Korn/Ferry International Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
September 9, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Korn Ferry reported its sixth consecutive quarter of fee-revenue growth, with first-quarter revenue up 7% year over year to $756 million, adjusted EBITDA up 7% to $128 million, and adjusted EPS up 9% to $1.43.
  • Positive Sentiment: The completed AMS combination expands Korn Ferry to nearly 17,000 employees across more than 130 offices and adds substantial RPO, contingent workforce, early-career recruiting, and technology consulting capabilities. Management expects to achieve at least $40 million of incremental annualized EBITDA ahead of its original one-year target.
  • Positive Sentiment: New business rose 12% and estimated remaining contract fees increased 14% to $1.92 billion, while the combined company’s backlog is approximately $3.5 billion. Management highlighted AMS’s long-tenured, multi-year client contracts and cross-selling opportunities as sources of greater revenue visibility.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Growth was broad-based geographically, led by the Americas at 9%, with EMEA up 4% and APAC returning to 1% growth; search and workforce solutions were the strongest solution areas.
  • Negative Sentiment: Second-quarter guidance includes only two months of AMS results and anticipates adjusted EBITDA margins of 16.8%–17.2% and EPS of $1.30–$1.40, with incremental amortization, interest expense, and share issuance from the acquisition weighing on earnings. Management also cited interest-rate uncertainty and ongoing Middle East conflict as macroeconomic risks.
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Earnings Conference Call
Korn/Ferry International Q1 2027
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 of fiscal year 2027 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 2026 and in the company's soon-to-be-filed quarterly report for the quarter ended July 31, 2026. 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 will turn the call over to Mr. Burnison. Please go ahead, Mr. Burnison.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Thanks, Regina, and thank you, everybody, for joining us. I am going to have the team walk through the numbers. But first, I would just comment that our performance was absolutely outstanding. All regions are up, and it marks our sixth consecutive quarter of top-line growth, which underscores the strength of our strategy. We remain focused on executing with discipline, investing in opportunities that will drive sustainable impact, and create lasting value for our shareholders. All of which reflects the confidence we have in our strategic direction and long-term outlook. As I reflected during our previous quarterly call, I used to talk about opportunities measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, I think in terms of opportunities measured in the billions. Last week, we took another significant step in that direction with the completion of our combination with AMS.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

This brings together two iconic brands and creates a global leader in talent and organizational consulting. AMS is a world-class firm that propels our We Are Korn Ferry strategy to be the world's conductor of talent and organizational orchestration. We now offer one of the most comprehensive organizational talent solution portfolios in the world. The combined firm has nearly 17,000 colleagues in more than 130 offices. Complementary strengths and more expansive industry coverage, all united in a shared commitment to accelerate our clients' success. Together with AMS, we have profound operational capability, delivering technology-enabled talent solutions at scale, supported by long-term contracted client relationships. We've deepened our client-centric approach as we expand the breadth of our solutions with every relationship. Here are just a couple examples. At a global energy company, we're supporting their strategic and talent transformation, impacting 60,000 roles across 200 business units.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Or a global consumer products company with more than 100,000 employees turned to us for worldwide delivery of org design, analytics, and workforce planning. At the heart of how we serve our largest clients is Talent Suite, powering our work and enabling better people decisions at scale. In fact, more than 90% of our Marquee and Diamond accounts have an active Talent Suite subscription today. I couldn't be more excited about the evolution and the trajectory of our firm. Today's Korn Ferry has a unique ability to serve our clients across the entire talent spectrum. Search is about identifying talent. Workforce Solutions is scaling that talent, and Talent and Organizational Solutions is unlocking their potential. There's no question that technology will continue to play a significant role in the future, bridging the imbalance of supply and demand of labor. But it's not technology alone.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

People are the catalyst for organizational success. Human beings, not human doings. It's a belief that defines who we are, and that's why Korn Ferry is in the people business. With that, Bob, I'll turn it over to you.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Great. Thanks, Gary, and good afternoon or good morning, everyone. Our financial performance continues to steadily improve and outpace the broader industry. In the first quarter of FY27, our fee revenue grew for the sixth consecutive quarter with strong earnings growth and steady profitability. Our improving performance in this ever-changing business environment really continues to underscore both the effectiveness of our strategy, the hard work and talent of our colleagues, and our operational excellence. Before reviewing the quarter in detail, as we announced on our fourth quarter earnings call for fiscal year 2026, we are now reporting our financial results of the company in three geographic segments: the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. This new reporting structure aligns with our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market initiatives, and actually with how our clients engage with us.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

