Kate W. Duchene
Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone, to RGP's Q4 earnings call. Thank you for joining us. We are pleased with our Q4 results and continued momentum in the firm's evolution. At RGP, we dare to work differently, leveraging a unique model that combines On- Demand Talent with expert consulting and advisory services to drive transformation from strategy through execution. I'll open today's call by sharing some insights from our recent research on CFO perspectives, risk, growth and the future of finance. This work is important as it demonstrates how RGP's services and solutions are aligned to the key priorities of our primary buyers, CFOs, and provide context around what we are doing to capture more of this expanding opportunity. Our research included insights from approximately 200 CFOs and senior financial decision-makers at businesses with over $500 million in annual revenue to help us better understand the top priorities in the finance function. These priorities include strategic growth and resilience, operational efficiency and cost discipline, technology and AI adoption, evolving the CFO leadership role, data governance and analytics, and finally, capital allocation and investment strategy. Across companies and industries, CFOs we surveyed show cautious optimism, anticipating positive performance in their businesses despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty. They report that with improving trends, strategic investments will accelerate as increasing competitive pressures drive digital transformation and automation. In the short term, to mitigate risk from tariffs, geopolitical tensions and trade disruptions, CFOs are actively reshaping supply chains and revisiting vendor relationships. They also remain focused on reducing costs without jeopardizing growth by cutting discretionary spending versus investment in strategic priorities. While there's a clear and growing enthusiasm for AI, execution barriers remain, particularly in data readiness and workforce capabilities. As a result, CFOs are prioritizing technology modernization, automating workflows, and embedding AI and digital tools into financial operations. The role of the CFO has expanded beyond financial stewardship to enterprise leadership with 70% saying they have increased influence on strategic and technology decisions. CFOs now work more collaboratively with CIOs and CHROs on people strategy, digital initiatives and transformation. Beyond just the numbers, they are focusing on data quality, analytics and oversight, requiring investment in integrated data systems and governance frameworks to support responsible decision-making and AI deployment. In summary, our research, which can be found on our website, illustrates a rapidly evolving landscape for CFOs, characterized by a shift from back-office efficiency to enterprise-level strategic influence, a delicate balance between growth initiatives and operational rigor and a growing role as technology champions driving company-wide uptake of data, AI and broader digital transformation. What we're seeing in the market and what we're hearing in our CFO research dovetails precisely with RGP's strategy. As we continue to transform building a flexible and high-impact diversified delivery model, we are focused on further refining and growing the core capabilities of CFO advisory and digital transformation. We bring a rich heritage of serving the office of the CFO with a deep bench of experts. We deeply understand the function and how it needs to transform for today and tomorrow. We are evolving our talent across On-Demand and Consulting to provide the skills needed around finance optimization, process redesign, technology migration, data modernization and AI readiness. And we embed human-centered design in our CFO consulting work so that employee engagement improves and it's easier for organizations to adapt to new ways of working. Whether it's ERP migration or strategic sourcing, we are known for speed of service, functional depth and expertise and lean project teams that drive impact. Looking ahead, we're also cautiously optimistic on the professional services marketplace in North America, currently our largest source of revenue. The U.S. consulting services market is rebounding, bolstered by rising demand for digital transformation. Impact- driven engagements, which are RGP's specialty, are becoming mainstream with clients focused on agile teams that can collaborate together with their own people. We expect accelerating growth in the professional staffing landscape in the second half of the fiscal year as potentially inflation stabilizes and we see lower interest rates. Professional staffing will benefit when greater confidence returns to the labor market and talent begins to move. We are optimistic in improving operating leverage by integrating AI technologies to source, screen and engage candidates, boosting efficiency and enabling human recruiters to focus on higher-value tasks. We also see strong interest from our clients in skills-first hiring. A recent blog post from