Korn/Ferry International Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
September 9, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Korn Ferry delivered 5% year-over-year fee revenue growth to $709 million, with adjusted EBITDA up 8% to $120 million and adjusted EPS rising 11% to $1.31.
  • Positive Sentiment: All solution lines showed momentum, including Executive Search (+8%), Professional Search & Interim (+10%), and digital subscription and license new business (+10%), supported by 25% of revenue from cross-solution referrals.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Regional performance was mixed, with the Americas down 2% while EMEA grew 19% and APAC grew 12% year over year.
  • Positive Sentiment: Estimated remaining fees under existing contracts reached $1.67 billion (up 9% YoY), providing visibility as 58% of that is expected to be recognized within the next 12 months.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The new TalentSuite digital SaaS platform is on track for a November launch, aiming to integrate proprietary IP, data and talent applications with benefits anticipated by late calendar 2026.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Korn/Ferry International Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Korn Ferry first quarter fiscal year 2026 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question- and- answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. We have also made available in the investor relations section of our website at kornferry.com a copy of the financial presentation that we will be reviewing with you today. Before I turn the call over to your host, Mr. Gary Burnison, let me first read a cautionary statement to investors. Certain statements made in the call today, such as those relating to future performance, plans, and goals, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Operator

Although the company believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements. Actual results in future periods may differ materially from those currently expected or desired because of a number of risks and uncertainties which are beyond the company's control. Additional information concerning such risks and uncertainties can be found in the release relating to this presentation and in the periodic and other reports filed by the company with the SEC, including the company's annual report for fiscal year 2025 and in the company's soon-to-be filed quarterly report for the quarter ended July 31st, 2025. Also, some of the comments today may reference non-GAAP financial measures such as constant currency amounts, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA.

Operator

Additional information concerning these measures, including reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, is contained in the financial presentation and earnings release relating to this call, both of which are posted in the investor relations section of the company's website at www.kornferry.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Burnison. Please go ahead, Mr. Burnison.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Okay, thank you, Regina, and thanks to everybody for joining us. I'm really, really pleased with our performance in the quarter. The team's going to get into the results in a little bit, but when I look at the results, even over the past few quarters, with all the choppiness, the uncertainty around tariffs, the labor and economic environment, it's clear that our strategy is working. In fact, when you consider our diversification strategy and the current and future demographic trends alone, the opportunity is immense. I think that's evidenced this quarter by the growth in all of our solutions. Today, we're driving performance with a far more sophisticated, holistic approach that delivers our expertise and robust IP through integrated solutions in every region of the world. In the quarter, we won a number of notable engagements. I'll highlight a couple.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

A top pharma company with over 20,000 employees, where we're building a globally aligned leadership team, helping them foster a culture of innovation and streamline talent development across regions. It's part of a multi-year engagement. We're a FTSE 100 retailer where we're now the exclusive assessment provider across all levels of the organization, using our consulting-led assessments and our digital at-scale solutions, with the ambition to deliver our capabilities from the shop floor to the boardroom. Finally, a top provider of HR management software, where we're going to deliver a subscription-based digital solution, a global leadership offering that includes content, instructor-led materials, micro-learning, and more. That complements a consulting engagement that includes leadership assessments and coaching. These are just three examples of how we're integrating multiple solutions to create enduring client partnerships.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

