KORN FERRY 10-K

Item 1. Business Company Overview Korn Ferry (referred to herein as the “Company” or in the first-person notations “we,” “our,” and “us”) is a leading global organizational consulting firm. We work with our clients to design optimal organization structures, roles, and responsibilities. We help them hire the right people, focus on the right skills, and advise them on how to reward, engage and motivate their workforce while developing professionals as they navigate and advance their careers. The importance and strength of our brand A strong brand fosters familiarity and loyalty, builds trust, cultivates relationships, and has a lasting impact on sales velocity and growth which is why one of our strategic pillars is to continue to elevate ours. Originally known for our leading position in executive search, our brand recognition is growing and evolving to represent great workplaces and the people – the talent – behind them. Collaboration across our sales, marketing, research, and business teams has significantly boosted Korn Ferry's market recognition and strengthened our client connections. By curating our intellectual property, content, and data, and integrating them with our colleagues' expertise, we inspire and challenge conventional workplace viewpoints. Career makers and business advisors, the impact we create spans entire organizations, but always starts with people. The inspiration we put out into the world is to Be More Than . Be More Than is about identifying and unleashing potential. Bring the right opportunity, to the right person, at the right time and it will change their world. Get people focused, aligned, believing and working together and it can change the world. The principles behind Be More Than guide our thinking and behavior and represent our commitment to our clients and to each other. We help unleash potential in people to enable thriving, high-performing teams that collectively power sustainable growth and transform businesses. Underpinning our strategy with tech-enabled IP, data and content Korn Ferry leads the industry with unique intellectual property, content, and data. Powered by one of the world’s largest and most distinctive talent database and analytics engine, we deliver technology-enabled, data-informed solutions for people and workplaces that drive growth strategies. With access to nearly 7 billion proprietary data points across 150 countries, we understand what excellence looks like and know how to achieve it. Our consultants use this data to develop informed talent solutions that provide a competitive edge, while our suite of tech-enabled talent products ensures implementation at scale with speed. We have shaped our way of working to align with the ways of work Focused on solving our clients' most pressing organization and people challenges, today our services and products support and work across the entire human capital ecosystem - from assessment and hiring to strategy implementation, rewards, development, and succession. We are the only firm that has this expanded portfolio that offers more ways for our consultants to engage with clients and make a lasting impact. This approach is intentional, builds on the best of our past, and gives us a clear path to the future with focused initiatives to increase our client and commercial impact. Whether restructuring to reduce costs, bringing in new leaders, merging or acquiring, or transforming to stay ahead, we help organizations lead through change and transform for growth. Relevant solutions for a constant and rapidly changing world Our vision is to be the premier organizational consulting firm and we believe that our well-known brand, intellectual property, content, data, and diversification strategy have positioned us well. Our unique approach enables us to accelerate and positively impact the performance of thousands of organizations. And we are poised for growth. The constantly evolving business landscape presents numerous opportunities for Korn Ferry, making us more relevant than ever. From the shift to remote work due to the pandemic and the talent challenges posed by the great resignation, to the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (Gen AI) on workforce needs, these changes highlight opportunities for Korn Ferry to demonstrate our cutting-edge, tech-enabled products, services, and solutions. An added benefit, we leverage what we learn. Less than two years post-launch, Gen AI is changing the way individuals and organizations work and innovate. It has the fastest adoption rate of any technology in history, as well as the fastest pace of change and evolution. At Korn Ferry, we are enabling our colleagues to use Gen AI to gain efficiency, improving delivery and focus on value added work to ensure that the insight we create at scale is actionable through our products, services, and solutions. We are also leveraging the technology with our unique data and IP to differentiate our products and services, creating a moat around our business that protects from disruption. Our go-to-market approach As we drive our strategy, a focal point for us is our Marquee and Regional accounts program (M&R accounts) which is comprised of about 350 of our top clients that together generate slightly more than 37% of our year-to-date consolidated fee revenue. These accounts have Global Account Leaders assigned who help to orchestrate the delivery of core and integrated 1 solutions and products that cut across multiple lines of business – effectively making more of the Firm’s resources available as our clients tackle their business and human capital issues. Approximately 84% of these clients use three or more lines of business and 70% of this year’s top ten M&R accounts