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.
Key Takeaways
(00:00-06:14) Balancing Boardrooms and Bedtime
(08:13-14:07) How Notified Makes Investor and PR Communications Smarter
(16:38-23:12) How Consistent Communication Builds Investor Trust
(23:31-32:41) Making Investor and PR Content Discoverable and Engaging
(34:32-39:34) How PR and IR Are Evolving in the AI Era
(41:45-47:20) How Notified is Shaping the Future of Investor and PR Communications
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1. Balancing Boardrooms and Bedtime
Erik opens up about stepping into the CEO role just as he became a first-time father—a moment he describes as both “a wild ride” and a powerful learning experience. He talks about the importance of presence, explaining how he practices “being present with purpose”—focusing fully on his daughter during family time and on his team during work hours.
Erik also reflects on lessons learned from scaling Notified from 85 employees to more than 1,100 across 17 countries. He shares how leading a larger, more diverse team required him to adapt his management style, build trust, and rely on strong internal networks—skills that now help him as a parent too.
The conversation then shifts to Notified’s acquisition by Equinity (EQ), one of the world’s major share registrars and transfer agents. Erik explains how the merger opens up new opportunities to connect capital markets and communications through an integrated technology platform. By combining EQ’s market intelligence with Notified’s communication tools, the company aims to help investor relations and communications professionals work more strategically and insightfully.
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. (Erik Carlson)
2. How Notified Makes Investor and PR Communications Smarter
Erik explains that while some of Notified’s brands—like GlobeNewswire—are well-known, many people use them without realizing it. He shares the company’s history of growth, acquisitions, and brand changes, and how these experiences helped shape Notified into a one-stop platform for investor relations (IR) and public relations (PR).
Erik breaks down what Notified does for PR and IR teams: distributing news, measuring engagement, targeting the right journalists or investors, and managing events like earnings calls, AGMs, and investor days. He also notes a growing trend where PR and IR teams are overlapping, creating opportunities for more coordinated communication strategies.
Alex and Erik discuss the concept of “atomized content”—breaking reports and documents into smaller, reusable pieces that can be tailored for different audiences and channels, including AI-driven platforms. This approach helps companies maximize the value of their content, reach audiences in context, and build trust rather than just broadcasting messages randomly. They highlight that while Europe may be slightly ahead in using annual reports strategically, there’s still a huge untapped opportunity in the US and Canada to deliver personalized, connected experiences that engage investors and stakeholders more effectively.
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. (Erik Carlson)
3. How Consistent Communication Builds Investor Trust
Erik emphasizes that in investor communications, it’s not enough to grab attention once—you have to earn it and sustain it. That means consistently sharing themes and updates over quarters or even years, creating a story that feels authentic and guided rather than like marketing.
They discuss investor days, explaining that these events are most effective when tied to a major catalyst—like an acquisition, a leadership change, or an industry shift. Investor days serve as a platform to communicate the organization’s strategic vision over the next three to five years, but the key is ensuring the narrative continues long after the event ends. Consistency, authenticity, and repetition are what build trust with investors.
The conversation also highlights storytelling in data-driven industries like life sciences. Even when numbers aren’t fully settled, a clear, repeated narrative can establish credibility and signal progress. Erik notes that in emerging markets, trust is the biggest currency, and the way to earn it is by communicating consistently, showing results, and staying authentic—turning attention into lasting engagement.
4. Making Investor and PR Content Discoverable and Engaging
The speakers discuss the importance of knowing your audience and delivering content in different formats—text, video, summaries, or full reports—so it meets the preferences of different stakeholders, from analysts to retail investors.
Erik highlights how traditional polished content, like LinkedIn videos, isn’t always what drives decisions. Analysts often want key takeaways upfront and content that’s structured and easy to parse. The conversation shifts to AI search and content discoverability, emphasizing that press releases—structured, authoritative, and timely—are now powerful tools to influence AI-driven search results. PDFs, on the other hand, are often poorly indexed, so companies need HTML, JSON, and semantic metadata to make content AI-friendly.
They also explore how companies must think differently about content for humans versus algorithms. Press releases, when optimized, can quickly generate hundreds of AI citations, giving PR and IR teams direct visibility into influence. Overall, the discussion shows how storytelling, structured data, and multi-format delivery are reshaping how organizations communicate, earn attention, and build trust in the digital and AI-driven age.
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. (Erik Carlson)
5. How PR and IR Are Evolving in the AI Era
The speakers discuss the idea of “translation”—not just between languages, but into a format that large language models (LLMs) can understand while still retaining a human touch. Erik highlights that human-created content still dominates search rankings, with AI-generated content complementing it to optimize for discoverability.
The conversation then turns to the challenge of demonstrating value in PR and IR. While IR teams can often link actions to stock movement or investor behavior, PR traditionally relies on softer influence metrics like reach or media placements. Erik explains that AI citations now allow PR teams to measure real impact, showing how content drives consumption, brand perception, and engagement rather than just visibility.
They also explore how AI is reshaping the marketing funnel. LLMs increasingly respond to prompts about everyday human experiences, recommending brands even when there’s no purchase intent. This creates new opportunities for PR to demonstrate measurable influence, turning content into a driver of real-world actions. The discussion emphasizes that strategically optimized content, both human- and AI-friendly, can now deliver clear, attributable value, helping communicators prove their impact to CEOs and CMOs alike.
Human-created content still matters.
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. (Erik Carlson)
6. How Notified is Shaping the Future of Investor and PR Communications
Erik explains that knowing who your shareholders are—and understanding their behavior—lets companies tailor communications for long-term engagement. By combining share registry data with targeted outreach, Notified helps clients identify which investors to involve in key events, like investor days, and how to shape the story they hear. This approach moves beyond simply delivering messages to guiding the dialogue and providing actionable insights, making IR teams more strategic and effective.
The conversation concludes with a forward-looking perspective. Erik envisions Notified as the default toolset for PR and IR professionals, not just because of its technology, but because it helps users tell stories that influence behavior, build trust, and achieve measurable outcomes. Using the lens of explaining it to his daughter, Erik emphasizes simplicity, clarity, and impact—ensuring that both shareholders and audiences understand the story being told. The episode highlights the shift from communication as a channel to communication as a strategic, insight-driven tool for growth and engagement.
Check the episode's Transcript (AI-generated) HERE.
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