We also continue to make measured capital investments that extend our offerings and solutions and expand our impact with clients. A case in point is Talent Suite, which offers seamless integration of proprietary IP and data and talent applications into one digital SaaS platform, which enables our clients to make better hiring decisions, structure their organizations, assess, develop, and reward their talent. In other words, Talent Suite enables clients to unlock human and organizational potential at scale. Our evolution towards large-scale multi-solution client engagements is real as we change the fundamental composition and scale of our business. When I just look at the tail of the tape, today we have loyal, repeatable clients of scale, marquee and diamond accounts generating almost 40% of our revenue, a 10-year revenue CAGR of 10%, driven by an expanding set of diversified solutions. We have strong top-line synergies with 25% of revenue generated from cross-solution referrals.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Clearly, this diversification is driving resilience and durability in our business and contributing to sustained shareholder value. That' s evidenced through our balanced capital allocation strategy, which includes six dividend increases in the last five years and a demonstrated track record of M&A and share repurchases. I am optimistic, truly optimistic about the trajectory of this firm and, more importantly, the impact we are making. We have a strong foundation with incredible brand permission that is fostering deep client relationships. We have relevant, diverse, scaled, and increasingly more integrated solutions that are even more closely aligned with the talent needs of our clients. Through our disciplined approach, I am confident we are poised and well-positioned for the future. With that, Regina, I will now turn it over to Bob. Bob, it is all yours.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Great, thanks, Gary, and good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you're at. The global business environment over the last quarter remained extremely uncertain, with many lingering economic challenges keeping investment spending cautious. Unresolved tariff issues added to ongoing geopolitical tensions, readings on inflation caused uncertainties as to whether interest rates would remain higher for longer. Despite the impact of these uncertainties on business sentiment, our clients continue to see the impact and value of our services and solutions. Our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 remained strong, providing further proof that our integrated business strategy, which is really diversified across industries, geographies, and solutions, is working. In fact, the current economic environment has created opportunity for Korn Ferry to really strengthen our client relationships and continue becoming a trusted global partner of choice, helping our clients solve complex talent and organizational performance challenges.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Today, we're helping our clients resolve these challenges with both our skilled workforce and our proprietary data and IP, which is really a product of decades of behavioral science research. Additionally, we focus our efforts to sell larger, more integrated solutions via our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market strategy. We're paving the way for stronger, more durable long-term growth. I'm also pleased to share that we remain on track for the market launch of our new Talent Suite platform that Gary referenced this November. Talent Suite will enable our consultants and clients to more easily derive and prioritize insights across our multiple talent products using client data, our own proprietary data, and select third-party data to help them make better, more insightful talent decisions. In addition to the detailed results found in our posted earnings presentation, I just want to go over a couple of company-wide solution-specific highlights for the first quarter.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

As Gary mentioned, the marketing diamond accounts remain strong at almost 40% of our consolidated fee revenue, and that program delivered a little better than 7% fee revenue growth when you look at it year over year. Our cross-solution referrals also remain strong at 25% of our consolidated fee revenue. Executive Search fee revenue also remains strong, growing 8% in the quarter, and that's our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in that solution area. Professional Search and Interim fee revenue was up 10% year- over- year, with growth in both professional services per employee + 5%, and Interim was up 14%. Our digital subscription and licensed new business grew 10% year over year in the first quarter, with 39% of total digital new business, and that's going to continue to add stability and predictability to our overall revenue base.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Last, our average bill rates in C onsulting and Interim both grew year over year, Consulting by 9% and Interim by 4%. Now, turning to company overall results, our consolidated fee revenue grew 5% year- over- year to $709 million, which is a second consecutive quarter of positive growth. Earnings and profitability also continue to grow. Adjusted EBITDA grew $9 million, or 8% year- over- year to $120 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin grew 50 basis points year- over- year to 17%, and our adjusted diluted earnings per share grew $0.13, or 11% year- over- year to $1.31. Total company new business, excluding RPO, grew 5% year- over- year, led by strength in EMEA and APAC. Our RPO delivered $99 million of new business in the quarter. 46% of that came from new logos, 54% from renewals, and the renewals included one large financial institution at $32 million.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Estimated remaining fees under existing contracts also remained strong in the first quarter. As a reminder, this operating metric that we introduced last quarter is the quarter-ending estimated fees under existing contracts to be recognized in future periods. At the end of the first quarter, this amounted to $1.67 billion, which was up 9% year- over- year. Of this amount, we expect approximately 58%, or $972 million, will be recognized as fees within the next year, and 42%, or $702 million, to be recognized thereafter. Now, turning to our regional results, fee revenue in the Americas was down 2% year- over- year, with growth in Executive Search and RPO being offset by slightly lower demand in Consulting, Digital, and Professional Search, and Interim. EMEA fee revenue was strong, growing 19% year -over- year, and we saw growth in all solutions.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

APAC fee revenue was also strong, growing 12% year over year, also with growth in all solutions. Our capital allocation in the first quarter remained balanced as we returned $36 million to shareholders through combined share repurchases and dividends, and we invested $22 million in capital expenditures focused on Talent Suite, our new technology platform, as well as productivity tools and other product enhancements. Now, turning to our outlook for the second quarter of fiscal 2026, assuming no further changes in worldwide geopolitical conditions, economic conditions, financial markets, and foreign exchange rates, we expect fee revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 to range from $690 million- $710 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to range from approximately 17%- 17.5%, and our consolidated adjusted diluted earnings per share to range from $1.23- $1.33.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

