CRA International,Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Charles River Associates' third quarter 2022 conference call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. The company's earnings release and prepared remarks from CRA's chief financial officer are posted on the investor relations section of CRA's website at crai.com. With us today are CRA's president and chief executive officer, Paul Malley, chief financial officer, Dan Mahoney, and Chief Corporate Development Officer, Chad Holmes. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Mahoney for his opening remarks. Dan, please go ahead.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Please note that the statements made during this conference call, including guidance on future revenue and non-GAAP EBITDA margin, and any other statements concerning the future business, operating results, or financial condition of CRA, including those statements using the terms expect, outlook, or similar terms, are forward-looking statements as defined in Section 21 of the Exchange Act. Information contained in these forward-looking statements is based on management's current expectations and is inherently uncertain. Actual performance and results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements due to many important factors, including the level of demand for our services as a result of changes in general and industry-specific economic conditions. Additional information regarding these factors is included in today's release and in CRA's periodic reports, including our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed at the SEC. CRA undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date of this call. Additionally, we will refer to some non-GAAP financial measures and certain measures presented on a constant currency basis on this call. Everyone is encouraged to refer to today's release and related CFO remarks for reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to their GAAP comparable measures and descriptions of the calculation of EBITDA and measures presented on a constant currency basis. I will now turn it over to Paul for his report.

Paul? Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. CRA drove continued momentum in the business and demand for its services as quarterly revenue increased to $148.4 million. representing 8.8% year-over-year growth. The strong performance was achieved despite currency headwinds associated with the U.S. dollar that shaved $4.2 million, or 3.1% year-over-year growth, from our reported revenue on a constant currency basis. We expanded third-quarter revenue in our North American operations by more than 10% year-over-year, Revenue from our international operations was flat on a reported basis, but grew by 16% when adjusted for currency headwinds. Our performance was broad-based, with seven of our 11 practices expanding revenue year over year, and five of those practices, antitrust and competition economics, auctions and competitive bidding, energy, finance, and labor and employment, delivering, double-digit revenue growth. We welcomed 105 new consulting colleagues during the quarter while maintaining strong company-wide utilization of 74%. We continue to effectively manage the business, mitigating cost pressures, and converting CRA's top-line performance into strong profitability. For the third quarter, CRA increased non-GAAP EBITDA, net income, and earnings per diluted share year over year by 21.3%, 8.7%, and 13.9% respectively. I will now highlight some of the services we provided during the quarter. Merger activity slowed considerably in the third quarter as worldwide M&A levels declined by 59% compared to year-ago levels. The third quarter of 2022 marked the first quarter to fall below $1 trillion since the second quarter of 2020. Against this challenging backdrop, our antitrust and competition economics practice continued its strong performance. Despite the decline in worldwide M&A activity, our antitrust and competition economics practice saw the same level of lead flow of merger-related opportunities in the third quarter of 2022 relative to a year ago. The practice continues to support private parties and regulators on a variety of new and continuing M&A-related engagements in North America and Europe. The engagements span a broad range of industries, including technology, transportation, telecommunications, and healthcare, and require our experts to assess the characteristics of product and geographic markets, among other considerations. For example, during the third quarter, a CRA team advised OCP Repartition, a subsidiary of McKesson Europe, and Phoenix Group regarding their merger, which was reviewed by the French Competition Authority and the European Commission. The deal involved overlaps in the wholesale and retail distribution of pharmaceutical goods in several European countries. The regulators considered both local markets and a national market, taking into account the buying power of the pharmaceutical purchasing groups. CRA played a pivotal role in showing the role of PPGs and the increasing competitive constraints from players evolving outside the defined markets, convincing the French Competition Authority to accept the proposed behavioral remedies, that followed the unconditional clearance by the European Commission. Turning to the broader legal market, CRA's revenue from legal and regulatory offerings during the third quarter grew 14% year-over-year. This expansion exceeded mixed market trends as total case filings during the third quarter increased 7% year-over-year, while total court judgments were down 9% year-over-year. CRA's antitrust and competition economics practice continue to support clients in the context of legal disputes in addition to