Emma Young

Emma is a Principal in New York, where she advises public and private companies across industries on complex financial, corporate, and strategic communications matters. Her work centers on helping companies communicate effectively when it matters most and build confidence with their key stakeholders.

She brings significant specialized investor relations experience, having supported dozens of clients in establishing IR programs, developing quarterly earnings materials, refining investor messaging, and planning and executing investor days. Emma also helps companies navigate a variety of high-stakes situations, including M&A, IPOs, shareholder activism defense, restructurings, and corporate crises of all types.

Prior to joining Kekst CNC, Emma spent five years in Equity Research at Bank of America, where she covered the airline and cruise line industries. In this role, she performed deep fundamental company and industry analyses, created and maintained financial models, and regularly interacted with investors, investor relations teams, and industry contacts.

Emma graduated from Bowdoin College cum laude with a double major in Mathematics and Economics, and she is a CFA Charterholder.

Investor Relations & Financial Communications         

• Advises clients on all aspects of investor relations and financial communications, including quarterly earnings, investor days and conferences, and ongoing market engagement.
• Partners with companies to refine and articulate equity narratives that clearly communicate strategy, financial performance, and long-term value creation to investors and analysts.
• Counsels management teams through complex or sensitive announcements, including earnings pre-announcements, guidance changes or withdrawals, and leadership transitions.
• Representative experience includes partnering with a global consumer brand to shape and communicate its new growth narrative; establishing the investor relations strategy for a NYSE-listed semiconductor technology company; building and scaling a targeted retail investor engagement program for a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company; and leading the earnings prep process for a luxury retailer.

 Transactions

• Counsels clients on transformational transactions, including friendly and contested M&A, IPOs, and spin-offs, having worked on deals across a range of sectors, including industrials, aviation, financial services, consumer, real estate, and healthcare.
• Representative transaction experience includes First Citizens Bank & Trust Company’s acquisition of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, JetBlue Airways’ proposed acquisition of Spirit Airlines, and Birkenstock’s IPO.

 Crisis & Issues Management 

• Advises clients on a range of special situations spanning reputational crises, high profile litigation, regulatory inquiries, data breaches, service outages / operational shutdowns, safety matters, employee reductions and layoffs, and social media incidents, among other issues.
• Supports companies across industries on activism preparedness, as well as represents companies privately engaging with and/or publicly targeted by high profile activist shareholders.
• Develops bespoke crisis communications plans and processes for clients to ensure organizations are equipped to anticipate issues, respond effectively, and protect stakeholder trust.
• Representative engagements include leading the response strategy for the world's largest tech outage; advising a global hospitality manager around multiple safety incidents; and supporting communications for a major technology company around a business dispute with outsized media interest.