We expect our GAAP diluted earnings per share in the second quarter to range from $1.10- $1.16. Our GAAP diluted earnings per share includes approximately $10 million, or $0.14 per share, of accelerated depreciation, and that's related to our current product technology platform, which will be sunsetted as Talent Suite is commercially launched at the beginning of the third quarter in November. We remain committed to controlling what we can control, leaning into identified growth opportunities, and driving operational excellence. We will continue to promote a culture of innovation and remain focused on delivering outstanding client service. Korn Ferry is a global consulting firm that powers client performance. We're focused on improving our go-to-market efforts, engaging with our clients as one firm. We are Korn Ferry.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

We are well-positioned for the next step in our growth, and I'm more confident and excited than I've ever been about what this company can become. With that, we would be glad to answer any questions you may have.

Operator

We will now begin the question- and- answer session. In order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one a second time. Our first question will come from the line of Trevor Romeo with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Trevor Romeo
Trevor Romeo
Equity Research Analyst at William Blair

Hi, thanks so much for taking the questions. Just maybe had a couple on your digital business to start, you know, the Talent Suite rollout coming up in November. As you're getting ready for that commercial launch, I guess what are some of the key milestones you'll be tracking there, and how should we be thinking about maybe the timeline for the benefits there to start going through the financials?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

I think the benefits will take some time. I think it'll be towards the end of calendar 2026, realistically, when we start to see the true benefits of it. Some of the milestones that we are working on include the partnerships that we have and further accelerating the go-to-market strategy around those partnerships. That's very important, particularly with the three or four large HCM players. That's certainly one thing we're working on. The second is enabling our colleagues and training our colleagues. We have a robust schedule in front of us to train all of our 1,800 frontline consultants on awareness and provocation and selling of the Talent Suite. That's going to be happening over the next six months, starting in October. We also have a targeted strategy with milestones there around our marquee and diamond accounts. It's really kind of a balanced approach here, a multi-prong approach.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Outside with partners, with our marquee and diamond accounts top down, bottom up with many of our clients, then there's an internal mobility strategy as well.

Trevor Romeo
Trevor Romeo
Equity Research Analyst at William Blair

Thanks, Gary. Maybe just one quick follow-up on digital, the subscription and license piece of the segment going above, I think, 40% of segment revenue now. Could you maybe just remind us what is your kind of long-term aspirational target for how big those subscriptions could grow as a percentage of that segment?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

We'd like to see it, you know, be north of, say, 60%. That's certainly not in the next several months. I just think there's this opportunity to impact a lot of people's lives and the destination of organizations through our IP, and we just have to figure out the best way to drive scale. I think the best way to drive scale in that business is through our partnerships that we have. That's something that we're going to pursue very aggressively.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Travis, this is Bob. The one thing I would add to that, as you think about Talent Suite, obviously selling subscriptions and licenses is important for us, but it is also think about it as an enabler of the delivery of our other services and solutions. Whether it's talent acquisition, it's consulting, other areas in your organization are going to really benefit from having all of the assets, IP, data, content, what we call foundational assets at the center of the organization, right? They're going to be able to much easier gain much easier access and utilization of those. We have a reporting analytics layer, and when you layer on AI and GenAI, in terms of being able to access, slice and dice data much faster, easier, quicker, you have to think about it more broadly than just selling subscriptions and licenses.

Trevor Romeo
Trevor Romeo
Equity Research Analyst at William Blair

Great, thank you. Maybe one more, if you don't mind, maybe for you, Bob, just on the guidance. I think typically Q2 is a little bit of a stronger seasonal revenue quarter for you. I guess the guidance may be a slight dip at the midpoint sequentially for revenue. Can we just maybe reconcile that? Should we read that as a little bit of conservatism or any reasons across the businesses that would make you think you wouldn't see a little bit of an uptick?

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

I would say, Trevor, just given the uncertainties and the backdrop out there, we're probably a little bit on the conservative side.

Trevor Romeo
Trevor Romeo
Equity Research Analyst at William Blair

Okay, understood. Thanks very much. I really appreciate it.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Tobey Sommer with Truist . Please go ahead.