were also top ten clients in the previous two years. The opportunity upon us Despite near-term headwinds, we believe Korn Ferry is poised for continued, long-term growth. We are capitalizing on the current and growing relevance of our solutions which, in combination with the strong connections amongst our service offerings and our acquisitive activities, drives top-line synergies that have resulted in double digit fee revenue growth rates (CAGR) over the past twenty years. Our fiscal 2024 performance reflects the relevance of our strategy, the top-line synergies created by our end-to-end talent and leadership solutions, and the increasing reach and relevance of the Korn Ferry brand. Thanks to the passion and performance of our colleagues, we have concluded the year with strong results, in what was a very challenging macroeconomic environment. Our clients During fiscal 2024, we worked with almost 15,000 organizations. Our clients include the world’s largest and most prestigious public and private companies, middle-market and emerging growth companies, and government and non-profit organizations. We have built strong client loyalty, with more than 85% of our engagements in fiscal 2024 completed on behalf of clients for whom we had conducted engagements in the previous three fiscal years. We worked during fiscal 2024 with: • 97% of the S&P 100, and 86% of the S&P 500 • 92% of the Euronext 100 • 85% of the FTSE 100 • 89% of the S&P Europe 350 • 68% of the S&P Asia 50 • 80% of the S&P Latin America 40 In addition, we worked during fiscal 2024 with: • 3 in every 4 best companies to work for (Fortune Magazine) • 1 in every 2 of the fastest growing companies in the world (Fortune Magazine) • 80% of the world’s top performing companies (Drucker Institute) • 96% of the top 50 world's most admired companies (Fortune Magazine) Our business and our people We also continued to make significant investments across the breadth of our business and in our people. This commitment includes strategic acquisitions and the innovation and development of our talent platform, solutions and ways of working. A testament to Korn Ferry’s forward-thinking approach is the acquisition of our third and fourth Interim hiring firms in the last two fiscal years. This strategic decision has not only boosted our standing, particularly in the Professional Search and Interim sectors, but we believe also enables us to capitalize on significant opportunities for growth while effectively responding to prevailing shifts in the workforce. These shifts include a heightened focus on agility and cost-management, a growing need for specialized expertise and on-demand skills, as well as the accommodation of evolving employee preferences and dynamics within the workforce. These investments are intended to expand our offerings to help us further differentiate ourselves in the marketplace and reflect our continued focus on high-demand areas emerging in this environment. We continue to capitalize on the top-line synergies created by our end-to-end solutions that are designed to address the many aspects of an employee’s engagement with their employer. This manifests itself in our ability to continue generating additional fee revenues based on referrals from one line of business to another, exiting fiscal 2024, generating more than 25% of consolidated fee revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 from referrals. With vision, innovation and focus as our guide, we believe we are now a company with a more durable business and more resilient top-line, with greater and expanding relevance, and with an increasingly sustainable level of profitability that is poised for further growth in the years to come. Fiscal 2024 Performance Highlights Our results reflect the dedication and hard work of our more than 9,000 talented colleagues. They focus on creating value for our stakeholders, including our colleagues themselves, our clients, our shareholders, and the communities in which we operate. Our strategic growth reflects a more balanced and sustainable organization. • Our performance was solid during what can be described as an uncertain and challenging global economic environment, generating $2,762.7 million in fee revenue, down only 3% compared to fiscal 2023. • Net Income Attributable to Korn Ferry was $169.2 million. 2 • Operating income and Adjusted EBITDA* were $212.9 million with a margin of 7.7%, and $408.2 million with a margin* of 14.8%, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased each consecutive quarter in fiscal 2024. • Diluted Earnings Per Share was $3.23. • Consulting and Digital showed resilient business operations: ◦ Consulting fee revenue grew 2.7% year-over-year with an 11% increase in average bill rate to $420 per hour. ◦ Digital fee revenue grew 3.4% year-over-year with a 9.4% increase in Subscription & License fee revenue growing to $131.0 million in fiscal 2024. • During fiscal 2024, we continued with our balanced approach to capital allocation. For the full year, the Company invested $46.7 million in capital expenditures (excluding leasehold improvements and furniture & fixtures), $18.5 million on debt service costs, and returned $52.5 million and $54.4 million to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends, respectively. * Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA and Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA margin are non-GAAP financial measures and have limitations as analytical tools. See Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations for a discussion of why management believes the presentation of non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding Korn Ferry’s performance. The Korn Ferry Story Our Strategy As described above, our systematic approach to solving business challenges has us uniquely positioned to build industry leading products, services and solutions that people, teams and organizations need so that business strategy is implemented, and performance follows. Our approach is focused on the following strategic priorities to increase our client and commercial impact: 1. Drive a One Korn Ferry go-to-market strategy through our Marquee and Regional Accounts and integration across solutions and geographies. 