IR Strategic Advisors

Jim Flanagan is President and CEO of IR Strategic Advisors, Inc., (IRSA) a Boston-area communications practice providing senior level investor relations and public relations services. As a former CFO, corporate treasurer and Wall Street professional, Jim brings more than 25 years of corporate finance, Wall Street and communications experience to his client engagements.

Jim is an expert on corporate positioning and counsels clients on the development and execution of their overall communications strategy. He leads the firm’s communications expertise on M&A deals, crisis events, corporate restructuring activities, and IPOs. He counsels senior executives and corporate boards on best-practices regarding Sarbanes-Oxley, disclosure, Reg FD and other corporate governance issues.

Jim’s communications approach begins with a strategic view of the client company that identifies the underlying investment value-proposition of a client company. He then develops a broad positioning platform for client companies along with key messages that support that value proposition. From this strategic positioning, he leads the IRSA team to execute highly effective targeting and other investor programs that make client companies a dominant voice and highly visible in their sector. This focused approach has proven successful for dozens of companies ranging from the emerging start-up to the established company needing a communications catalyst to break through the cluttered marketplace.

In his capital market activities Jim has personally raised more than a half billion dollars of capital through numerous equity, debt and project financings. As corporate secretary to the board of a NYSE listed company, Jim gained significant Board and corporate governance experience including takeover defense and he successfully implemented the first Shareholder Rights Plan for a Massachusetts corporation. His financial background encompasses virtually all areas of the accounting/financial disciplines including auditing, budgeting and international operations. He has actively participated in various M&A activities, corporate governance policy issues and crisis communications activities.

Jim is a well-known and respected national speaker on various financial and investor relations topics. He has frequently testified as an expert witness before several Federal and numerous State regulatory agencies on corporate valuation, cost of capital and other issues impacting public companies.

Jim’s Wall Street experience includes time spent with Smith Barney where he consulted on investment management strategies for corporate pension plans where he hired and evaluated investment managers , provided asset allocation studies and risk analysis.

At FitzGerald Communications Jim was a senior vice president and head of the IR practice that he successfully built into a national scope, serving clients from offices in Boston, San Francisco, New York and Washington D.C. His prior corporate affiliations include GTE, The Gillette Company, Primark Corporation and Bay State Gas Company.

During 2004, Jim’s unique corporate and financial market expertise gained recognition when he was engaged as the advisor to a company undertaking its voluntary corporate delisting from the NYSE and simultaneous re-listing on NASDAQ. At the time, this transaction was only the second voluntary delisting from the NYSE in the history of the U.S. financial markets.

Jim’s other noteworthy achievements include an engagement where he was special advisor to the CFO and actively participated in the IPO of the first company to incorporate as a dot.com (Software.com now OpenWave Systems); he counseled, helped brand and participated in the launch and IPO of the first Application Service Provider (ASP). He co-lead the team that successfully launched Paul Allen’s Internet e-learning portal (Click2Learn) – an engagement that included branding, a corporate name change, a business model change and a stock symbol change.

Jim has written numerous articles on corporate finance, disclosure and investor relations and is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars. He has spoken at the Nasdaq Executive Conference series since 1998 on a variety of topics prior to becoming the program’s moderator during 2004.

Jim serves as Chairman of a private endowment and served on the board of directors of a nationally recognized figure skating organization. He served on the advisory board of CCBN, the leading outsourced IR services company until its acquisition by Thomson Financial. Jim was elected President of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI)-Boston Chapter for 1999-2000 and is an active 20-year member of The Financial Executives International (FEI), where he serves on both the Professional Development and Membership Committees. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) where he maintains an active interest in corporate governance issues. Jim is an honors graduate with a degree in finance from Northeastern University in Boston. Jim, his wife Deb, and their two teenage ice skating daughters live in Lexington, MA.