Dolphin Entertainment, Inc.

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Dolphin Entertainment fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, James Carbonara, with Investor Relations. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Operator. Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us once again for DALFIN's full-year 2024 earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during the course of this conference call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual events. Please refer to the cautionary text for looking statements contained in the earnings release published earlier today, as well as the most recent SEC filings and reports. During the call today, management will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted operating income or loss. The company believes that these will provide helpful information for investors. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release. Now I would like to turn the call over to Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Dolphin. Bill, please go ahead.

Thanks, James, and welcome, everyone. As usual, I'll start by reviewing some of the key financial and operating highlights from our fiscal year 2024, and then Myrta will provide a more detailed financial overview before we open it up for Q&A. So, starting with the financials. We delivered strong financial performance in 2024, achieving 20% year-over-year revenue growth, to just under $52 million. Crossing the $50 million threshold in revenue was a significant internal milestone for us, both pragmatically and psychologically. Furthermore, and perhaps even more importantly, we achieved positive adjusted operating income for the full year of fiscal and calendar year 2024. As I've stated many times on previous earnings calls, adjusted operating income is the metric by which we measure ourselves as it allows us to focus on operating results while stripping away non-cash and one-time expenses, of which we have historically always had many due to our acquisitions. We believe that reaching positive adjusted operating income marks a significant milestone for Dolphin. In Q4, we made strategic investments for growth, primarily with the launch of AlwaysAlpha and the expansion of the digital department. We are incredibly excited about these two companies, which we believe will be both revenue and profit growth engines for Dolphin for the foreseeable future. And we believe that these short-term investments position us well for complimentary skill sets and unique market offerings. Before diving into those growth catalysts for Dolphin, let me not bury the lead. Last month, Dolphin was recognized as the agency of the year on the 2025 observer PR power list. We've mentioned our individual success on this power list many times over the years. So you can imagine how immensely gratifying it was that in the first year in which our super group was complete, the collection of dolphin PR agencies was named agency of the year across all industries in the entire country. Bam, baby. All right. In marketing speak, we have tremendous cultural reach, which has proven to be attractive to our clients. Our weekly press releases frequently highlight this reach. Just in the first quarter alone, we shared our team's work at the Sundance Film Festival, the Grammy Awards, the Super Bowl, the Oscars, Toy Fair, and at South by Southwest. These are the major sports and entertainment cultural institutions in our country, and we are at the forefront of multiple client campaigns and brand activations across all of them. Now I'll put it simply in Wall Street speak. A big part of the investment thesis of Dolphin is that we can leverage and monetize a unique collection of marketing companies that have unparalleled cultural reach. In order to do that, you have to first build such a unique collection of marketing companies. Over the past eight years, we have done just that. And the unique nature of our companies was immediately validated with the recognition of the 2025 Agency of the Year. And like a team competing in March Madness, we have taken a quick moment to celebrate the recognition of our efforts over these past eight years and are already focused on our next growth opportunities. Let me highlight several of these now. First, Always Alpha. As a reminder, Always Alpha officially launched at the start of Q4 in October as the first ever sports management firm solely focused on women's sports. The firm was founded by Allison Felix, the most decorated American track and field Olympian of all time, alongside her brother, Wes Felix, and our fabulous CEO, Cosette Chaput. Backed by Dolphin, Always Alpha aims to address outdated management models and support female athletes, broadcasters, and coaches in every aspect of their lives. Since that time, we were pleased to announce a groundbreaking joint venture with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment in February of this year. We believe that deep blue launched by Laura currency about a year ahead of always alpha is the first advertising and brand services agency for women's sports. We believe that this partnership establishes the largest firm of its kind revolutionizing the women's sports industry with comprehensive talent and brand management services. We look forward to further elevating women's sports through this historic collaboration earlier this month, We celebrated Women in Sports and International Women's Day by ringing the NASDAQ closing bell. The event, led by Dolphin and Always Alpha, featured, of course, Allison, Felix, and Cosette Chaput, along with Laura Corenzi, and prominent Always Alpha clients like Kayla Jeter and Kira Dixon. I want to take this opportunity to once again thank NASDAQ for this tremendous opportunity, which is a fantastic and fun day for all of us. and allowed us to highlight Always Alpha's ongoing commitment to elevating female talent and creating opportunities in women's sports. On a secondary note, but a very powerful one, the ceremony also showcased Dolphin's leadership in empowering women across all of its subsidiaries. To honor and celebrate International Women's Day, we were proud to share that more than three out of four Dolphin employees are female, and every single one of our eight wholly owned operating subsidiaries has at least one female CEO. And as I mentioned at the ceremony, our beloved CFO is also female. Dolphin has an incredibly deep roster of female leadership, and we are extremely proud of this fact.