2. Create the Top-of-Mind Brand in Organizational Consulting - Lead innovation through relevant market offerings and evolve our thought leadership around talent strategy. 3. Deliver Client Excellence and Innovation and diversify our offerings into fully integrated, scalable and sustainable client engagements, enriched and differentiated with our unique IP, content and data. 4. Advance Korn Ferry as a Premier Career Destination - Attract and retain top talent through continued investment in building a world-class organization through a capable, motivated, and agile workforce. 5. Pursue Transformational M&A Opportunities at the Intersection of Talent and Strategy. Our Core Capabilities We continue to integrate, replicate and scale our solutions and to lead innovation in the digitally enabled new world of work. The depth and breadth of our offerings across the talent lifecycle—from attraction to assessment to recruitment to development, management, engagement, and reward—place us in a unique position. We offer end-to-end solutions—a view into an organization’s entire talent ecosystem—to create positive client outcomes. Our five core capabilities include: • Organizational Strategy: We map talent strategy to business strategy, designing operating models and organization structures that help companies put strategic plans into action. • Assessment and Succession: Our assessment and succession solutions help pinpoint clear and actionable opportunities for growth. Leaders and employees are empowered to take action on their own development, while companies use strategic perspectives to build stronger plans and make smarter investments today and into the future. • Talent Acquisition: From Executive Search, Professional Search & Interim and Recruitment Process Outsourcing ("RPO") covering single to multi-hire permanent positions and interim contractors, we help organizations attract and retain the right people across functions, levels and skills. • Leadership and Professional Development: We map skills and competencies to business strategy and help develop leaders along each stage of their career with a spectrum of intensive high-touch and scalable high-tech development experiences. • Total Rewards: We help organizations pay their people fairly for doing the right things with rewards they value at a cost that the organization can afford. 3 Our Integrated Solutions We also offer integrated solutions that bring together expertise from across our core capabilities to navigate broader business challenges. Korn Ferry IP and advanced technology enables our experts to deliver unique, actionable insights and personalized recommendations accurately and efficiently at scale. These solutions include: • Workforce Transformation : We offer practical and pragmatic solutions to support organizations in re-shaping workforces for the future. These solutions are designed to enhance workforce productivity, agility, engagement, and alignment with the organization's strategic goals. • Cost Optimization : We work with leaders to manage cost drivers: organization, people and rewards. We help make client organizations fit for the future by putting in place strategies designed to enable our clients to achieve cost reductions while maintaining performance and growth. • Leadership Development and Coaching at Scale : Businesses need to prepare for the future by creating a culture of learning that helps them quickly adapt to new trends and demands. Leveraging our Korn Ferry Talent Platform, we combine our expertise in leadership development with technology to provide quality coaching and development at scale across organizations. • M&A Solutions : We use a framework that helps organizations look beyond balance sheets and focus on people. From the assessment and selection of leaders to drive the go-forward strategy, to the future organization design and governance, we help shape the combined purpose, ensure you have the right people in the right roles and craft the integration and change management activities to maximize the investment. We also help buyers achieve leadership and culturally accretive acquisitions which drive superior financial results. • Culture, Change and Communication: We align organization culture to business strategy to enhance performance and employee engagement, providing comprehensive support for culture transformation, effective change management, and strategic communication to ensure meaningful and sustainable change. • Career Transition and Outplacement: We help parting colleagues make a fresh start faster. Our career transition services cover personal assessments, coaching, upskilling courses, branding, interview preparation and even onboarding once they land their new job. • Inclusion : We believe inclusive organizations drive better business performance, attract and retain high-caliber talent, foster innovation for competitive advantage, and enhance brand reputation. Our expertise in this area runs deep. We help clients create more inclusive organizations reflective of today's interconnected world. • Sales Effectiveness : Today's selling environment is more complex than ever, with sales teams challenged to deliver value. Sellers need the right tools, training, and