To assist with the transition from a global solution focus to regional geographies, the slides posted in our investor presentation include three new solution groupings within each geographic region. The three new solution groupings are Search, which is the old executive search and professional search, Talent & Organizational Solutions, which is comprised of consulting and digital, and Workforce Solutions, which is comprised of RPO and interim. Turning to our first quarter performance highlights. Estimated remaining fees under existing contracts grew 14% year-over-year to $1.92 billion, led by global new business growth in Workforce Solutions. Our internal business referral rate increased to 29.4% of consolidated fee revenue. It is up by about 300 basis points year-over-year, and our Marquee and Diamond accounts remain steady at about 40% of consolidated fee revenue.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Both of these metrics really demonstrate the fee revenue synergies we are creating with our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market activities. Our consolidated new business grew 12% year-over-year, and fee revenue grew in all regions and all industry groups. Fee earner productivity, which we measure as new business per average fee earners annualized, grew year-over-year in all regions. I will talk a little bit about the company results. Consolidated fee revenue grew 7% year-over-year to $756 million, again, marking our sixth consecutive quarter of growth. Earnings and profitability also remained strong. Adjusted EBITDA grew $8 million or 7% year-over-year to $128 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was flat year-over-year at 17%, and adjusted diluted earnings per share grew $0.12 or 9% year-over-year to $1.43.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

As previously mentioned, our estimated remaining fees under existing contracts were $1.92 billion at the end of the quarter, and we estimate about 56% or $1.1 billion will be recognized within the next four quarters, and the remaining 44% or $835 million will be recognized beyond the next year. Turning to our regional results, fee revenue in the Americas grew 9% year-over-year to $442 million, led by growth in search and workforce solutions. EMEA fee revenue continued to strengthen, growing 4% year-over-year to $228 million. Growth was broad-based with strength in all solution groups. In APAC, fee revenue inflected to growth in the first quarter, reaching $87 million, up 1% year-over-year, led by search. Finally, we continued to maintain a disciplined, balanced approach to capital allocation, over the quarter.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

During the quarter, we paid $30 million of dividends and invested $15 million in capital expenditures. In the future, we will be inclined to use investable cash for the reduction of debt associated with the acquisition of AMS. However, we will also closely monitor our share price and use capital for that if we find that more attractive. Turning to our outlook for the second quarter of FY 2027, assuming no further changes in worldwide geopolitical conditions, economic conditions, financial markets, and foreign exchange rates, and including the addition of AMS, now it is only for two months, September and October, our second quarter fee revenue is expected to range from $860 million to $878 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to range from 16.8%-17.2%, and adjusted diluted earnings per share are expected to range from $1.30 to $1.40 per share.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

We have a page in the investor deck and provide some guidance assumptions. You will find adjusted diluted earnings per share includes the net after-tax impact of the 2 months of incremental intangible asset amortization.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Incremental interest, net interest expense, and incremental shares issued in connection with the acquisition of AMS. In closing, we remain focused on executing our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market initiatives, which are driving deeper, more durable client relationships. Additionally, with the recent addition of AMS to the Korn Ferry family, we will strengthen our position in RPO and interim while broadening our capabilities into contingent workforce solutions and early career and campus recruiting. AMS has a substantial backlog of multi-year contracts and long-tenured client relationships. Going forward, it is our goal to deepen the value of those client relationships, introducing clients to all that Korn Ferry offers. Together with AMS, we are a much stronger company with greater capabilities to drive client business performance through their most precious asset, which is their people. With that, we would be glad to answer any questions you may have.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Our first question will come from the line of Tobey Sommer with Truist. Please go ahead.

