Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cognizant Technology Solutions fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, It may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tyler Scott, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. By now, you should have received a copy of the earnings release, an investor supplement for the company's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. If you have not, copies are available on our website, cognizant.com. The speakers we have on today's call are Steve Rowleader, Chair of the Cognizant's Board of Directors, Ravi Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, and Jan Siegmund, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the comments made on today's call and some of the responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to the risk and uncertainties as described in the company's earnings release and other filings with the SEC. Additionally, During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe provide useful information for our investors. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures, where appropriate to the corresponding GAAP measures, can be found on the company's earnings release and other filings with the SEC. With that, I'd like to now turn the call over to Steve. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Tyler, and thank you all for joining us today. Given the recent news, I wanted to join the call for this quarter to introduce myself and explain the changes we've recently announced. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Steve Rowleader, and I joined the board as an independent director in March of 2022. Last month, I became chair of Cognizant's board of directors. I previously spent 35 years at Accenture, where I served as group chief executive of health and public services, chief executive of North America, and chief operating officer. Today I'd like to briefly discuss our recent CEO transition and the board changes announced this afternoon supporting our ongoing board refreshment process. I also want to explain why we're excited for Cognizant's next chapter. Ravi will then introduce himself and share his thoughts before Jan discusses our fourth quarter results in detail. We'll then proceed to Q&A. Regarding our CEO transition, As we announced a few weeks ago, the board appointed Ravi Kumar to succeed Brian Humphries as CEO. Brian was a resilient leader, providing a steady hand as he steered the company through various challenges, including the global pandemic. On behalf of the board, management, and all of our associates, I want to thank Brian for his contributions, which have helped to position Cognizant to capture a large, growing market and fuel profitable revenue growth beyond our short-term challenges. We also appreciate that Brian will remain with the company as a special advisor until March to ensure a seamless transition. As part of the board's strategy to help Cognizant achieve long-term sustainable growth, we also announced today a new board appointment. Eric Branderez, a proven financial executive, and public company director with demonstrated experience supporting growth in technology in the energy industries, has been appointed to serve as an independent director on the board. Eric brings significant experience in finance, accounting, M&A execution, risk management, and ESG and corporate governance to Cognizant, and we welcome him to the board. The appointment comes as our board continues to strive towards optimizing its balance of director skills and tenures as part of its ongoing refreshment program. With Eric's appointment, the board has appointed five new independent directors over the last four years. Maureen Brake-Iron Evans, a member of the board since 2009, has also advised the board that she will not stand for reelection at Cognizant's 2023 annual meeting of stockholders. On behalf of the entire board, we thank her for more than a decade of astute guidance, exceptional leadership, and dedicated service to Cognizant. Given these changes to the board, our governance committee, our committee chairs, and myself will perform a comprehensive evaluation of committee composition with an aim toward balancing representation of board tenure and appropriate key skills and qualifications on our committees. These were topics that I, along with other members of the board, had the pleasure of discussing with several of our largest investors during our annual governance roadshow in the fourth quarter. Now, before I turn the call over to Ravi, let me share a little bit about our enthusiasm for his leadership. Over the past few years, Cognizant has navigated a dynamic, uncertain market while strengthening its operational and financial fundamentals. Heading into 2023, the board believes that Cognizant has established a solid operational foundation and now needs to move toward accelerating growth. This agenda requires a focused growth mindset driven from the C-suite. Robbie has this mindset. He brings a passion for building teams and driving growth in our industry, and we're confident that he's the right leader to take Cognizant into our next phase with a goal of ultimately delivering significant returns to our shareholders. Ravi also brings to cognizant best-in-class operations, transformation, and leadership expertise at a global scale from a stellar 20-year track record emphasis. During his tenure, he oversaw the company's global services organization and drove growth across its global industry segments. Ravi is a proven strategist who secured significant IT services deals. He led international business operations in India, Latin America, Japan, and China, and he pioneered the creation of digital talent pools in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Importantly, during his time at Emphasis, Ravi earned a reputation as a people-focused leader with a deep-rooted commitment to teams and associates. Since he joined us a few weeks ago, Ravi has proven out this reputation as cognizant associates have warmly welcomed him to the team and are deeply enthusiastic about his leadership. We're confident that Ravi will help us further our efforts to support engagement and trust internally and drive retention amongst our high performing leaders and associates. As we look forward under Ravi's leadership, Cognizant will have a sharp focus on two key priorities. First, we'll be focused on meaningful acceleration of revenue growth. Our second key priority will be ensuring that Cognizant is the employer of choice in our industry. Ravi is the right leader to achieve this vision and the board looks forward to partnering with him. I'll now turn the call over to Ravi to introduce himself and to share some additional perspective.