approach to be successful. Korn Ferry leverages the KF Sell product and award-winning Miller-Heiman sales methodology to help organizations achieve their top-line growth objectives. Our Digital Technology-Enabled Products Our consulting is supported and enabled by data and we have a robust suite of HR Digital technology products to transform organizations further and faster, at scale. The insights drive actions. In addition, our clients purchase these products directly from Korn Ferry via subscription licenses. Digital technology products include: • Korn Ferry Profile Manager: Defines what good looks like in a given role using a combination of psychometric criteria and skills. Our success profiles are the anchor point for our clients for talent acquisition and development. • Korn Ferry Architect: Provides organization structure and workforce/talent planning solutions for an agile, future-focused workforce where everyone has opportunities to develop to their full potential. • Korn Ferry Assess: Evaluates and provides insights into an individuals' competencies, traits, drivers, and experiences - essential for determining current and future leadership capabilities. Tailored to specific business needs and linking skills to strategies, assessments can range from high-volume, tech-driven self-assessments to personalized evaluations and help organizations understand their talent landscape, identify skill gaps, and create development plans to ensure that the right people are in the right roles. • Korn Ferry Engage: A comprehensive feedback and survey solution designed to enhance the employee experience within organizations. We link employee experience and business performance data and apply world-class benchmarks, best-practice advisory and AI-backed analytics to identify gaps and improve engagement and performance. • Korn Ferry Pay: Provides the global benchmarking data and insights needed to inform effective and competitive employee compensation programs. 4 • Korn Ferry Sell: A native application within Salesforce and Microsoft that combines world-class Miller Heiman sales methodology with powerful analytics driven technology to drive seller actions and increase win rates. Our Businesses The Company has eight reportable segments that operate through the following five lines of business, supported by a corporate center. This structure allows us to bring our resources together to focus on our clients and partner with them to solve the challenges they face in their businesses. While each line of business is strong on its own, as discussed above, the real strength is when our colleagues collaborate and our core solutions that sit in these lines of business are integrated. 1. Consulting aligns organizational structure, culture, performance, development, and people to drive sustainable growth by addressing four fundamental organizational and talent needs: Organization Strategy, Assessment and Succession, Leadership and Professional Development, and Total Rewards. The Consulting teams work across our core capabilities, architecting integrated solutions and technology products described above to help clients execute their strategy in a digitally enabled world. Summary of financial fiscal 2024 highlights: • Fee revenue was $695.0 million, an increase of 2.7% compared to fiscal 2023, representing 25.1% of consolidated fee revenue. • Adjusted EBITDA was $114.3 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.4%. • The number of consulting and execution staff at year-end was 1,678 with an increase in the average bill rate (fee revenue divided by the number of hours worked by consultants and execution staff) of $42 per hour or 11% compared to fiscal 2023. Client Base —During fiscal 2024, the Consulting segment partnered with over 4,500 clients across the globe, and 28% of Consulting’s fiscal 2024 fee revenue was referred from Korn Ferry’s other lines of business. Our clients come from the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors across every major industry and represent diverse business challenges. Competition —The people and organizational consulting market is fragmented, with different companies offering our core solutions. Our competitors include consulting organizations affiliated with accounting, insurance, information systems, and strategy consulting firms such as AON, Mercer, McKinsey, Willis Towers Watson and Deloitte. We also compete with smaller boutique firms specializing in specific regional, industry, or functional leadership and human resources ("HR") consulting aspects. 2. Digital builds, sells and delivers our technology products. Our Digital talent technology products enable our clients to make critical talent decisions in the flow of work across talent acquisition and talent development. This talent suite encompasses integrated products that leverage Korn Ferry’s IP, talent science, and proprietary data into powerful offerings that anchor how organizations hire and develop talent. Our clients access these products via subscription licenses. In addition, our talent products enable our consultants to surface actionable insights and provide customized recommendations as part of their consulting engagements. Summary of financial fiscal 2024 highlights: • Fee revenue was $366.7 million, an increase of 3.4% compared to fiscal 2023, representing 13.3% of consolidated fee revenue. • Subscription and License fee revenue was $131.0 million, an increase of 9.4% compared to fiscal 2023. • Adjusted EBITDA was $108.7 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin was 29.6%. Client Base —During fiscal 2024, the Digital segment partnered with over 8,000 clients across the globe, and 33% of Digital’s fiscal 2024 fee revenue was referred from Korn Ferry’s other lines of business, primarily Consulting. Our clients come from the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, across every major industry and represent diverse business challenges. Competition —Again, competition is fragmented in this sector. We compete with specialist HR technology providers, and boutique and large consulting companies in each solution area such as AON, Eightfold, Hogan, KPMG, Mercer, Willis Towers Watson, SHL, and other boutique HR technology firms. One of our advantages is linking our data, IP and our technology platform across our solutions. This allows us to give organizations an end-to-end view of talent. 