Tyler Van Buren
Tyler Van Buren
Analyst at Truist

Good afternoon. This is Tyler Van Buren for Tobey. I just wanted to start with the new reporting structure. Can you maybe give us how we should think about growth rates in each of these segments going forward?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Well, when you look at the firm as a whole, that is what I tend to look at. This was precipitated. We made this decision several quarters ago that we had to change how we were facing off with clients. What we wanted was not an isolated solution-by-solution approach, but rather a holistic face off with our clients as We Are Korn Ferry. That has been a very systematic effort that has been driven top-down and bottom-up. Top-down through our Marquee and Diamond accounts and bottom-up every single day through what we are doing in terms of looking at new engagements that are open. I look at the firm overall over the last 10 years, 20 years, and you would find a growth rate that is probably going to be around 10%, 11%, 12%, something like that.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Up until this latest investment that we have made, we looked at that growth rate and we said 60% was organic, 40% was inorganic. Obviously, with the combination of AMS, that changes those calculations and it is more like 50/50. I first look at the overall firm's growth rate historically, and when I look at the demographic trends and what is happening in the world, there is no reason to believe, I do not certainly see any reason that kind of growth rate that we have experienced in the past, we would not continue to experience. Clearly from quarter to quarter, there is going to be regional differences. APAC, going back now several quarters, has been impacted by the socioeconomic changes that have been happening, particularly, for example, in China. That region has been impacted pretty severely by that falloff since the pandemic.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

EMEA, over the last several quarters, has actually been our best-performing region. More recently, over the last couple of quarters, you will see that the Middle East has had a pretty big impact on the results there. Americas has been steady. I tend to look at it from a geographic perspective, the total first, and then each geography. What it really reflects is how we are trying to drive a client-centric approach. When you look at solutions, this last quarter, the workforce solutions group and search, those were both outstanding. Really outstanding growth rates, 10%, 11%. Looking at new business over the last several months, it continues to reflect that trend.

Tyler Van Buren
Tyler Van Buren
Analyst at Truist

Thank you. In your executive search business, can you just talk about how AI is driving efficiencies and whether that is changing completion times or changing the margin structure of this business? Thank you.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

It is. It's impacting the total firm. It certainly has an impact on how we're completing searches. The thing that we're very careful about there is the data that we have. We have significant proprietary data, comp data on 30 million people around the world, 30,000 companies. We've done 113 million executive assessments. We have upwards of 15,000 success profiles. We have pretty sensitive information on not just what people have done, but who they are. With respect to AI, particularly as it relates to the search group, we've been very careful about how we use that. We're going to continue to be very cautious about that because of the nature of our data. Certainly it has had an impact, and I think it's going to continue to have an impact. Absolutely.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Thank you. Tyler, this is Bob, maybe a little bit more granular. I think what's happening is clients are expecting more from us in terms of candidate slates, and we're able to deliver more of it, but it has not materially impacted the timeline of a search. It's pretty consistent with what we've been seeing all along, and a lot of that's dependent on the client scheduling, making decisions, and so on. While we're meeting their demands on additional information requests, the timeline has not changed.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Bob, that's an interesting point because what we're seeing from clients and candidates is everybody seems to have a perfect resume. Our firm has been built on IT and data, and it's not what somebody has done at the levels that we operate. It's who you are. The IP and the data that I was talking about are absolutely fundamental to how we are doing our search work as well as our talent and organizational development activities. It's actually because of AI, it's actually increasing the demand for what we have given the proprietary nature of the database, and ultimately it's about who somebody is. That's just the truth.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Trevor Romeo with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Melissa McMahon
Melissa McMahon
Analyst at William Blair

Hey, this is Melissa McMahon on for Trevor Romeo. Thank you guys so much for taking the questions. I guess I just have a couple on AMS to start. Congratulations on closing that one, too. How can we think about the cadence of synergy realization? I guess, how much of the $40 million do we think can be achieved immediately after close versus how much is back-end loaded?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Well, what we said when we announced the investment was that we would get to $140 million of run rate EBITDA within a year of the date of the announcement. The date of close actually is what we said. I look at that $40 million, and first of all, when you look at our track record, which is critically important here, we have an enormous track record of gearing the top line of a company that we make an investment in. That is demonstrated. It is proven. We also have a track record of tapping the economies of scale that come with platforms such as Korn Ferry. I am absolutely 200% confident that we are going to achieve that level of incremental EBITDA and more, because I think that the revenue opportunity here and the growth opportunity for us is enormous.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

In terms of the exact timing, what we have said, as I indicated, is that incremental $40 you would see by a year from closing, which would have been last week. We are going to achieve that much faster than that.