Tobey Sommer
Tobey Sommer
Managing Director at Truist

Thank you. I wanted to ask what you're hearing from clients. You mentioned in your guidance that uncertainty out in the economy prompted some conservatism in guidance. We see the BLS revision lower here this morning for job creation over the last year. Maybe rates starting to come down here at the Fed sometime soon. What are customers telling you?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

It depends where you are in the world. Look, everybody's got to play on the pitch. Everybody's dealing with the same economic and labor environment. I've spent the last several months with clients and colleagues in Europe, in many different countries, and I think, broadly speaking, there's a great deal of optimism in the Americas. I think people are dealing with the lack of pricing power and the fact that costs have escalated 50% over the last five and a half to six years. I'm not surprised at all by the downward revision in those BLS numbers. I mean, that's not shocking. There's been a labor recession for two years. Companies are not doing massive downsizing, but they're letting natural attrition take its course, and they're not replacing those hires.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

The other big theme, not only in Europe but in America and Asia, is what does AI do long-term in terms of how does an organization get work done and with how many people? We've seen a really good rebound in Asia, and you see it in the numbers. Both Europe and Asia really performed well. It was fairly broad-based in both regions. Life sciences clients are, that's a tougher deal as well as healthcare. We've seen a lot of great activity in industrial, which is 30% of the company. Private equity has been a source of significant strength because they have thousands of companies that are past their sell-by date. Because of that, they're actually having to go in and think about how you really operate the company beyond just cutting costs and increasing EBITDA. Those would be the major themes that I've heard from clients directly.

Tobey Sommer
Tobey Sommer
Managing Director at Truist

Just sort of a specific question on Consulting, if I could. With respect to your merger and divestiture kind of services in Playbook, what are you seeing there? We've seen sort of an uptick in at least announced deals, and many of them seem to be sort of corporate breakups. I'm wondering if you're participating in that from a Consulting perspective.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

There are a couple that we are participating in. I can't talk about it, but there are a couple. I think the bigger activity has actually been on the private equity side. I think that's a direct result of firms hanging on to portfolio companies longer and the work that has to be done beyond three, four, or five years.

Tobey Sommer
Tobey Sommer
Managing Director at Truist

Appreciate that. Last question for me is, if we do see an appreciable uptick in demand or across the businesses and get a little bit faster revenue growth for the firm, do you have some excess capacity now in the businesses to be able to meet that, or might you need to step on the gas with hiring and have flat to downish margins for a quarter or two while you ramp things up?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

No, we're continually managing that talent. I do think that there is capacity. I think the big question is, what do you have to believe for this economic environment that we've seen now for a couple of years to actually turn? There's got to be some significant rate cuts. The Fed has been slow. It was never transitory several years ago. Anybody with any common sense could have said that. That's what you have to see to get this thing going.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Hey, Tobey, it's Bob. The other thing I would add to that is we've got ourselves more formally organized around AI, GenAI, and we're driving that into the organization. From a capacity perspective, I would expect that to help us get through any groundswell that comes out of a more rapid rebound.

Tobey Sommer
Tobey Sommer
Managing Director at Truist

Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of George Tong with Goldman Sachs . Please go ahead.

Samuel Wisner
Samuel Wisner
Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hi, this is Sammy on for George. Could you talk about how Consulting new business performed in the quarter? What is your outlook for Consulting for the remainder of the year? Any key drivers driving your expectations?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

I think it's going to depend regionally too. I'm not looking, you know, I just don't think the economic environment particularly is going to change dramatically unless we see the Fed take action. I think it's been a very, very difficult consulting market for eight quarters now. When you look at the overall firm results quarter on quarter on quarter in what I would characterize as a labor recession, it is incredibly, incredibly impressive. I would assume that in Europe and Asia, we're going to see continued momentum with our consulting solutions. In the Americas, I think it's going to be a bit more challenging given the backdrop of what we're dealing with.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

The other move that we're making now, and this is not new, but many, many years ago, we said, look, we've got to get into bigger, larger scale, as in, as Bob Rozek said, more integrated solutions, delivering impact to our clients. We purposely made an effort towards bigger, more transformational assignments. It shows in the numbers. T his isn't just rhetoric. When you look at the average, look at rate per hour as an example, that has gone up 50% from $300 an hour just a few years ago to now almost $500 an hour, $470 an hour. When you look at the backlog, the backlog is actually increasing in consulting. 42% of that backlog is engagements over $1 million. When you look at the new wins, those are also, a good part of them, not the majority, but a good part are over $1 million.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

What's happening is we're moving the entire organization towards more integrated solutions. The numbers reflect that. With that, then becomes a slower consumption by clients of the backlog. When we look at new business, it was your specific question in consulting in the quarter, it was decent. I mean, it was definitely on the plus side. I tend to look at the firm as a whole and what we're doing there. I just think you look quarter on quarter in an environment that's been very difficult. Looking at the company's profitability, it's impressive.