3. Executive Search helps organizations recruit board-level, chief executive, and other C-suite/senior executive and general management talent to deliver lasting impact. Our approach to placing talent brings together our research-based IP, proprietary assessments and behavioral interviewing with our practical experience to determine the ideal organizational fit. Salary benchmarking then helps us build appropriate frameworks for 5 compensation and attraction. This business is managed and reported on a geographic basis and represents four of the Company’s reportable segments (Executive Search North America, Executive Search Europe, the Middle East and Africa ("EMEA"), Executive Search Asia Pacific ("APAC") and Executive Search Latin America). Summary of financial fiscal 2024 highlights: • Fee revenue was $806.2 million, a decrease of 7.9% compared to fiscal 2023, representing 29.2% of consolidated fee revenue. • Adjusted EBITDA was $171.1 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.2%.* • In fiscal 2024, we opened more than 6,000 new engagements with an average of 572 consultants. *Executive Search Adjusted EBITDA and Executive Search Adjusted EBITDA margin are non-GAAP financial measures and have limitations as analytical tools. See Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations for a discussion of why management believes the presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding Korn Ferry's performance. Consultants are organized in six broad industry groups and bring an in-depth understanding of the market conditions and strategic management issues clients face within their industries and geographies. In addition, we regularly look to expand our specialized expertise through internal development and strategic hiring in targeted growth areas. Functional Expertise — We also have organized centers of functional expertise. This helps our teams comprehensively grasp the specific requirements and nuances involved in the role itself. These partners bring a deep understanding of the functional dynamics–from strategy through to execution-enabling them to identify and place candidates who possess the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience to excel in the role. Percentage of Fiscal 2024 Assignments Opened by Functional Expertise Board Level/CEO/CFO/Senior Executive and General Management 80 % Finance and Control 7 % Information Systems 4 % Marketing and Sales 4 % Manufacturing/Engineering/Research and Development/Technology 3 % Human Resources and Administration 2 % Client Base —Our more than 3,700 Executive Search engagement clients in fiscal 2024 include many of the world’s largest and most prestigious public and private companies . Competition— Our Executive Search line of business competes with specialist global executive search firms, such as Egon Zehnder, Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., Russell Reynolds Associates and Spencer Stuart. We also compete with smaller boutique firms specializing in regional, industry, or functional searches. We believe our brand name, differentiated business model, systematic approach to client service, innovative technology, unique IP, global network, prestigious clientele, strong specialty practices and high-caliber colleagues are recognized worldwide. We also believe our long-term incentive compensation arrangements and other executive benefits distinguish us from most of our competitors and are essential in attracting and retaining our top consultants. 4. Professional Search & Interim delivers enterprise talent acquisition solutions for permanent placements at the professional level middle and upper management, and, for Interim, those same levels plus senior executives. The Company helps clients source high-quality candidates at speed and scale globally, covering single-hire to multi-hire permanent placements and interim contractors (that are focused on senior executive, information technology ("IT"), Finance & Accounting and HR roles). Summary of financial fiscal 2024 highlights: • Fee revenue was $540.6 million, an increase of 7.4% compared to fiscal 2023, representing 19.6% of consolidated fee revenue. • Average bill rates increased by 10% to $126 per hour in fiscal 2024 from $115 per hour in fiscal 2023. Average bill rates represent fee revenue from interim services divided by the number of hours worked by consultants providing those services. • Adjusted EBITDA was $101.9 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin was 18.8%. 6 Client Base —During fiscal 2024, the Professional Search & Interim segment partnered with more than 3,600 clients across the globe, and 21% of Professional Search & Interim’s fiscal 2024 fee revenue was referred from Korn Ferry’s other lines of business. Competition —We primarily compete for Professional Search & Interim business with regional contingency and large national retained recruitment firms such as Robert Half, Michael Page, Harvey Nash, Robert Walters, KForce, TekSystems and BTG. We believe our competitive advantage is distinct. We are strategic, collaborating with clients to hire best-fit candidates using our assessment IP, proprietary technology and professional recruiters. Our Talent Delivery Centers provide our teams with increased scalability, multilingual capabilities, global reach and functional specialization. We also work under the One Korn Ferry umbrella to help clients plan for their broader talent acquisition needs as part of their business strategy planning. 