The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: George Tong - Goldman Sachs - Analyst
: Hi thanks. Good morning. You talked about cyclical moderation in the talent acquisition market. Can you elaborate on trends that you're seeing
in your cyclically sensitive businesses?
Question: George Tong - Goldman Sachs - Analyst
: That's helpful context. And then with respect to profitability, you delivered over 16% EBITDA margins in the quarter, which meaningfully outperformed
your guidance. Can you talk about what drove the outperformance versus your initial expectations and how sustainable these margins are?
Question: George Tong - Goldman Sachs - Analyst
: Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.
Question: Mark Marcon - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. - Analyst
: Hey, Gary, Bob, Gregg, Tiffany. Hey congrats on a really nice margin performance and sustaining the profitability. One, I'm going to take George's
question, but flip it around a little bit. So you're able to do these margins while you know revenue is still kind of choppy, the outlook is still kind of
choppy. How should we think about the margins when things eventually end up, I know being a little bit more stable?
Question: Mark Marcon - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. - Analyst
: Great. And then, you've had a lot of success with regards to changing the incentives. And it's been something, Gary, that you worked a long time
on in terms of getting the cross-selling motion up. When you think about where we are today relative to our aspirations for, two to five years from
now in terms of that cross-selling motion, what inning are we in? How much better can we become do you think?
Question: Mark Marcon - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. - Analyst
: And then on Professional Search and interim, and then I'll jump back in the queue. But on Professional Search, in general know for everybody who
follows the space, it's been a tough market and particularly on the interim side, we've been seeing declines across the board.
without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. 'Thomson Reuters' and the Thomson Reuters logo are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its
affiliated companies.
JUNE 13, 2024 / 3:00PM, KFY.N - Q4 2024 Korn Ferry Earnings Call
I'm wondering, do you think on the interim side that things are stabilizing and how would you characterize the differences between your various
interim businesses and so what they're seeing from a top line perspective, but yet you're able to maintain and improve the margins, which is pretty
amazing what are you doing to get the margins up while the revenues declining as much as it is.
And it's doing the same thing for everybody and then as a follow up to that, how given the current economic environment, how does that impact
your desire in the short term to make investments in interim or permanent?
Question: Mark Marcon - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. - Analyst
: That's great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Question: Trevor Romeo - William Blair & Company - Analyst
: All right. Good morning, team. Thanks so much for taking the questions. I know we've had several margin questions already, but just wanted to
ask another one a bit differently given the outperformance there. I think for most of the segments you're running at a lower headcount than you
had been kind of a year ago, that type of timeframe yet seeing kind of much better productivity and higher bill rates for a lot of the segments.
So just wondering if you could talk a bit more about which specific productivity initiatives you've implemented recently and which are starting to
really pay off now and how much further you can improve on those productivity metrics?
without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. 'Thomson Reuters' and the Thomson Reuters logo are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its
affiliated companies.
JUNE 13, 2024 / 3:00PM, KFY.N - Q4 2024 Korn Ferry Earnings Call
Question: Trevor Romeo - William Blair & Company - Analyst
: Okay. Thanks, Gary. That makes a lot of sense. And then just another one kind of on the overall demand environment, some of the green shoots
that you talked about last quarter in the cyclical businesses, but maybe specific to search.
And I think your revenue was kind of flattish sequentially, maybe not quite as strong of an uptick as a few of the other competitors may have
reported recently. Just kind of wondering if you could speak about the demand environment specific to search, whether you're still seeing those
green shoots and whether they're stronger weaker or about the same as last quarter? Thanks.
Question: Trevor Romeo - William Blair & Company - Analyst
: Okay. Great. Appreciate the perspective. Thanks.
Question: Karan Singhania - UBS - Analyst
: Hi, good morning. This is current on for Josh. So thanks for taking my questions. So I had a question on executive suites, with executive suite, seeing
positive new business growth and new engagements given it's going to return to growth in the first quarter? And if so, what regions?
Question: Karan Singhania - UBS - Analyst
: Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
| 
