December 3, 2025

Which Members of a Public Biotech’s Senior Leadership Team Should Attend Investor Meetings?

It’s always a little odd when a fund manager or buyside analyst arrives at an investor meeting to find him- or herself vastly outnumbered by representatives of a biotech’s management team.

First, not only does it look excessive, it looks expensive. The next time you’re in a crowded investor meeting, look around and try and calculate how much thirty minutes of everyone’s time is collectively worth. That’s the cost of the meeting, not to mention the flights, hotels, or the meeting-room cost.

Second, it begs the question:

“If you are all here… who’s running the business?”

While it’s good to spread the burden of investor meetings among trusted and trained members of your C-suite, the presence of some leadership members can also appear odd. Note also that anyone attending investor meetings needs to be intimately familiar with the company’s current guidance and, just as importantly, what information is not yet in the public domain.

Generally speaking, every biotech investor meeting should include at least two representatives from the company. This is for both legal and pragmatic reasons. By having two company members present, you have two independent accounts of what was said (or not said) should there ever be disagreement. Having two company reps also means that one can be taking contemporaneous notes (usually the questions the investor asks and any company follow-ups that may be necessary) while the other is talking.

And if two is the minimum number of company reps that should be present, I’m going to go out on a limb to say that three is the approximate upper limit – and when it occurs, it’s typically the CEO, CFO and IRO.

It’s also worth noting that not every investor question needs to be answered in a meeting, and that responding, “I’ll get our CMO/CSO to follow-up with you on that,” is a perfectly valid response so long as 90-95% of investor questions are being adequately answered. (I mention this because some CEOs seem to think they need personnel present to answer every investor query that might come up or that somehow their role is diminished if they are not able to personally orchestrate every response).

Here then is a shortlist of C-suite members that I’ve seen attend investor meetings over the years, and their overall appropriateness for investor meetings:

Chief Executive Officer (CEO):


The CEO is the person that everyone wants to talk to. He or she leads the conversation in investor meetings and acts as ringmaster when it comes to soliciting additional commentary from the other company reps present.

As a biotech’s key decision maker and strategy former, they are expected by investors to be able to speak authoritatively, accurately and near-encyclopedically on a company’s operations and prospects.

If CEOs had unlimited time and energy (let me know if you ever find one that does) they should ideally be in every investor meeting. Since they typically don’t, and since not every investor is important enough to allocate time with a CEO, other suitable surrogates are necessary.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO):

Chief among the CEO’s surrogates is his or her right-hand person – the CFO. While he or she isn’t expected to be able to answer the most intimate details of a biotech’s cutting-edge science, they are typically sufficiently versed in the company’s SEC disclosures that they can answer (at a high level) any investor question posed to them. In addition, should an inquiring investor get too technical, the CFO is given the widest possible berth to say, “I’ll come back to you with the answer on that.” 



Investor Relations Officer (IRO):

IROs are often one of the most familiar faces to investors (and analysts) as a typical first point of contact at any biotech. While they aren’t expected to take a leading role in investor meetings, they are often very good at reading the room (while the CEO or CFO is busy presenting or handling Q&A), and at guiding conversations to efficiently answer investor questions. IROs tend to be the chief note-takers in investor meetings and should also prepare their CEO or CFO in advance with background information on investors.

Chief Medical Officer (CMO):

CMOs should be used sparingly for investor meetings and are typically only wheeled out when a biotech is making a major data announcement. Principally, this is because they tend to know far too much about the company’s clinical progress and tend to be less familiar with what has been said publicly. As such, their potential to unwittingly disclose material information is high.

Of course, some CMOs “get it” and make for brilliant company representatives – these are the ones who typically go on to make great CEOs. Nevertheless, maintain a CMO’s scarcity value by using them infrequently in run-of-the-mill investor meetings – that way they can appear especially sage when you have clinical data to announce.

Chief Scientific Officer (CSO):

While CMOs tend to come out of hiding when clinical data is announced, CSOs tend to be unveiled when preclinical data is unveiled. They typically aren’t included in routine investor meetings, but like CMOs they make for useful spokespeople around data readouts or on a company’s IPO roadshow.

Chief Commercial Officer (CCO):

When a biotech has an approved product, or is close to having an approved product, the presence of a CCO in investor meetings is warranted. At this point, investors’ questions are less focused on how a drug works, because the FDA has opined that it does. At such times, CCOs are valued as key company spokespeople and sources of important statistical and anecdotal evidence on therapeutic adoption, positioning, market dynamics and much more.

Chief Legal Officer (CLO) or General Counsel (GC):

The presence of a CLO or GC in investor meetings tends to raise eyebrows. Is this biotech expecting to be sued? Typically, a GC has no role in a company’s investor presentation, nor in Q&A, which makes their presence seem a little nefarious. As such, the presence of a GC in investor meetings tends to put investors a little on edge and stifle what might otherwise be more lighthearted conversation.