5. RPO offers scalable recruitment outsourcing and projects solutions leveraging a customized technology enabled service delivery platform and talent insights. The Company's scalable solutions, built on our IP, science, and data and powered by best-in-class technology and consulting expertise, enable the Company to act as a strategic partner in clients’ quest for superior recruitment outcomes and better candidate fit. Summary of financial fiscal 2024 highlights: • Fee revenue was $354.1 million, a decrease of 16.6% compared to fiscal 2023, representing 12.8% of consolidated fee revenue. • Adjusted EBITDA was $40.4 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin was 11.4%. Client Base —During fiscal 2024, the RPO segment partnered with more than 200 clients across the globe, and 53% of RPO fiscal 2024 fee revenue was referred from Korn Ferry’s other lines of business. Competition —We primarily compete for RPO business with other global RPO providers such as Cielo, Alexander Mann Solutions, IBM, Allegis, WilsonHCG and Randstad. Finally, our corporate center manages finance, legal, technology/IT, HR, marketing, and our research arm, the Korn Ferry Institute. We help clients in four geographic markets: North America, EMEA, APAC and Latin America. Our geographic markets bring together capabilities from across the organization—infusing industry and functional expertise and skills—to deliver value to our partners. We operate in 103 offices in 51 countries, helping us deliver our solutions globally, wherever our clients do business. We continue our commitment to diversity and inclusion, hiring, promoting, and extending opportunities to women and underrepresented groups . As of April 30, 2024, 72 % of our workforce in the U.S . is female or from an underrepresented group. Broken down further, 64% of our workforce in the U.S. is female, and 64% of our global workforce is female. Our global age demographic is 54% Millennials (ages 28-43) and 9% Gen Z/Centennials (ages 27 and below). As of April 30, 2024, we had 9,076 full-time employees: Consultants and execution staff 1 Support staff 2 Total employees Consulting 1,678 310 1,988 Digital 267 955 1,222 Executive Search 542 1,119 1,661 Professional Search & Interim 457 348 805 RPO 141 3,045 3,186 Corporate — 214 214 Total 3,085 5,991 9,076 1 Consultants and execution staff, primarily responsible for originating client services 2 Support staff includes associates, researchers, administrative, and support staff Business Challenges We Solve Our judgment and expertise have been built from decades of experience and insight into the business challenges companies are grappling with across industries. We work to understand the relevant macro trends impacting society and the future of work. After the reopening that followed the global pandemic, it is evident that the world of work has permanently changed and with the emergence of technologies like AI, the evolution continues. We support our clients amid a time of enormous transition and change, with these specific business challenges: • Transforming businesses while delivering robust performance. 7 • Solving leadership challenges arising from the new landscape of hybrid and remote working. • Delivering for people, planet, and profit, and assisting with relevant corporate strategic initiatives. • Finding the right talent in a dynamic and dislocated labor market. • Engaging and motivating employees so companies can retain and reward their talent. • Supporting the work-scape transition from a place of work to collaboration spaces. • Building work environments that are inclusive and free from bias. • Engaging and Reward to retain top talent. Our Proprietary Data We manage and leverage nearly seven billion data points via our Digital technology products and platform, including: • Over 100 million assessments. • Engagement data on approximately 36 million employees. And we hold: • Rewards data on more than 28 million peopl e covering some 30,000 organizations. • More than 10,500 individual success profiles covering over 30,000 job titles. • Organizational benchmark data on almost 12,000 entities . • Culture surveys on approximately 600 entities and 7.2 million respondents. • Pay policy and practice data on more than 150 countries. Innovation & Intellectual Property Korn Ferry is dedicated to developing leading-edge services and leveraging innovation. We have made investments in technology, learning platforms, virtual coaching, individual learning journeys, data insights, and intellectual property that permeates all our solutions. With these investments, we are transforming how clients address their talent management needs. We have evolved from a mono-line business to a multi-faceted consultancy, giving our consultants more opportunities to engage with clients. The expansion of our business into larger markets offers higher growth potential and more durable and visible revenue streams. The Korn Ferry Institute The Korn Ferry Institute is our research and analytics arm. The Korn Ferry Institute develops robust research, innovative IP, and advanced analytics which is embedded in our talent products and leveraged by our consultants to enable Korn Ferry employees to partner with people and organizations to activate and exceed their potential. We have built the