their merger-related work. For example, in a high-profile class action litigation, CRA is retained to analyze class certification issues on behalf of a joint defense group that comprise some of the nation's largest transportation companies, truck driver plaintiffs, alleged nationwide no poaching conspiracy among long-distance trucking companies that would reduce drivers' information about job opportunities, restrict labor mobility, and suppress wages. Plaintiffs sought more than $100 million in antitrust damages. The CRA team's analysis showed that the foundation of plaintiffs and their experts' class-right theory of harm was false. The court denied class certification but allowed named plaintiffs to pursue their claims individually. The matter settled favorably for serious clients, while a ruling on summary judgment motions was pending. Our finance practice was active during the third quarter, providing expert services in all of its areas of focus, including merger litigations in Delaware Chancery Court, in which our experts analyzed issues related to material adverse events, the fairness of deal prices and industry conditions, matters arising from allegations of spoofing and manipulations of financial markets, securities fraud litigations, instances of an instance, insurance, I'm sorry, and investment litigation, including matters for insurance companies related to cost of insurance and the California lapse law, and international arbitration and in which our experts provide testimony on valuation and damages issues in venues around the world. Within our labor and employment practice, CRA continues to be engaged by clients to assist in all aspects of litigation, including the initial phase of data collection, as well as later phases of expert testimony and post-agreement monitoring. As clients approach annual compensation adjustment cycles, CRA's labor and employment practice is regularly retained to examine pay equity issues that can be complicated by reorganization actions taken by companies adjusting to changing markets. For example, a CRA team is currently assisting a national healthcare provider to examine pay equity post reorganization, identify potential areas of concern, and provide guidance in the implementation of appropriate pay adjustments. The practice continues to benefit from the new colleagues who joined CRA as part of the acquisition of Welch Consulting. Our integration has continued according to plan, and we're benefiting from greater scale. For example, the practice is leveraging the expanded network of PhD labor economists to identify and recruit new PhD candidates at the upcoming Allied Social Science Association's annual meeting and job market. Within our management consulting offering, the energy practice assisted clients in numerous ways with the ongoing transformation of the energy industry and the decarbonization of the energy sector. We continued our work in utility resource planning, helping multiple utilities make strategic decisions regarding investment decisions and customers' impacts. We also continue to assist the investment community and advise the large infrastructure fund and its evaluation of a nuclear power technology company and a large infrastructure investor and its operations of energy and water assets. Finally, we continue to work with the legal community supporting disputes related to power generation, gas pipelines, and international project development. During the third quarter, CRA's auctions and competitive bidding practice launch its inaugural series of global dairy trade pulse auctions. CRA enhanced its trading platform to facilitate auctions on a weekly and potentially daily basis. Additionally, CRA is working with Duke Energy's North and South Carolina franchise utilities to identify solar energy projects for the development in the regions. Solar procurement is a critical element of the company's carbon plan. As mentioned in prior calls, our life sciences practice has been gaining momentum. After adjusting its revenue for currency headwinds in the third quarter, the practice is back on a growth trajectory. During the quarter, the practice continued its work in rare diseases and oncology, helping one of our clients to identify pediatric patients suffering from from an ultra-rare genetic disease and building the patient's journey for potential new second-line product in the fight against lung cancer. In addition, the practice continues to support the design, implementation, and testing of a major business intelligence platform at a longtime client as part of its investment in digital business transformation efforts. As always, I'm grateful to all my colleagues for their hard work and helping our clients address their most important challenges. Moreover, as our third quarter results demonstrate, our portfolio of services remains highly valued by our clients. We are well positioned to maintain the momentum in the business as we continue to replenish our sales pipeline. In the third quarter, project lead flow grew by roughly 6% year over year. Notably, we saw an acceleration of project lead flow during the quarter, culminating in a surge of 30% greater lead flow this September relative to last September. Reflecting the continued strength and quality of our business, we are raising our revenue and profit guidance. For full year fiscal 2022, on a constant currency basis relative to fiscal 2021, we expect revenue in the range of $600 million to $608 million, and non-GAAP EBITDA margin in the range of 12.5% to 13%. This new guidance compares with a prior revenue range of $585 million to $605 million and a prior non-GAAP EBITDA margin range of 11.3% to 12.0%. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chad and then Dan for additional comments. Chad?