I agree with ^^PP. Investor relations is a great job to be in. I love working with our team internally.

I think most of our team comes from either a finance or communications background. The new head of that group interned in the office at one point while getting his MBA.

I found this trade association -

https://www.niri.org/

You may want to spend some time on their website.

I think it's a good job to be in, assuming you have good communication skills and are comfortable talking about the finances of the company. From what I have seen, people get into these roles from all over the place within the company - FP&A, Internal Audit, External Reporting, Etc. The roles pay the same as anywhere else in the company - according to the pay bands established by the company. The role involves a bit of travel to investor conferences, answering questions from investors that are often financial in nature, and you will be busy each quarter preparing the 8-K documents (press releases). The best people in these roles are those with some finance or accounting background who understand the business well. It might be hard to get respect in this role if you are solely just a communications person who doesn't really understand how the business works and what the financial terminology means.

Does anyone know how to break into investor relations and what are their reputations versus marketing/PR and finance? Any data points on pay relative to other groups?

I currently work in the strategy and product group but looking for more work life balance and something more communications-oriented. At my last job at a large public Fortune 500 company they worked pretty closely with the CFO and seemed to have a nice set up and were taken seriously.