CRA International,Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Charles River Associates' first quarter 2026 conference call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. The company's earnings release and prepared CFO remarks 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 Eric Nirenberg, and Chief Corporate Development Officer Chad Holmes. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Dr. Nirenberg for opening remarks. Eric, please go ahead.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning to 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 with the SEC. CRA undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements after the date of this call to reflect new information or developments. 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 reconciliation of 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, Eric. And good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. CRA continued its strong performance into the first quarter of fiscal 2026 as revenue increased by 10.5% year over year to $201 million. This represents the highest quarterly revenue in the company's history, besting the previous record set by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. Broad-based contributions drove the quarter's strong performance, with eight practices growing year over year. Four practices, energy, finance, forensic services, and life sciences, posted double-digit revenue growth, while the antitrust and competition economics practice posted a new high for quarterly revenue. We generated growth across our geographies with our North American operations increasing revenue by 8.5% and our international operations expanding 20.3% year over year. For the company as a whole, consultant headcount increased 2.5% compared to the first quarter of 2025. Consultant utilization improved on a year-over-year basis to 77%. The increase in consultant headcount and utilization were supported by the continued replenishing of our sales pipeline. Average weekly project lead flow and new project originations each set quarterly records and posted double-digit growth relative to the first quarter of 2025. We continue to manage the business effectively during the first quarter, generating $23.2 million of non-GAAP EBITDA or 11.5% of revenue. As a reminder, historically the first quarter is disproportionately affected by higher employee-related benefit costs and taxes due to the payment of annual bonuses. Also embedded in the first quarter EBITDA figure is non-cash amortization of forgivable loans of $13.8 million or 6.9% of revenue. This represents an increase of 4.8%, excuse me, of $4.8 million or 53% year over year, which is consistent with our expectations and prior commentary when establishing our annual profit guidance for fiscal 2026. I would now like to spend a few minutes highlighting the markets for our services and some of the projects delivered during the first quarter. Revenue in the first quarter from CRA's legal and regulatory services increased 11.5%. This growth was in line with the broader legal market as total case filings and total court judgments increased 8 and 13% respectively compared to the first quarter of 2025. Turning to the M&A market, Worldwide M&A activity totaled $1.2 trillion during the first quarter of 2026, an increase of 27% compared to prior year levels. This represents the strongest opening quarter for dealmaking since 2021 and the third consecutive quarter surpassing $1 trillion. Against this backdrop, CRA's antitrust and competition economics practice delivered a record quarter capitalizing on ongoing merger-related activity and continued demand for antitrust services. During the quarter, CRA's competition practice was jointly retained in a merger between two of the largest North American distributors of janitorial, sanitation, and food services products. CRA analyzed the merger's potential competitive impact by locality and across many customer verticals. Leveraging the party's sales and bidding data, combined with industry level and public data, CRA designed, prepared, and presented multiple empirical analyses to the Federal Trade Commission, culminating in the agency's unconditional clearance of the transaction. In another project, a CRA competition team advised Rio International, a designer and builder of industrial lifting and handling systems, In defending against damages claim brought by a competitor, Fives ECL, before the Hamburg local division of the United Patent Court, ECL sought compensation for alleged lost profits, claiming that a patent infringement by Rio led to a price reduction. The CRA team supported Rio with an expert report emphasizing the importance of assessing the profits the claimants would likely have earned absent the infringement. In February 2026, the court dismissed the claim in full. The decision is among the first unified patent court rulings on the assessment of causation and quantification of damages since the pan-European court's launch in 2023. Elsewhere, our finance practice continued to be active in complex commercial disputes and investigations across all of its focus areas, including mergers in corporate governance, bankruptcy, trading, securities, insurance, and international arbitration. For example, a team of CRA consultants supported an expert who testified on damages related to food safety crisis in the first Caremark trial in Delaware Court of Chancery addressing the fiduciary duties of company directors to ensure proper information and reporting systems. Separately, Another team supported a CRA expert who testified at trial between excluded and participating lenders, Inserter Simmons betting 2020 liability management up-tier transaction. During the first quarter, CRA's forensic services practice supported hundreds of