Samuel Wisner
Samuel Wisner
Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. On digital, the number of consultants was down significantly this quarter. Could you talk about what drove the decision to reduce digital headcount, especially given you have the launch of Talent Suite coming up? Is the headcount now fully aligned with the current demand, or could we see further right sizing?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

We are always managing the workforce, and we've done it over the last, you know, two to three years. If you look at Professional Search and Interim Solutions, for example, you'll find there that we've made significant changes in that workforce and repositioned that workforce. We've done the same thing in Digital . For us, it's again, it's around the firm, and it's not around, you know, these segments. It's around enabling the entire firm to be able to deliver the platform. That platform is at its very, very foundation. How do you unlock human and organizational performance? How do you design an organization? How do you assess what type of leaders do you need? How do you develop them? How do you pay them? That's what it's about. It's not, you know, strictly around the 236 digital sellers that we have.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

It's around the entire firm and the 1,800 frontline consultants that we have and their ability to deliver the entire firm.

Samuel Wisner
Samuel Wisner
Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs

That's helpful. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Chan with UBS . Please go ahead.

Josh Chan
Josh Chan
Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Hi, Gary and Bob. Thanks for taking my questions. If I look at the geography, the North American part of the business, most parts of the business are down somewhat, which jives with the macro, but Exec Search is still up in North America. What's going on in Exec Search that's allowing that part of your business to really seemingly outperform the environment?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Yeah, it's a combination of factors. It's the phenomenon where I've talked about this for a good six quarters, seven quarters. It's Peak 65. There are the demographic shifts and trends that I referred to in my opening comment. You've got that playing out. You've got the fact that many of the executives in the C-suite were probably in the C-suite during COVID. You had a period of going from light to darkness to light and all the things in between around that time, then the subsequent pent-up demand and the great resignation. You've got people that are making the decision for themselves around work-life balance. You have boards looking at the C-suite and saying, is the leadership team that I need over the next five years, what are their skills that will be needed versus the past five years?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

It's really those combinations of factors that I believe are driving the executive search business.

Josh Chan
Josh Chan
Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Great. Thanks for the cover there, Gary. I think you guys also mentioned that, you know, in a choppy environment, that could provide some opportunity for you to strengthen your position. I'm sure you'd love a stronger environment, but curious how you can still win business in a weaker environment and what kind of opportunities those might be?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Yeah, this is the best environment. I mean, it's where I'm most motivated. This is where good companies become great companies. It's only in these types of environments because people don't change unless there's a reason to change. I think the environment gives us that reason to change. I look at it and it's not a question of just dealing with ambiguity, but it's embracing ambiguity. I love the environment. It does present opportunities for us, and it presents an opportunity even internally around how we think about ourselves. Do we think about ourselves as business segments, or do you think about yourself as Korn Ferry? The truth is that we don't have five businesses. We have one business, which is Korn Ferry. We have five solutions, but we have one business. The ability to change mindset in an environment like this, you have to take advantage of it.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

That's what we're doing, and that's what we plan to do over the next several months, to continue to change mindset, particularly around how we go to market.

Josh Chan
Josh Chan
Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Great, that's a good comment. H ey, Bob.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

One of the things that I've talked about quite a bit with investors is, you know, when the world is somewhat chaotic, it's actually, as Gary mentioned, a good thing for us. Think about, you know, COVID hit, everybody went home. Work got done differently, different work had to get done, and organizations turned to us to help figure that out. Right now, there's a lot of uncertainty out there. AI, GenAI is out there. How do I change, you know, how does that impact my workforce? Does it change my job profiles? Do people have the right skills? Do I need different people? When there's chaos out in the world and organizations are trying to figure their way through it, they, you know, turn to us to help them do that. For Gary indicated, it's actually a good thing for us.

