity to really show the depth of the organization. You fly out all your executive team members, pay your designers and agency teams, and make slides consistent across 250-page assets.
You can’t do them every six months or every quarter because it’s a huge investment, and sometimes they fade away. You’re doing some interesting things to bring them to life. What’s your take on how people think about ROI around that investment? How can we help leverage it further? I feel like it’s one of those good-intention efforts, but I’m not always sure it works as well as it could for the market.
0:19:40 – Erik Carlson
Yeah. The investor days that stand out are usually tied to a catalyst or major change—a springboard to bring people together or signal a new chapter. That could be M&A, a new CEO, a new leadership team, or a tectonic industry shift.
It ties back to what we discussed about engagement. You’re spending a tremendous amount of money—especially in-person—to bring people together from all over the world. You’re telling the story of why change is necessary, what’s happened, and where you’re going. By the end of the event, attendees should understand the value creation drivers and levers over a three- or five-year horizon.
The key is ensuring that narrative doesn’t die with the event. KPIs might change, but the themes should remain consistent. This cohesion allows you to tell a story that builds trust and shows execution over time.
0:21:18 – Alex Shevelenko
So that’s a framing. You’re basically setting the frame for the story. And why people love a story—even investors—we’re all people.
0:21:28 – Erik Carlson
Exactly. At the end of the day, we want a story, we want a why. We’ve all seen Simon Sinek talk about starting with why. We want to know it will end well. We want a happy and good ending. Starting with what that ending is—what you’ve accomplished as a foundational part of the strategy—gets you closer to your five- or ten-year vision.
That’s another great reason to bring people into the room: celebrate a win, but also refocus on the work left to achieve the rest of the strategic journey.
0:22:15 – Alex Shevelenko
It’s funny when I reflect on where we were starting out, getting a lot of inbound interest even when we weren’t actively looking to talk to anyone. We saw a huge pain point for organizations in life sciences. Why?
Because they don’t have the numbers. Right? And so they really need a much deeper story. They still need to provide evidence for the more technical, scientific investors—people who need to know, because that’s an industry where evidence really matters. But storytelling is a super critical skill.
If we were able to abstract, because you can’t always control the numbers—though you can try at times—there’s a lot of interesting work that can be done there. Still, the underlying narrative is where the premium and alpha opportunity can lie until the numbers are fully worked out.
0:23:12 – Erik Carlson
I totally agree. In any emerging industry, your biggest currency is trust. And how do you build trust? By telling the same story over and over, with things you can point to to show progress, being consistent, building authenticity, and communicating directly—which, it sounds like, Relay2 is a big part of.
0:23:31 – Alex Shevelenko
I think one of the things we’ve talked about—what you’re working on and what we’re working on in parallel—is making that story multimodal. Making it fit different needs. You brought up the point that you need to know who your shareholders are. It sounds obvious: start with the audience and work backward. But companies have guidelines and stories that tend to be internally driven.
Some people want a snippet at a certain time. Others want the broader story. Some want video, some want text. Some prefer linear content, and some know exactly what they want. Absolutely, some don’t want linear because that’s a waste of their time—they’re like “Control-F gurus” in the old world.
So there’s this variety of learning styles. That seems like a big part of your approach: providing different mediums across PR and IR for your audience.
0:24:50 – Erik Carlson
Yeah, it has to be. We’ll talk a bit about the shift from SEO to AEO or AI search, but there are a couple of reasons for this. A lot of times, the biggest fallacy is thinking that polished content—like amplified video on a LinkedIn company page—is enough. That’s really geared toward the retail investor.
Does the retail investor really move the needle? Shouldn’t you focus on the analysts? Those five to ten people who call after an earnings call and dive into the details. So why do you need polished content?
When we pull attendees of conference calls—which are mostly analysts—about 80% want key takeaways ahead of the call. They want to know there’s a deck, five slides, or visuals appended to a press release or earnings announcement. That acts as a guidepost for what the company believes are core KPIs and statistics.
Beyond that, AI search matters more than ever. Making sure your content is visible across channels that rank higher or lower in AI search is critical. Traditional SEO doesn’t guarantee visibility in this new world. If you’re not evolving your communication strategy, you’re going to be left behind.
0:27:17 – Alex Shevelenko
Yeah. Well, let’s dive into AI search.
0:27:23 – Erik Carlson
Yeah.
0:27:24 – Alex Shevelenko
We obviously see it from a Relayto perspective. Even in old-school search, nobody’s figured out how to properly extract data from PDFs. Claims aside, nobody’s really figured out how to turn them into HTML without it being a messy, “blobby” output. It’s a loss. And it’s even more of a problem in the new world.
This is something we’re very excited about. You’ve been pushing the press release as a natural tool—especially interesting to reflect on given you just had a daughter three months ago.