Korn Ferry Institute on three core pillars: 1. Robust Research and Thought Leadership to anticipate and innovate : We explore trends and define leadership and human and organizational performance for a fast-changing economy. Some project examples from fiscal 2024 include research around: • CEO Outcomes • Inclusive Boards • Change-Ready Leader • Menopause at Work • AI in the Workplace • Evolution of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion • Leading for Impact 2. Differentiated IP development supported by leading-edge science and enablement : We develop IP that drives success for our clients. Our work includes research-based frameworks, assessments, talent development insights, and organization & reward measurement systems that power solutions for people, teams, and organizations. Examples from fiscal 2024 include IP around: • Enterprise Success Framework • Skills-Based Hiring 8 • Strategic Workforce Planning • AI-Powered Success Profiles Creation and Improvement 3. Client Advanced Analytics and Data Management to generate insights: We leverage data to generate insight-driven results. We continue to strive to prove the value of our IP, products, and data through demonstrable outcomes and the impact our work has on our clients. During fiscal 2024, we supported the following: • Talent Analytics • Future-Ready Leadership • Talent Benchmarking & Talent Prediction • Generative AI-Assisted Text Analytics • KFI Knowledge Chatbot In the fiscal year ahead, we intend to continue innovating to drive even greater business and societal impact to: • Develop research centers of excellence, expand our partnerships, and further leverage data and insights to drive the impact, completeness and reach of our thought leadership. • Extend, refine, and integrate our IP for seamless go-to-market and delivery across products and solutions. • Leverage and monetize the value of our data in providing next-level insight to clients as "One Korn Ferry"; providing data availability, quality, and scalability. Global Delivery Capability We believe a key differentiator for us is our global delivery capability. This allows us to support the varied parts of our business to give clients value-added services and solutions across the globe. We believe we can bring the right people from anywhere in the world to our clients at the right time both in physical and virtual working environments, which is a capability that is particularly crucial as business needs and conditions continue to change rapidly. Competition Korn Ferry operates in a rapidly changing global marketplace with a diverse range of organizations that offer services and solutions like those we offer. However, we believe no other company provides the same full range of services, enabled by technology and data, uniquely positioning us for success in this highly fragmented, talent management landscape. Our Market and Approach Industry Recognition Our company culture and excellent work within the industry are widely recognized. Some highlights from fiscal 2024 include global industry awards and accolades in recognition of performance and achievements: • Named America's Number One Executive Recruiter Firm 2024, Forbes • Named among the top 20 on Training Industries’ 2024 Top Sales Training & Enablement Companies • Named in America's Best Management Consulting Firms list in 2024, Forbes • Leader level Carbon Disclosure Project ("CDP") Rating for 2023 response to climate change questionnaire • Silver Medal for Sustainability rating from EcoVadis 2023 • Gold HIRE Vets Medallion Award 2023, US Department of Labor • Recognized by Seramount (formerly Working Mother Media) in the best Companies for Parents list 2023, and in the Top 75 Companies for Executive Women list 2023 • Top Global RPO Provider, RPO Baker's Dozen List 2023, HRO Today • Recognized as a Star Performer & Leader in Recruitment Process Outsourcing in Everest Group's PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023 • Named Number One HR Consulting Firm in Europe, Middle East and Africa, 2023 Statista • Gold Rating, UK’s Leading Recruiters, 2024 Financial Times • Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality, 2024 Human Rights Campaign Foundation 9 Our Go-To-Market Appro ach Our go-to-market strategy brings together Korn Ferry’s core solutions to drive more integrated, scalable client relationships. Our goal is to drive topline synergies by increasing growth in the crossline of business referrals. This has been successful as during fiscal 2024, more than 75% of fee revenue came from clients using multiple lines of our business. We intend to continue evolving integrated solutions along industry lines to drive cross-geography and cross-solution referrals. Our Marquee and Regional Accounts program is a pillar of our growth strategy, which now comprises more than one-third of our fee revenue, yet only 2% of our clients. Its success has been realized by using our own IP and by following a disciplined approach to account planning and management with the addition of Global Account Leaders, resulting in more enduring relationships with clients. We believe building long-term client relationships of scale delivers less cyclical, more resilient revenue and new business through structured, programmatic account planning and strategic investments in account management talent. Our People Culture and Workforce Our culture has evolved tremendously over the years with a team spirit of working together across different offices, regions, and practices. We strive to foster a supportive, respectful culture where everyone feels valued for their contribution, can do their best work and exceed their potential. Our approach to talent acquisition, development, recognition, engagement