CRA International,Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Charles River Associates' fourth quarter 2024 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 conference over to Mr. Mahoney for 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, along with 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 with 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. Revenue for fiscal 2024 increased by 10.2 percent to $687.4 million, marking CRA's seventh consecutive year of record annual revenue. Legal and regulatory services led this growth with a 12% increase year over year. For fiscal 2024, six practices grew their top lines with five, antitrust and competition economics, energy, financial economics, intellectual property, and risk investigations and analytics, delivering double-digit revenue growth relative to fiscal 2023. CRA also posted record profits for the year as net income, earnings per diluted share, and EBITDA each grew faster than revenue and at rates of more than 20% year over year. In the fourth quarter, our portfolio strength drove an increase in revenue of 9.2% compared with the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, resulting in the best quarterly revenue in the company's history. Our North American and international operations both contributed to the quarter's revenue growth, increasing 7.8% and 15.7%, respectively. For the fourth quarter, seven of CRA's 11 practices grew their top lines, with three, energy, finance, and intellectual property, delivering double-digit revenue growth relative to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. Continued growth of our sales pipeline supported this record Q4 revenue. With conversion rates at customary levels, we drove expansion across both our project lead flow and new project originations, which increased 5.5% and 7.5% respectively relative to the fourth quarter of 2023. We ended the quarter with a consulting headcount of 946, and firm-wide utilization of 78% in the fourth quarter compared to 73% reported for Q4 last year. The strong utilization helped our top-line expansion generate quarterly profits that grew at even faster rates with non-GAAP net income, earnings per diluted share, and EBITDA increasing year-over-year by 21.2%, 24.5%, and 28.4% respectively. I would now like to spend a few minutes highlighting the markets for our services and some of the projects delivered to our clients during the fourth quarter. Revenue in the fourth quarter from CRA's legal and regulatory services increased approximately 7%, which surpassed growth rates observed in the broader legal market. Total case filings in the fourth quarter were up 1% year over year, while the number of total court judgments increased 2%. Within our legal regulatory services, the finance and intellectual property practices led the way, each delivering quarterly revenue growth of more than 20% year over year. In addition, our antitrust and competition economics, labor and employment, and risk investigations and analytic practices expanded revenue year over year. During the quarter, CRA's antitrust and competition economics practice worked on merger transactions across a range of industries and geographies. For example, CRA experts assisted Nova Holdings in its acquisition of Catalan, a contract development and manufacturing organization, as well as Nova Nordisks' subsequent acquisition of three Catalan manufacturing sites from Nova Holdings. The CRA team supported the transaction in both the United States and Europe, with the European Commission unconditionally clearing the transaction and finding that the proposed transaction would not hamper rivals' access to fill-finish processing capacity in the market, a critical end-stage manufacturing element within the pharmaceutical industry. Furthermore, CRA was retained by Waste Management, Inc., to advise on its $7 billion acquisition of Stericycle, a leading provider of regulated medical waste, compliance services, and secure information destruction services. CRA provided economic assistance to waste management on the competition and regulatory compliance aspects of the acquisition, evaluating potential competitive concerns and effects of the acquisition in the United States and Canada. the U.S. Department of Justice declined to issue a second request, and the parties received approvals from the Canadian Competition Bureau. During the fourth quarter, our finance practice continued to be active in high-profile litigation and arbitration disputes, including matters involving tax controversies, criminal sentencing, securities litigation, and adversarial actions in bankruptcy, cryptocurrency disputes and valuation matters. For example, a CRA expert testified in an arbitration concerning the market condition for an IPO of the shares of a European midstream oil and gas company. Following the CRA expert's testimony, the panel of arbiters denied the claimant's demand for over $3 billion in damages. The intellectual property practice advised on multiples high-stakes litigation matters covering a broad range of industries and legal forms. For example, in the artificial intelligence technology sector, a CRA expert was retained by a major technology company to evaluate the plaintiff's claimed damages stemming from the alleged copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation related to three-dimensional digital models used for machine vision research. A CRA expert provided testimony related to reasonable royalties, avoided development costs, and the lack of harm to the plaintiff's business resulting from the alleged use. In another IP matter, two other CRA vice presidents provided expert reports and testimony on economic and damages issues in a multi-jurisdictional patent dispute between two leading consumer product companies. CRA's clients, one of the top innovators in the home appliance sector secured a favorable global settlement that was supported by the CRA expert's opinion provided in federal district court and to the International Trade Commission. During Q4, the labor and employment practice supported multiple experts who were retained to opine on a diverse set of labor issues. For example, a CRA expert opined in a class action complaint alleging multiple violations of California labor code. Through the analysis of terabytes of data reporting employees' behavior when recording their work time, the CRA team demonstrated that idiosyncratic variations in employees' timekeeping choices, including those of the named plaintiffs, made a class-wide analysis inappropriate. In addition to providing expert testimony, CRA's practice experts continue to be valued partners for clients in early stage assessments and mediation assistance for both discrimination and wage and hour litigation matters. The risk investigations and analytics practice continues to focus on executing complex, multidisciplinary investigative and analytic assignments. For example, during the fourth quarter, The practice performed in-depth due diligence on multiple bidders related to the anticipated sale of various assets by a large multinational corporation. The matter is ongoing and includes a detailed review of state and federal litigation with a focus on fraud, false claims, and personal injury matters. Additionally, with input from customers and employees, the CRA team is analyzing the financial status regulatory filings, media, and social media relating to each bidder's management and operational effectiveness. Within our management consulting offering, the energy practice delivered strong performance during the quarter across the diverse range of services. The team collaborated with multiple electric utilities to support generational planning aimed at accommodating load growth from data centers. This work demands... deep expertise in electricity markets, energy policy, procurement strategies, and rate design. Additionally, the practice played a significant role in major energy transactions, such as supporting a prospective buyer of a large electric transmission portfolio in North America. In CRA's life sciences practice, we continue to expand our efforts with respect to early stage assets, recently completing a nine-month project for a pharmaceutical company reviewing 22 therapeutic areas in nine countries to identify attractive opportunities for investment. The work on early stage assets often leads to further work on clinical development strategy engagements, such as a recent project focused on European payers and key oncologists regarding the optimal regulatory label, pivotal trial expectations, and access potential for novel product in the fight against cancer. Due to our experience working with pharmaceutical companies, we are often asked to provide expert testimony and opine on agreements in the industry, including a recent retention regarding the definition of product sales and associated deductions in a licensing dispute. Overall, I'm grateful to all of my colleagues for their hard work during the fourth quarter and throughout the year. as we helped our clients address their most important challenges. Our fiscal 2024 financial performance demonstrates our success in the marketplace, and we are looking to continue our trend of broad-based profitable growth in the years ahead. For full year fiscal 2025, on a constant currency basis relative to fiscal 2024, we expect revenue in the range of $715 million to $735 million, and non-GAAP EBITDA margin in the range of 12.0% to 13.0%. While we're pleased with CRA's strong performance in 2024, we remain mindful that uncertain global macroeconomic, business, and political conditions can affect our business. With that, I will turn the call over to Chad and then to Dan for a few additional comments. Chad? Thanks, Paul.