Melissa McMahon
Melissa McMahon
Analyst at William Blair

Great. Maybe just to follow up on that, I guess, how can we think about the role that seasonality plays for AMS? I know early careers and campus recruiting might have a school year angle. Just wondering if there is anything else.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Yeah, it does. It's going to follow the typical kind of calendarization of holidays. You are absolutely correct, generally speaking. Bob, I do not know if you want to provide any more precision around that.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Yeah. Melissa, what I would do is I would just follow the traditional Korn Ferry seasonality. Their business is pretty similar to ours, where we always have our low water mark in Q3, where you got Thanksgiving in the U.S. and then the year-end holidays. We give our people a week off. Clients give their folks one week or two weeks off. So just not as many hours in that quarter. So you will see the same sort of pattern, if you will, that you experience with Korn Ferry.

Melissa McMahon
Melissa McMahon
Analyst at William Blair

Got it. That is what we figured. Thank you guys so much.

Operator

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

George Tong
George Tong
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hi, thanks. Good morning. You saw 12% new business growth in the quarter. Can you unpack that a little bit and talk about how much of that growth came from RPO or more lumpy wins versus recurring revenue wins?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Well, I would say the RPO is actually recurring wins. When you look at the new business, clearly over the last several months, given what's happened in the Middle East, and the demographic factors that we've talked about on previous calls, search and workforce solutions have been absolutely the stronger performers. What's been really nice to see and supported our thesis when we made this decision is all the investments that we've made in workforce solutions, and whether that's interim or RPO, that's really paying dividends. In this quarter, the RPO new wins were something like $160 million, and 50% of those were from new logos. So you're definitely going to see lumpiness around, for example, the outsourcing wins. That's one of the reasons why we entered into this investment with AMS, because what you have there is, you have recurring loyal client relationships of scale.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Their client relationships there, just take their top 10, the average tenure of those client relationships is 14 years. So, two-thirds of their business is in the RPO area. I look at that as incredibly sticky and recurring. When you look at the combined backlog now, this firm has absolutely made an enormous transformation over the last decade, and even two decades, where now you're looking at a firm that looks completely different than the Korn Ferry where I started. Today we've got a backlog of $3.5 billion now with AMS. So yeah, the workforce solutions is an integral part, and we've certainly seen a lift in new business, including, like I said, including in the interim area, which has had a significant lift. I think that above-market growth has been driven by the We Are Korn Ferry strategy.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Look at the cross referrals this quarter, we're almost 30%, which is really, really good to see.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Gary, maybe just, because I think the backlog commentary is really important for folks to understand. If you look at our backlog, George, we were at the end of the quarter about $1.9 billion, and 60% of that, or roughly 60%, comes out within the next year, and then after that, you probably have another year and a half for the remainder. What AMS brings is not only a very large backlog, but it's also given the strength and tenure of the customer relationships that Gary talked about. They're about 40% within the first year, 60% comes out over the next four years. It gives us much more durability and visibility, and resilience going forward.

George Tong
George Tong
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. That's helpful. You're expecting AMS EBITDA to go from $100 million to $140 million within a year. Can you break out how much of the increase is going to come from revenue versus cost synergies?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Well, our focus is absolutely on revenue, and we've already hit the ground running. We've had big teams together now over the last weeks and since we've closed, and there's obviously a little bit of pre-integration planning where we've mapped top 100 customers, put teams against them. There's actually meetings happening this week with clients. I mean, we are absolutely all over that. It's certainly going to change the nature of our Marquee and Diamond portfolio. That undoubtedly will go up. As you know, it's incredibly complementary given AMS' industry and geographic footprint with Korn Ferry. I look at not only the RPO solution, but I look at contingent workforce solutions, and early careers, and technology consulting, and integration, as well as reskilling. I look at all five solutions, if you will, very, very positively.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

The contingent workforce solutions, I think could be something that is definitely multi-hundred million and could be multi-billion dollars given the amount of money the companies spend on the temporary side. The offering is really cool, where we will now go in, and we can consolidate vendors and save a company 600, 700, 800 basis, 900 basis points on their spend. I mean, this is material savings. The contingent workforce solutions, we're going to take that given the relationships we have around the world. It's the same with early careers. With the early careers and the campus hiring that they do, and just the Marquee logos, their client logos are so impressive. Like I said, everybody's got a perfect resume, and understanding who somebody is incredibly important to that hiring decision.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

On the technology consulting side, they bring skills that we need, particularly around integrating Talent Suite with CRM and HR platforms. I look at all of those and say, wow, over the next 3 to 5 years, you are going to see incredible lift, I believe, given this iconic brand and bringing our organizations together. We are absolutely off and running on the revenue side. On the economies of scale side, we have a track record. We have a global platform that is highly scalable. We definitely are going to look at the economies of scale and whether that is in vendor spend, we are looking at that very closely. I would just go back to our track record and say, we do everything we say we are going to do and more. Will we hit that $40 million? We will absolutely hit that.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Will we hit it before one year? We absolutely will.