0:28:16 – Erik Carlson
I’m the last generation that grew up without the internet. Think about the change in our lifetime: we went from libraries to digitized libraries we could search in Google. Now, we’re moving beyond search entirely. Essentially, you have a virtual librarian or agent that pulls the information and serves the content to you.
The opportunity—and the risk—is that the content served might not always be the most appropriate based on what you’ve published as a brand. To optimize this, you have to consider a few drivers today: authority, structure, recency, freshness, originality.
Press releases score highly on authority and structured data. People don’t always realize that AI and LLMs prioritize content types differently. Encyclopedic content ranks high. Ownership matters: is it on a company website, syndicated to blogs, etc.? Newswire is a high-authority property due to editorial review. Structured data, clean declarative sentences, punchy—not verbose—links, references—all matter.
We’ve focused on what the machine or LLM wants to ingest. PDFs are problematic, so we’ve structured JSON and HTML data for optimal ingestion. Metadata, semantic URLs, personalized tags—all are crucial. Make sure your press release provider puts the headline in the URL, because that affects discoverability.
We’ve been impressed by how often press releases are cited quickly. Our exclusive partnership with Profound—a leading brand perception tool for AI search—allows PR and IR professionals to track exactly how often a release is cited in AI models.
In just 30 days, the average number of citations in the first 24–48 hours for some releases is between 250 and 300. Practically, that means your press release influences at least 250–300 search results interactions. For PR professionals, that direct attribution is refreshing; it’s no longer a nebulous scoreboard of views or reach.
It’s an exciting time for the industry. We continue to push forward, ensuring PR professionals can take advantage of this new landscape.
0:32:41 – Alex Shevelenko
I love it. A couple of quick observations. So, there’s another Shevelenko—my brother, Dimitri, is the Chief Business Officer at Perplexity. One interesting thing, watching their growth closely, is that their biggest initial value proposition was literally going and saying, “We’re just going to search through trusted sources.” And they’ve done such a great job with it that I think everybody else had to copy that. OpenAI is doing that too, maybe to a lesser degree.
So, the press release powered by Eric and his team is actually that trusted source, as we discussed.
One of the interesting things we’ve noticed, from day zero, is that there are almost two audiences for any content. There’s what you send to the AI algorithms, which is very different from what you send to humans. We send a different file to Google, Bing, Brave, or whoever the scrapers are, than the one we’re consuming ourselves. Humans need one thing, algorithms need another.
Yes, there is some overlap, and it’s great when that happens. Smart people inside these organizations measure real engagement, real consumption, real investment. So you have to consider both. But it is interesting that you need to do that legwork. You’re absolutely right: some mediums are just better suited to provide value to both machines and humans.
0:34:32 – Erik Carlson
Yeah, I agree. Everybody needs to think of it as another form of translation. We’ve all done communication plans where the base is in English, but we’re translating to French. We need to think about how to translate into the “language” that an LLM understands.
0:34:47 – Alex Shevelenko
How do you translate it with love?
0:34:52 – Erik Carlson
Exactly—
0:34:53 – Alex Shevelenko
As someone married to a French woman, I get to make fun of that a little. But it’s absolutely right. There’s almost a “je ne sais quoi”—the human touch, which is one translation. Then there’s the other translation, which is how you make machines understand it perfectly, so they don’t have to think too hard and trust the source. Human-created content still matters.
0:35:15 – Erik Carlson
In fact, I was looking at a study this morning from Graphite for Axions. In 2025, the amount of human-curated content matches the amount of AI-generated content, which is interesting. What human-curated content still has an edge on is quality: 86% of content ranking in Google is still written by humans. So it still matters—people want authentic, human-generated content.
But there are ways to leverage AI-generated content, which might be partial, to optimize for LLMs. Thinking about that ecosystem and tailoring your communication strategy really matters.
0:36:07 – Alex Shevelenko
On that note, we’re talking about corporate storytellers. What are opportunities to drive real impact? One thing that worries me as a CEO—and someone who’s helped launch public listings for companies like SuccessFactors—is that PR and IR teams sometimes struggle to communicate the value of their work.
Many PR folks come from English or communications backgrounds. IR is a little different, but there’s often less focus on dollars-and-cents. I’m a huge believer that when something is done professionally, it lifts analyst perception. If a company’s annual report is amazing, even the most skeptical analysts will buy into the story—even if, officially, they say it doesn’t matter. Everyone is biased; we’re all human.
Compared to, maybe, sales use cases, the average PR professional often struggles to justify the value of their investment. How do we help them? How do we help them demonstrate impact?
0:37:56 – Erik Carlson
I totally agree. I’ll start with PR, because I think PR is further away from directly demonstrating value. IR can, over time, correlate stock movement with an earnings call or track how targeted interactions move ownership metrics. Those are relatively hard metrics.
PR has traditionally been softer—an influence metric. The scoreboard is changing. Previously, we measured nebulous statistics like potential reach or eyeballs, which were often inflated. Just because a message lands at a journalist or earns media placement doesn’t measure engagement.
