The Suit Magazine

For close to twenty years, Lisa Ciota has honed her skills at one of the most successful enterprises in the world, McDonald’s Corporation—a company that certainly knows how to get its message across. 

 As Director of Investor Relations for McDonald’s and the CFO’s lead communications specialist, Ciota was in a key position, steering the production of several award-winning annual reports and crafting the CFO’s messages for key presentations.  And her range of expertise extended even further than that; she was a member of the capital structure team, which analyzed cash flow projections and recommended dividend and cash returns to shareholders.   

 “I saw that investor relations was my forte— requiring a unique combination of technical, strategic and creative skills,” Ciota said in her interview with The Suit Magazine.  “So I went out on a limb. During my time at McDonald’s, I had seen opportunities out there, but I was not quite ready.”  That changed in 2010, when she made the leap and started her own firm, Strategic & Investor Communications.  

 The firm, which works with publicly traded small to mid-cap ($1 billion to $10 billion in market capitalization) companies, covers the gamut of investor and shareholder relations functions:  investor relations, financial communications, C-suite executive speeches and script writing, annual reports, corporate social responsibility, socially responsible investing, and retail investing.  “The basic skills of investor relations are transferable across industries,” she said.  So her company has the ability to service multiple types of businesses.  
She explained that presenting information to the shareholder or investor involves more than the traditional reiteration of facts; it’s an art.  “You have to tell the story in a credible and transparent manner, but transparency does not mean you have to overwhelm the investor with immaterial information,” she said. 
At the same time, Ciota is dealing with serious issues.  “You have to communicate complex ideas to corporate managers and investors,” she explained.  In face-to-face meetings, or leading a webinar, her self-confidence and fortitude are essential elements in the mix.  She added, “One of my former bosses told me, ‘don’t underestimate what you bring to the table, and keep that in mind when you negotiate.’”

 What Ciota brings to the table is her training, experience and knowledge, as well as a winning personality.  Prior to working at McDonald’s, Ciota earned a BS in finance at the University of Illinois and an MBA at Northern Illinois University.  After that, Ciota cut her teeth in the banking and financial service industries for seven years.  “I ended up in bank operations doing stock distribution and proxy tabulations,” she said.  But that did not satisfy her ambition and talent, and her subsequent performance at McDonald’s attests to her attributes. 

 Ciota has now brought those tools to bear in Strategic & Investor Communications, her own vision of corporate communications.  It was a risky move, but Ciota has made a name for herself as a successful entrepreneur in a shaky economy; now, her award-winning services are available to a wider audience. 

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