and benefits are designed to support this approach. Our priority is to hire without bias and provide under-represented talent with equal opportunity across the firm. We work hard to build an environment of recognition by acknowledging others and appreciating their contributions and achievements. Our global talent promotion process recognizes colleagues for exceptional dedication and service to clients, embracing our firm's purpose and values, outstanding collaboration and stretching to meet expectations. We believe diversity drives innovation and connects us to our customers and communities. We are committed to building strong teams of people with diverse experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. Our Beliefs and Behaviors Our culture starts with our values of Inclusion, Honesty, Knowledge, and Performance . Our values set the standard for what we expect of all our people. They also reflect the experience we want our clients to have when they work with us. We seek to embrace people with different points of view. We actively help our colleagues grow and develop with mentoring and support. We strive to learn, grow, to be better today than we were yesterday, and always do our best for our clients, colleagues, and shareholders. As a global corporation, our commitment is to act ethically, which begins with each of us. This thinking is embedded in our core values and guides how we work together and with others. We strongly believe in a radically human approach, striving for empathy, honesty and authenticity across our interactions. Developing and Rewarding Our People We focus on making Korn Ferry a firm that energizes, develops, rewards and empowers people to pursue their passions and help our business succeed. Our global talent promotion process recognizes colleagues for exceptional dedication and service to clients. Most years we run promotion cycles twice a year to allow us to appreciate the contribution of colleagues more frequently. In fiscal 2024, we promoted over 840 people i n our five lines of business and Corporate. We offer competitive benefits across the globe customized to each country we operate in based on market prevalence and cultural relevance. The Korn Ferry Cares benefits strategy focuses on keeping our colleagues and their families healthy – physically, emotionally, financially, and socially. Our progressive benefit offerings in the U.S. helped us earn top recognitions by Seramount (formerly Working Mother Media) as the best company for Parents 2023, Top Company for Female Professionals 2023, and as one of the Human Rights Campaign’s Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality 2024. We believe in teaching and mentoring to support our colleagues’ career growth and success. These efforts have fostered stability and expertise in our workforce. Development happens broadly throughout the organization, from our formal mentoring program to direct training on our learning management platform, iAcademy. We also champion a range of career and leadership programs, such as our Mosaic program for diverse high-potentials, Leadership U for Korn Ferry, and Leadership U PLUS for Korn Ferry colleagues, an internal leadership development program. We use our Korn Ferry Advance platform, used externally by clients for career coaching and career development, as an internal development program platform. We run a global colleague advisory council that offers feedback to senior leadership on the colleague experience within Korn Ferry. Also, our internal employee engagement program, the Korn Ferry Founder Awards, recognizes and celebrates exceptional performance. Employee Well-being The well-being of our employees is a focus. We run a series of initiatives to support employee well-being and instill an organizational culture of health, including an Employee Assistance program, mental health awareness campaigns, well-being webinars, flexible work schedules and parental support for distance learning. 10 Our employee safety We are committed to creating a place where people can be successful professionally and personally. In response to the pandemic, we developed and implemented new practices designed to prioritize the health and safety of our employees and clients. Available Information We file annual, quarterly, and current reports, proxy statements, and other documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), according to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). Our reports, proxy statements, and other documents filed electronically with the SEC are available at the website maintained by the SEC at https://www.sec.gov. We also make available, free of charge on the Investor Relations portion of our website at http://ir.kornferry.com, those annual, quarterly, and current reports, and, if applicable, amendments to those reports, filed or furnished under Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such reports with, or furnish them to, the SEC at www.sec.gov. Our Corporate Governance Guidelines, Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, and the charters of the Audit Committee, Compensation and Personnel Committee, and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of our Board of Directors are also posted on the Investor Relations portion of our website at http://ir.kornferry.com . Stockholders may request copies of these documents by writing to our Corporate Secretary at 1900 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1500, Los Angeles, California 90067. In addition, we make available on the Investor Relations portion of our website at http://ir.kornferry.com press releases and related earnings presentations and other essential information, which we encourage you to review.