For the first time, PR professionals have a real opportunity to shift marketing dollars toward PR. Clear attribution from AI citations makes that possible. At the end of the day, AI is a consumption model: the answers that AI models provide guide consumption and brand perception.
0:39:27 – Alex Shevelenko
In fact, one of the statistics I saw basically confirms it: the funnel is broken, right?
0:39:34 – Erik Carlson
The funnel is changing. It’s shifting. People are asking questions that have no purchase intent whatsoever. A statistic I heard at an event about two weeks ago said roughly 40% of all prompt responses return a brand. The example used was someone complaining about a breakup—something entirely non-commercial.
If you do prompt engineering around relationship breakups, 25% or more of responses were recommending or representing brands as part of the solution.
These LLMs are taking consumption to a whole new level—taking human issues and emotions and trying to satisfy them by pointing to brands and influencing consumer behavior.
The impact of PR—through Newswire, high domain authority, and owned channels, which all sit under PR today—is much larger on company performance. You’re actually driving consumption rather than generating nebulous brand perception, where traditional marketing or SEO merely created reference points.
Practitioners and providers in the space need to build a new scoreboard for where the game is going: demonstrating the linkage between citations and purchase, or content and citations. That way, someone can walk into the CMO’s or CEO’s office and say: “Look, I did this content piece. It resulted in all these citations. Because of that share of voice, we’re now driving more inbound traffic and increasing top-of-funnel metrics.”
0:41:45 – Alex Shevelenko
Got it. Okay, that’s point one. Now, shifting to IR… you’re lucky if you’re lucky, you’re absolutely right.
0:41:52 – Erik Carlson
You get that direct relationship.
0:41:54 – Alex Shevelenko
Certainly on the communication side, it’s not as clear-cut, which is probably our bias. But you’ve had this interesting insight: through the combination with the community, you can get a much better understanding of who the shareholders are. Then you can say: “We want to retain these shareholders. Maybe we want to shift to a different, longer-term base,” and adjust communications accordingly.
Is that message still new for the market to grasp? Is it really landing?
0:42:36 – Erik Carlson
I certainly remember that being a big, important factor for us.
0:42:39 – Alex Shevelenko
When we were establishing a SaaS category, we were very particular about which shareholders would be right for us. That mattered, and we were mostly flying blind in terms of how to deliver that. What’s your take?
0:42:55 – Erik Carlson
Flying blind is a consistent theme. I’m very excited about what gives us an edge: we’ll be the only provider with real-time share registry and ownership data. We can combine that with personalized outreach, audience targeting, and tailored communications.
Today, people often use services that are directional at best, without comparing or using information from their TA or registry. We hope to take that core data and, with ownership intelligence and advisory on top, be a partner to issuers. If the objective is long-term holdings or shifting to a long-term base, we can identify who to target and adjust the communication strategy.
For example, if you’re trying to attract a long-term investor with a significant position, they should be part of an investor day. That gives them guideposts and chapters of the story we discussed. If you’re targeting short-term positions, that’s a very different model.
I’m excited because this lets us guide the dialogue and shape the communication strategy. We’ve always owned the pipes to deliver communication, but now we provide context and help professionals create content that will be distributed through those pipes. My goal is to move from being a reliable communications partner to an irreplaceable insights provider—a trusted partner and advisor to the IR office. By doing so, we hope to demonstrate higher ROI for IR teams, which encourages them to invest more in solutions that deliver measurable value.
0:45:11 – Alex Shevelenko
As we wrap up, let’s imagine 10 years from now—your daughter’s 10th birthday. What will Notified have accomplished? How would she describe it in her own words?
0:45:29 – Erik Carlson
“What has my daddy done to help build Notified and the IR/PR function for the future?” I love that lens. I tell everyone: if you can’t explain something simply to a child, you don’t really understand it.
At the end of the day, it’s about crafting, targeting, and delivering a story that shareholders and your audience want to understand—one that achieves your desired outcome as an issuer or company. It’s about finding the audience, telling the story in their words, meeting them where they are, and influencing behavior to drive growth, build a shareholder base, or increase brand perception. Ten years from now, I hope Notified is seen as the default solution—not because we have the best pipes or brand, but because we provide a toolset that helps users achieve their goals quickly, efficiently, and with purpose.
0:46:41 – Alex Shevelenko
Beautiful. If your daughter learns from you, she’ll probably get a lot of toys—lots of Mattel products—and whatever else she’s interested in. Thank you so much for joining us. How can people find you and Notified and engage with your services?
0:46:56 – Erik Carlson
Visit us at www.notified.com. Connect with me on LinkedIn—I’m an active voice in PR, IR, and the AI community. I’m looking forward to broadening and expanding my network. Alex, thank you for having me on today’s podcast—I look forward to connecting and grabbing a bite when you’re in New York next.
0:47:20 – Alex Shevelenko
It’s been a treat.