James Armstrong Email and Phone Number

Senior investment relations, finance, and communications executive with significant experience in the paper-based packaging industry. Built a reputation for creating strong, trusted relationships, excellent presentation skills and establishing solid lines of communications both internally and with investors. Brings expertise working in both the structured environment of a large company, as well as in a start-up environment building out strategy and processes from scratch. Uniquely positioned bringing the quant skills of both a financial analyst and a scientist to investor relations.Key Strengths Include:INVESTOR RELATIONS AND COMMUNICATION Drove the transformation of the WestRock Investor relations and communications program into a world class program, reducing volatility and increasing transparency while providing leadership to various internal teams, including finance and business development, while cultivating relationships with both buy-side and sell-side analysts.FINANCIAL ANALYSIS and QUANTITATIVE MODELINGRebuilt over 20 company financial models over a period of a month while in a parallel process analyzing the companies resulting in successfully launching all the companies with significant impact to the market, and strong reception by investors, leading to a profitable franchise within the first year.M&ALed team in preparation of the public material required for the merger with KapStone, the largest acquisition in WestRock’s history, informing Wall Street of both quarterly earnings, and describing the transaction, that ultimately was received positively in the market with the stock price increasing materially. LEGAL & COMPLIANCEResponded to critical issue, developing corrective actions and training for the entire team, as it was observed that material, non-public information was being shared within the company during internal presentations, with resulting in new processes, process improvements, and significantly reducing risk to WestRock. PROCESS IMPROVEMENT Designed an automated statistical DCF analysis model using Bloomberg automation pulls which allowed analysts at STRS to spend significantly less time building models and more time analyzing companies, leading to better and more profitable investment decisions.ENTREPRENEUREstablished new, sell-side investment research firm specializing in analyzing the paper and packaging industry covering 15 public companies, in direct competition with analysts from large banks and mid-size finance organizations, taking it from the startup process through break-even profitability.