Staffing Industry Trends noted that 76% of companies are embracing contingent labor and flexible pay models to remain competitive and to access skill sets that they could not afford to hire full-time. In sum, despite near-term uncertainties, strong interest remains in corporate transformation and modernization initiatives, which we expect will drive growth for RGP in the next 12 months and beyond. We remain confident that agile firms like ours, which can deliver with fast, efficient and innovative ways of working, will benefit the most. Against this backdrop, we continue to make progress on our own transformation in Q4. We achieved revenue and gross margin above the high end of our outlook and have improved pricing in our key markets even in this disruptive macro environment. We achieved the same strong gross margin, above 40% as the prior year quarter and improved enterprise run rate SG&A despite the extra week of cost in the fiscal quarter. Our average bill rate improved by 4% year-over-year. Our diversified services model is allowing us to win work in the most relevant categories for the CFO in the way the CFO wants to engage. From a solutions perspective in the On-Demand segment, digital and technology and supply chain grew nicely in the quarter. Within Consulting, digital transformation work grew both sequentially and year-over-year, again, aligned directly with the CFO agenda we are focused on serving. Europe and Asia grew in Q4 to the highest revenue level of the now completed fiscal year. Bill rates improved quarter-over-quarter in the Europe and Asia Pac segment by 7%. Europe was a bright spot in Q4 with quarter-over-quarter constant currency growth of 8%. Most of the momentum in Europe came from the U.K., our largest market in the region. We also improved revenue stability in Europe, driven by stickiness and project extensions, which grew to 40% of revenue. Our client retention in Europe remains high at 90% year-over-year. Asia Pac improved results as well despite significant disruption in China related to tariffs and supply chain migration. Asia Pac revenue growth was 3% sequentially, driven primarily by Japan. In our Outsourced Services segment, Countsy continued to grow sequentially in Q4 and year-over-year through client wins in the startup, scale-up and divestiture space. Beyond venture capital, Countsy is actively working to build channels and traditional middle market private equity as a solution for divested assets meeting standup finance and accounting functions quickly and efficiently. Countsy is also introducing more AI tools on the platform to accelerate client acquisition and service capacity with better cost leverage. As you'll hear from Bhadresh, pipeline creation has grown in all regions with a higher volume of larger value deals. While these deals have a longer sales cycle, we believe the trade-off is worth it as they will position us well over the longer term, providing greater certainty around future revenues and growth. We're evolving to do more for our clients across On-Demand, Consulting, and Outsourced Services, and we're getting deeper in our client base. We're pleased by our progress and opportunity pursuits, especially given the current macro environment is still difficult as it relates to the timing of project starts. In closing, I'm also very pleased to welcome 2 new Board members to RGP. Jeff Fox is the CEO and Founding Partner of Circumference Group, a strategic investment firm and long-term RGP shareholder. He is a former Board member of Avis Budget Group and Convergys. Jeff brings critical investor insight and a shareholder-focused lens to the Board. His expertise in improving profitability and unlocking shareholder value supports RGP's focus on disciplined capital deployment, sustainable growth and enhancing ROIC. His appointment strengthens alignment between the Board and long-term investors. Filip Gydé is the former President and CEO of Computer Task Group, where he led a strategic shift from staffing to digital consulting. He brings 30-plus years in global IT services with extensive European leadership. Filip's track record in transforming a traditional staffing firm into a modern digital solutions provider directly supports RGP's strategic evolution. His deep understanding of IT and digital services will help guide the firm's ongoing pivot toward high-value consulting and technology-enabled offerings that are increasingly relevant to the CFO's agenda. His global leadership experience also reinforces RGP's growth ambitions in international markets and cross-border delivery models. The appointments of Jeff and Filip are well aligned with RGP's strategic priorities, which include evolving from a staffing-centric model to becoming a value-added consulting and digital solutions firm, enhancing shareholder value through disciplined operations and capital allocation strategies, scaling technology, transformation and digital capabilities and expanding our global presence while enhancing international client delivery. I'll now turn the call over to Bhadresh for an update on operations.