Success Story:

About CSX

CSX Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, is one of the leading rail-based freight transportation suppliers. Their transportation network serves some of the largest population centers in the nation, and nearly two-thirds of Americans live within CSX’s service territory. CSX moves a broad portfolio of products across the country in a way that minimizes the effect on the environment, takes traffic off an already congested highway system, and minimizes fuel consumption and transportation costs. 

For a company of its size–a $65 billion market cap and over 23,000 full-time employees—the IR team is small but mighty. With a lean team, the CSX IR team leverages its expertise and focuses on efficiency. A critical requirement of their IR software and service partners is the quality of support and service they provide. 

Meet CSX’s Senior Manager of Investor Relations

Seth Rosenwasser is the Senior Manager of Investor Relations at CSX and joined the company in September 2023. Prior to his role at CSX, Seth was a Senior Analyst in the Investor Relations Advisory at Nasdaq for over nine years, supporting issuers in developing IR programs and expanding outreach through targeting, surveillance, roadshow planning, and overall IR strategy. 

Making the switch to Irwin

The CSX team was looking for an IR solution that would make navigating their data and interactions less cumbersome. They undertook the search for partners that would not only provide a better user experience but also streamline their IR workflows.

“I have a lot of experience in the software platform world for IR, and ease of navigation is really important. The IR software market is a nascent space, but it has big players. It would be difficult to mold any of those solutions into the way you want it to work. Irwin is a product that started small and has really focused heavily on user feedback from actual IROs. We wanted to work with a company that is really focusing on user experience as opposed to it’s legacy system and what it became many years ago.”

The team was also looking for a provider that would listen to and act on their feedback and partner in building an IR platform tailored to the needs of a modern IRO.

“One of the interesting things we came to understand in the evaluation process is that with Irwin being a growth-focused company, our feedback would be taken more seriously and we would have more sway in how the product continues to develop. If you join a legacy product, it feels like your feedback can go into the abyss and really cool features you think would benefit everybody might go unnoticed. Even since switching to Irwin, I’ve seen numerous changes implemented in the product—so as a user, it feels like you have an impact.”

Time savings are essential for a small team

Managing the day-to-day of IR, a full schedule of events and roadshows, extensive sell-side coverage, and earnings prep and execution, the team at CSX needs a powerful toolset to make the most of their time.

“We’re very effective at what we do, but we need really good tools to help because we don’t have a tremendous amount of free time to sit and pontificate and make data work for us. We want solutions that do some of that work for us so we have a running start.”

The importance of high-quality data 

The strength of an IR CRM is largely built in the quality of the database–something that was very important to the IR team at CSX.

“One of the things I find really critical is the freshness of data. In the hedge fund community, people are switching shops every day–it’s constant movement. When I receive a notification or an email, all I have to do is send the details to the Irwin team, and within the same day that feedback is taken and it’s changed on the back end.”

The responsiveness from the Irwin team allows CSX to ensure their records are properly updated, ensuring an accurate database that keeps up with the investment community. 

Easy access to peer insight

The ability to analyze peer holdings easily is critical to CSX and IR within the railroad industry. Only a small group of public companies make up the backbone of the economy–an essential part of the global supply-chain infrastructure. For the IR team at CSX, having a pulse on peer activity is extremely influential within their IR program: 

“The peer information in Irwin allows our team to have easy access to an overview of what’s happening in the railroad industry. Pulling up an investor automatically tells me what they hold, if they hold our peers and that’s been a big help because otherwise, I would have to go down a multi-click journey to figure that out on my own”

A message to IR teams considering Irwin

“For firms that have experienced IR professionals, or those new to the role, the benefit with Irwin is that they’re extremely focused on the product evolution which is meaningful for real IR professionals.”