George Tong
George Tong
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

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

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Analyst at Baird

Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. Gary, there's been a lot of mixed news with regards to the economy. You obviously had really good results during this last quarter. Just wondering, how much of your performance would you attribute to just kind of the general macro versus what you guys are specifically doing? What is your sense of how the macro has evolved over the last 3, 4 months and what the near-term outlook is?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Well, I think the question of raising rates, that's a real issue. Growth is very hard to come by for most companies if they're not building data centers or in the AI area. I think it has been a challenging environment, and the Middle East has not made that any easier, and you see the impact on our EMEA results for sure. Has it worsened over the last 3 or 4 months? I would say no. But again, we've got the big question of increasing rates and more conflict in the Middle East that doesn't seem to end. I guess on the other side, Mark, what I would point out is just the tremendous demographic opportunities because there is a supply-demand imbalance, and you know this better than anybody.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

The U.S. economy is only projected to produce like 5 or 6 million jobs over the next decade compared to 25 million over the previous decade. Baby boomers are retiring. The labor force just isn't going to grow. The question then is how do you really find that talent that's not just have a good company, but a great company? I think my earlier comments about AI are absolutely right. Everybody does have a perfect resume, and I think our IP and our skill sets and our success profiles actually play an enormous role with that kind of backdrop.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Analyst at Baird

That's terrific. Then with regards to AI and IP, how would you characterize the difference between the development of AI and making it easier to find people relative to what happened with LinkedIn when that first came along? How that ended up impacting your discussion with your clients and how it ended up impacting the discussion around pricing.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

With LinkedIn, it was around finding people. That was the big question. I think even back then, I said, it is not a question of finding somebody, it is a question of finding out who they are. I think with the AI, it is even more pronounced because what I am seeing, what I am hearing from clients is everybody is perfect. Everybody has this stellar background. I actually think it is way different from the LinkedIn days. If you look at our pricing overall on the entire platform, it has gone up. It has increased over time. I think you could make the argument that the same thing could happen here because this one is. It is not because it is recent. I just think this is way more profound than the LinkedIn days 15, 20 years ago.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Analyst at Baird

Right. Last one from me. With regards to AMS, your RPO group has competed against Alexander Mann and slash AMS for more than a decade now. How are the groups getting along together, and what was AMS's trajectory on a month-by-month basis going into the close of this?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

It is the same as what we had forecasted. Their CAGR over the last several years has looked similar to ours. If you go back further than that, the trend would be remarkably identical. Even before COVID, then you have got the great resignation. Everything kind of trended the same way. Going into the close, when we announced it, we said, including at the time, it was about $650 million a year in annualized revenue.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Going into the close and what we forecasted for the first 2 months is the pro rata share of that. It really has not changed. We are looking at this. What we are going to do now, the go-to-market side, we are all over. As I talked about to George, we are absolutely all over that. We are integrating right off the bat. I hate the word integrating, but synchronizing the go-to-market activity.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

That is absolutely happening. It is going to take us about 8 months or so to get everybody on the same platform, and we are targeting, our fiscal year ends April 30th. We are targeting a May 1st of 2027 date where we would get everybody onto a common platform that would be SAP and the like, and a common CRM, all of that. We are going to do some things immediately so that our frontline consultants, we have about 1,800, 1,900 of those, so they have visibility into the customer activity for our largest clients. We are absolutely doing that right off the bat. AMS has a completely different industry coverage than Korn Ferry. They are very, very heavy into financial services. It is almost 50% of their overall portfolio. I look from an industry and geographic, it is very, very complementary.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

At the end of the day, we're looking at the business through a regional lens within through these three solutions. Our goal here is to have a unified RPO offering, which we will have. But we're not going to be even on the same system for a number of months. The first few months here is really around learning about each other and not saying, "Well, this is the way we've always done things, so this is the way we're going to do it in the future." It's really around finding a third way. That includes the IP from both organizations. That IP is obviously very, very meaningful in the RPO area. Our principle here is do no harm. Focus on the customer right off the bat. Look at the economies of scale here over the next several months. But it's around culture.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

When you do something like this, people ignore culture. But culture is the way an organization gets things done, and by definition, that's going to have to change. That's one of the exciting things about being in business. It's not stagnated. It constantly changes. So we have to continue to evolve our culture collectively together.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Analyst at Baird

Thanks so much, Gary.