Josh Chan
Josh Chan
Equity Research Analyst at UBS

That's an interesting perspective. Thank you both for the color and the time.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Mark Marcon with Baird . Please go ahead.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. During your discussion, you talked a lot about some of the bigger deals that you've been signing, and you specifically noted one with a big HCM company. I'm wondering if you can elaborate in terms of what you're going to do for them.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

I'm not going to get into it. It's really a transformational program centered around leadership development. It's a big learning engagement where that particular client is not only licensing our IP around developing and transforming a workforce, but it also includes consulting with assessments and coaching. It's really around kind of transforming a workforce and transforming not just skill set, but mindset. It's using both our IP and consulting.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

That's really interesting. How big of a program could something like that be?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

You know, these are typically multi-year and several million dollars. I'm not saying that this particular one is that, but that's generally what these look like. Part of it then is, you know, it gets consumed by the clients, not the digital piece, but the consulting wraparound on these leadership development programs. They have to consume it. They have to pull it down off the shelf. I can think of one that is a huge, you know, it was an eight-digit sale to a massive, massive organization. We are now, we've just completed year three, and we've touched about 40% of that organization. The consumption of all of those services, not the IP, obviously, but the consumption of the services is really dependent on the client's speed, not on us.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

That's one reason why you see the backlog, for example, in Consulting increasing, is because of that phenomenon, moving to multi-year, multi-million dollar engagements.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

That's great. Gary, you know, we have been in a labor recession. You guys have held up the best of arguably any of the major players that are out there that most investors look at. You've been getting more and more into Professional Search and Interim Solutions. You've made a number of acquisitions there. I'm wondering, as the environment remains relatively uncertain, what's your posture there? What have you learned from the acquisitions that you've made in terms of what are the types of acquisitions, the best spaces where you guys actually fit, and how many more opportunities are there in terms of bolstering the areas where you really do fit?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

I think the Professional Search, let me bifurcate that. The Professional Search market, as you said, is enormous. Today, most of that business that we have, most of that solution is in the U.S. What we've learned is the contingent part of that market opportunity does not work for us for the most part. The learning there is we love the market. We want to go into it, but we also want to be eyes wide open. We don't want to be in contingent recruiting. It doesn't fit well with the brand and the marquee and diamond account strategy. There is still a big opportunity outside the U.S. We're underpenetrated there. We have to be very cognizant both in Pro Search and Interim Solutions as to what technology is going to do to a company's labor force over the next five or ten years.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

We have to be very, very targeted there and very smart. On the Interim Solutions side, what we've learned is that it is, number one, why did we get into it? We got into it because we see a mega trend that's playing out that we continue to think is going to play out even with AI, with fractional workers. We think that mega trend is something that we should invest into. What we've learned there is that it is very synergistic with our brand. Similar to Pro Search, the opportunity is quite significant outside of the United States. In fact, when you look at both Pro Search and Interim Solutions, you would find that 70% or so of our solution today is in the United States. There's an enormous market opportunity.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

I think you would see us on the acquisition side more oriented towards Interim than Pro Search because on the Pro Search side, there are a number of transactions we could do today. Those transactions would come with a large Pro Search contingent piece, which we don't think is commensurate with our brand.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Hey, Mark. Mark, maybe a little bit more color. A couple of things that for me have been learning. Gary mentioned the synergistic and the, you know, the ability to sell across the organization. Within the Interim Solutions business itself, since we started down that path, we've created over 1,200 incremental opportunities by referring work across the system that never would have existed in those organizations had they stayed independent. The other thing is I talk to people in the field that I find very interesting is a lot of our clients are asking us, you know, you do my perm hiring now, why wouldn't you help us with the interim or temporary labor force as well? I think there's, you know, the market's huge, as Gary indicated, and there's great demand amongst our client base. It is extremely synergistic as you bring it into this organization.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

That's terrific. Thanks, Bob. Can I just ask about AI? Twofold question. One is, clearly there's been a labor recession for anybody who's been following the labor market for some time. The question revolves around, even if we do see the Fed acting a little bit more actively, Gary, what do you think about just the chance of uncertainty around AI kind of freezing certain employers? In some cases, we are actually seeing some chance where labor demand is being reduced by AI. Just wondering what you're seeing on the client front. Secondly, you mentioned you're injecting AI into your processes. I'm wondering if you can be a little bit more specific in terms of specific areas that you're injecting AI, how much are you spending there, and do you expect it to be an efficiency driver, and what's that impact going to be in terms of your own headcount?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

