Inside Medline investor relations: Who doesn’t love a good story

Inside Medline investor relations: Who doesn't love a good story?

In a field where more women are shaping the narratives, a company's unique tale is what matters most, and - spoiler alert - it's much more than numbers

By Karen King
Global Head, Investor Relations

There are moments in a career when you pause, not because the work is finished but because you finally have time to reflect on what you've just had the privilege of helping to make possible. I've enjoyed two of these moments recently, in December after ringing the bell at Nasdaq, and again just a couple of weeks ago after Medline's first quarterly earnings call as a publicly traded company.

Standing on the other side of Medline's initial public offering of company stock - the largest U.S. IPO of 2025 and the third-largest of the last 10 years, with more than $7 billion raised - what stays with me isn't the complex mechanics of a process well over a year in the making. It's the satisfaction of building relationships and seeing our carefully crafted message resonate with a new group of Medline owners and believers.

As we recognize Women's History Month in March, that reflection feels especially meaningful. Like most of us in the field of investor relations, I didn't set out to be here. Investor relations (IR) isn't something you study in college. Ask anyone in IR how they came into the practice of building and nurturing connections daily with investors, market analysts and business leaders, and they'll probably laugh. Some, like me, have more traditional finance pathways. Most of us just kind of got here.

My happy accident happened more than 20 years ago when I found myself working with a newly hired head of IR at a telecom company - one of four vastly different industries on my path toward healthcare. This was my first entry into IR, and it was at the elbow of a woman leading an IPO. That's what drew me in.

What made me fall in love with IR, and what told me I belonged, was the intersection of disciplines. IR sits at the crossroads of finance, communications, strategy and relationship-building. It's not about poring over numbers and charts. It's about translating complexity into clarity and helping people understand not just what a company does, but why it matters.

It's investor relations, as in relationships. And above all else, it's storytelling. Shareholders have endless choices. If a company's story is unclear or uninspiring, they move on. If it's strong, authentic and grounded in performance, they lean in.

Not just any company

Medline's story, I'm proud to say, checks all three boxes. What stands out immediately, as it did for me, is the sheer scale and depth of the business, and how a company as large as Medline could remain less visible to the general public, despite its scale, while being well known to customers across healthcare.

Many assume Medline is simply a distributor. In reality, we're a manufacturer at our core, with a broad portfolio of approximately 190,000 Medline-branded products supported by a distribution network that spans all points of care, from hospitals and surgery centers to skilled-nursing and long-term care facilities. That combination sets us apart from our industry peers and is something we can uniquely provide at this scale. It's also a key driver behind our nearly 60 years of consecutive growth.

As we prepared to go public last year, my challenge was deceptively simple: Share this fantastic story in a way that's clear, compelling and credible. In the year leading up to our IPO, we spent countless hours educating potential shareholders, starting with the basics and bringing in deeper levels of detail as their interest and understanding grew. We welcomed investors to our headquarters, immersed them in our products and operations, introduced them to our experts and showed them how the business really works.

That transparency and education made a difference. When Medline went public, it did so with a strong, aligned shareholder base that believed in our long-term strategy and believed that, yes, we make healthcare run better. For me, it was a powerful affirmation of what great investor relations can do.

New chapters

Now, as part of a public company, my work continues. The strategy remains the same. The story, however, evolves as we execute and deliver results.

Evolution is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and even more so during Women's History Month and on International Women's Day. When I was still new to IR, attending my first investor conferences, I would find myself in rooms filled with men in black suits. As sometimes the only woman, I deliberately wore green or pink to stand out.

Over time, those rooms have changed. Today, there's a much better mix of voices, perspectives and expertise. Investor relations is actually a more balanced field than many realize. It offers a rare, bird's-eye view of an entire organization. You work closely with senior leadership. You're in the room during moments of transformation. You see the human enjoyment behind serious business. And for women in particular, it can be a powerful and rewarding career path.

For me, the purpose runs even deeper because IR - already a blend of many rewarding roles - now neatly intertwines with my passion for healthcare. I've always wanted to do work that matters. Educating others about Medline to advance the growth of our business means that I, too, am supporting clinicians and caregivers, and in turn their patients.

On top of that, I get to work with another special segment of "customers" - investors and shareholders who deserve the same care, clarity and respect as they help Medline become even better.

Put it together, and it's the best kind of story to tell.

Karen King has been with Medline since September 2024 and led the company's IPO efforts. You can step further into her world by visiting Medline's investor relations website.