Operator

Our final question will come from the line of Brianna Kamdoum with UBS. Please go ahead.

Brianna Kamdoum
Brianna Kamdoum
Analyst at UBS

Good morning. This is Brianna Kamdoum, also Josh. For my first question, are there any key metrics you are paying attention to in reviewing the progress of integration and any milestones you are looking to reach the next couple of quarters?

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Well, look, two quarters, that is a pretty short amount of time. We want to look at whether we are expanding client relationships. Every organization, whether it is a family, a church, every organization has to grow. So we look at this and say, wow, two iconic brands, complementary geographic fit, industry fit, Marquee logos. So for us, what we tend to look at is how do our enterprise accounts do, our Marquee and Diamond clients, and what is happening with the cross-referrals.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

You have seen that now over time, it has gone up and to the right pretty consistently. We would look to that. It is all about deepening relationships and innovation, bringing new offerings to market. So all of those things we would certainly look at. But the first principle is do no harm. Make sure you understand and you understand each other before we find a third way.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Gary, I would just add to that, if you are trying to think over the next two months, remember what Gary said. We are not going to be integrated from a platform perspective until May 1. So just that in and of itself, we should frame it up for you saying over the next couple of quarters, you will see some progress, but it will be more heavily weighted towards after the integration. That is primarily on the cost side. As Gary indicated on the top line side, we are starting that right now.

Brianna Kamdoum
Brianna Kamdoum
Analyst at UBS

That is helpful. Thank you. For my second question, do you expect AMS to have any direct or indirect impact on your other existing businesses outside of RPO? Thank you.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Well, we do. We think that there is enormous opportunity to continue to deepen relationships, and that's reflected in the cross-referrals. After this investment, we're going to have something like 2,000 consultants that are responsible for originating business. For the AMS colleagues that have come in to legacy Korn Ferry, they have the opportunity to be able to deepen those relationships with other solutions that they didn't have. The same holds true for legacy Korn Ferry and the 1,850 frontline consultants that we have. We have new capabilities to be able to offer to our existing customer base. We've already put in cross-referral incentives, and we're doing it as we speak, literally as we speak, for our new AMS colleagues, where they are going to be rewarded for opening the door and introducing other solutions.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

At the end of the day here, after this transaction, you're going to have a couple of thousand frontline consultants. We're looking at that productivity, and we see that productivity at being about $2 million per consultant. Obviously, that has room for significant expansion given the complementary nature of the solutions that we have here.

Bob Rozek
CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry

Hey, Gary, the other thing I would add to that is if you think about our go-to-market activities and go-to-market mindset, it's driven through the Marquee and Diamond accounts, and it's all about deepening our client relationships and demonstrated by our referral rates going from 18%, back when we started measuring, up to almost 30% today. The other thing I would add for AMS, they operate very similar to us. If you go back to 2020 and you look at their growth, Gary indicated it was kind of the same as ours, their CAGR is 10%-11%. Over 50% of that came from expanding their existing client relationships. Those go-to-market activities that are important to us are also obviously very important to them and very consistent with what we've done over time.

Brianna Kamdoum
Brianna Kamdoum
Analyst at UBS

Thank you both, and good luck in Q2.

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Thank you.

Operator

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

Gary Burnison
Gary Burnison
CEO at Korn Ferry

Okay. Regina, thank you for hosting this. I thank everybody for joining. We are very excited about what we can do now with I think the dominant firm in talent and organizational consulting. Thank you all, and we will talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this conference call will be available for replay for one week starting today, running through the end of the day on September 16, 2026, ending at midnight. You may access the Echo Replay service by dialing 800-770-2030 and entering the access code 2672007, 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 today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Executives
Analysts
    • Bob Rozek
      CFO, EVP, and Chief Corporate Officer at Korn Ferry
    • Tyler Van Buren
      Analyst at Truist
    • Melissa McMahon
      Analyst at William Blair
    • George Tong
      Analyst at Goldman Sachs
    • Mark Marcon
      Analyst at Baird
    • Brianna Kamdoum
      Analyst at UBS
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