I'll let Bob, you can address the second part. I guess I would, none of us have a crystal ball. I would say when you look at the, take the Americas, there's no question that lower birth rates over the last 30 years are going to result in significantly less people coming into the labor force over the next many years. Therefore, if a country wants to grow productivity like America has done at 2% a year, how does that supply and demand imbalance get corrected? It gets corrected through technology. I think there will be, whether in whatever form that is, or GenAI, whatever it is, I think there will be a massive sucking sound, and it'll be this huge pull that technology will have to bridge that less people into the American workforce. I think that's undeniable. That's mathematics. That's data.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

In this environment that companies have been dealing with now for a couple of years, the reality, people can talk about inflation at 2% or 2.5% or 3%. That is like such belly glazing. The fact is costs are up 40%- 50%. That's a direct result of COVID. In this environment, companies are having to look at ways to deliver impact to their customers more efficiently. That has played out in the labor force over the last eight quarters by letting, for the most part, letting attrition take its course and not being so hell-bent on replacing those people that leave. There's no doubt that when you look at what you can do today with AI, that any CEO would be absolutely looking at their organization and saying, what does this mean for my workforce strategy? It invariably has to mean that I'm probably going to have less employees.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

I don't see how one would come to a different conclusion than that. For us, we are, broadly, there's inside out and outside in. Inside out, we're doing the things that you would expect around our own workforce and how we mobilize that workforce with AI. Then there's the outside in with our delivery of services and not only the consulting engagements such as we have today around going into an organization and saying, are they AI ready, which we have many, many of those engagements where we're actually using, again, our IP to assess and benchmark a company's quote, AI readiness. We're also using it relative to our assessment and coaching engagement. So Bob, maybe you could take the second part of Mark's question.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

Sure. Mark, we actually are making investments into this area that are fairly substantial. We haven't gone out and hired a bunch of people. What we've done is we've taken approximately 40 individuals who had been within each of our solution areas working on various aspects of AI, GenAI. We've organized them under a central leader called Bryan Ackermann . Bryan is driving the AI, GenAI usage in the firm. We've taken those roughly 40 people, centralized them. We now have rolled out licenses depending on your skill level or what your job role is and so on. The licenses may have, some might be more, have more efficacy than others. We're going through right now and figuring out the impact that the AI, GenAI is going to have on our work.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

I guess where we are today, if you think about AI and GenAI, to me, our mantra is human plus AI. It's really looking at those as efficiency tools. I think where it potentially gets more interesting is with the use of agents, ultimately, as they will be integrated into workflows, work process. The impact of that is obviously something that we're going to figure out, but that's down the road. I would say that, as I look at our workforce, Gary mentioned a couple of times on the call our backlog. Right.

Bob Rozek
CFO at Korn Ferry

To me, it's not just about how do I look at AI and GenAI as a way to get our headcount down, but it's also a way as how do I take out some of the menial tasks that folks are doing today, and I could take that freed up capacity and use that to deliver the backlog that we have. In my mind, it's sort of a combination of, yeah, will it have impact on our overall headcount? Absolutely. It's also going to give us the ability to free up capacity to provide and deliver services to our clients on a more rapid basis.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Thank you very much. That was terrific.

Operator

It appears that there are no further questions, Mr. Burnison.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Okay, Regina, thank you for hosting us. We certainly appreciate you listening to our story, and we look forward to talking to you here over the next few days and over the next quarter. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this conference call will be available for replay for one week, starting running through the date September 16th, 2025, ending at midnight. You may access the Echo replay service by dialing 800-770-2030 and entering the access code 5927661, followed by the pound key. Additionally, the replay will be available for playback at the company's website, www.kornferry.com, in the investor relations section. This concludes our call today. Thank you for joining. You may now.

Executives
Analysts
    • Tobey Sommer
      Managing Director at Truist
    • Trevor Romeo
      Equity Research Analyst at William Blair
    • Samuel Wisner
      Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs
    • Bob Rozek
      CFO at Korn Ferry
    • Mark Marcon
      Senior Research Analyst at Baird
    • Josh Chan
      Equity Research Analyst at UBS
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