matters across ransomware, wire transfer fraud, employee misconduct, trade secret disputes, and broader litigation engagements. For example, We recently assisted a global software company seeking assurance that its software development environments, including core code bases, had been compromised by threat actor activity. Our team conducted a comprehensive forensic review of build systems and orchestration infrastructure, which oversee and control the software development lifecycle to assess any potential manipulation of code or the build process. The practice is also being retained on engagements that position us at the center of highly complex and emerging data challenges, particularly in the privacy and advertising technology space. For instance, we are supporting one of the world's largest advertising technology companies in defending a privacy class action involving online tracking technologies. Our team performed detailed analysis across a multi-terabyte data set, produce a comprehensive expert report, and is prepared to provide expert testimony in support of the client's defense at trial. Turning to our management consulting services, both the energy and life sciences practice delivered double digit revenue growth. CRA's energy practice supported a wide array of clients in the first quarter of the year, including utilities, electric system operators, private equity, large energy customers, electric equipment manufacturers, and regulators. For example, the practice advised a utility client regarding its data center tariffs and its approach for managing large loads to mitigate risk to customers. Elsewhere, the practice was hired by PJM, the Mid-Atlantic system operator, to lead the high-profile backstop procurement auction related to increased loads amid data center growth. Finally, the practice was hired by a private equity group to provide commercial and regulatory due diligence on a large community solar portfolio. In our life sciences practice, we continue to leverage strengths across the team's strategy and policy consulting capabilities. For example, working with a mid-sized global pharmaceutical company focused on immunology, the team developed a comprehensive strategy for board level review regarding growth opportunities, pricing, and market access issues and associated policy concerns. Another project involved a global pricing study for a new combination therapy containing an existing blockbuster product in the cardiovascular and nephrology space. The analysis covered markets in North America, Europe, and Asia. with particular consideration for the most favored nation pricing policies being put forth by the current US administration. Overall, I'm grateful to all of my colleagues for their hard work during the first quarter in helping our clients address their most important challenges. We are pleased with the strong performance of the business to start the year and continue to fuel those practices that are able to capitalize on growth opportunities through additional talent investments and consultant hires. In parallel, we took the opportunity to further optimize our service portfolio by reconfiguring the consulting team in targeted areas of the company. During the quarter, these optimization efforts affected 22 individuals across about a half dozen practices in various corporate departments, resulting in a restructuring charge of $2.6 million. The charges comprised of 1.6 million of cash charges and 1.0 million of non-cash charges. Anticipated annual cost savings from this action are estimated to be approximately $5 million with minimal impact on revenue going forward. It is important to note that we continue to see numerous growth opportunities and our pipeline of talent acquisition remains robust. As such, We intend to redeploy these annual savings back into the business to further strengthen the company and to pursue profitable growth in the quarters ahead. Turning now to guidance. We are reaffirming our full year financial guidance for fiscal 2026. We are encouraged by the strong start to the year, supportive market trends, and the continued replenishing of our sales pipeline. However, we remain mindful that evolving geopolitical, global macroeconomic, and business conditions can affect our business. Finally, I was not planning to directly address AI's impact on CRA's business and the services that we provide because I think our results speak for themselves. We continue to grow revenue and to grow it profitably. The demand environment for CRA services is very strong. perhaps the strongest that I have seen during my tenure at CRA. Having said all that, the market for CRA shares seems to signal a fundamental misunderstanding of what CRA does. Clients hire us because they are dealing with situations in which expert insights can have profound financial and strategic impact. Often the value at stake for our clients is many, many multiples of the fees paid to CRA. The source of our value lies in our expert judgment, framing the right question, choosing defensible assumptions, and supporting conclusions in an ever-changing and increasingly complex business climate. AI can accelerate and in many cases enhance our work, but it does not replace CRA's expertise and credibility in complex and high-stakes environments. As discussed during our last earnings call, We see AI as both a demand amplifier and productivity enhancer. Furthermore, we believe it strengthens CRA's overall position due to our deep expertise, strong governance, and established credibility. We remain extremely confident about CRA's future and look forward to delivering long-term value to our colleagues, clients, and shareholders in the years ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chad and then to Eric for a few additional comments. Chad?