Emerald Holding, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Carly and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Emerald Holdings second quarter 2025 earnings 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 would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Erica Bartsch, AVP, EVP of Strategy and Communications at Emerald. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to the Emerald Holdings second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that this call will include certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This includes remarks about future expectations, beliefs, estimates, plans, and prospects. In particular, the company's statements about projected results for 2025 are forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by such statements. For a discussion of these risks, uncertainties, and other factors, please refer to the company's SEC filings, including its most recently filed periodic reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, as well as the company's earnings release, all of which can be found on the company's investor relations website. The company does not undertake any duties to update such forward-looking statements. Additionally, during today's call, management will discuss non-GAAP measures which it believes can be useful in evaluating the company's performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most comparable GAAP measures can be found in the company's earnings release, which is available on the company's investor relations website. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and a replay of this call will be available on the company's investor relations website through 1159 p.m. Eastern Time on August 11, 2025. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Herve Sedki, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Erica. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. I'll begin the call with an overview of our second quarter performance and a review of our strategic initiatives. I'll then turn things over to David Doft, our CFO, who will take us through our financials. The second quarter reflected strong, disciplined execution across the portfolio with results in line with the expectations that we laid out earlier this year. We delivered solid year-over-year growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA supported by the strength of our platform and the recent acquisitions. As we contemplated in our budgeting and guidance, reported organic growth was muted due to the event mix in the quarter. However, on a pro forma basis, Assuming the recently completed acquisitions were part of the portfolio in the second quarter of 2024, organic growth would have been approximately 5% this quarter. This is a more accurate reflection of the performance of our business as it's constituted on a go-forward basis with the inclusion of these acquisitions. This offers a clearer view of the performance of the current Emerald platform and the positive underlying momentum across the portfolio. Taken together, our results year-to-date reinforce Emerald's position as a scaled, insights-driven B2B platform and gives us confidence to reaffirm our full-year outlook. The momentum we're seeing is a direct result of the deliberate actions that we've taken to reshape and strengthen our portfolio. Over the past 18 months, we've exited underperforming assets that we're not going to recover post-COVID, realigned our cost structure, and completed targeted acquisitions that strengthen our position in high-growth verticals. As a result, Emerald has sharpened its focus and further strengthened its performance-driven approach with a portfolio built for durability and growth across market cycles. This transformation is not only taking hold, but it's driving meaningful performance improvements across the business. We're also seeing encouraging rebooking trends for the first half of 2026, a clear signal of customer confidence in the breadth and value of our portfolio. Our solid rebook rates underscore the commercial strength of our events, from qualified lead generation to business outcomes that support long-term customer ROI. Exhibitors continue to reinvest because our events drive meaningful impact from enabling discovery, in-person engagement, and sales pipeline acceleration. Early rebooking activity highlights the resilience of our model. and affirms that in-person engagement remains a critical go-to-market channel across sectors with strong performance in both established and high-growth segments. While we're pleased with our execution and continued progress, we remain closely focused on the broader macroeconomic environment, navigating these dynamics with operational discipline and strategic focus. Certain end markets are continuing to face macro-related pressures, tariffs in particular, but our diversified portfolio continues to perform well. This underscores the strength of our model and our intentional efforts to increase our exposure to categories that have resilient demand characteristics and relatively less exposure to economic ebbs and flows. Our strategic focus is also contributing to measured progress internationally. As a reminder, international exhibitors account for approximately 10% of total revenue, with limited exposure to any single region. While moderately dragging overall growth, we've already secured 99% of our four-year international revenue target, signaling sustained interest from global partners seeking access to the U.S. buyers and giving us confidence to deliver on our four-year targets. We're seeing pockets of encouraging activity in markets like Italy, Germany, and Brazil, which are helping to offset continued softness in regions like China and Canada. Much of this early progress reflects the foundation laid by our expanded global agent network, now nearly 100 agents across more than 50 countries. Our long-term investments, we expect, will yield more measurable results over time. Importantly, as more trade deals get signed and bring certainty to more industries, our belief is that this important customer segment should bounce back and continue to grow beginning next year. In a landscape shaped by shifting trade policy, rapid technological change, and rising uncertainty, the value of trusted high-impact connection channels is only growing. That's why we remain confident in the resilience and relevance of live events. In-person experiences consistently outperform digital in brand recall and ROI, particularly in complex or high-consideration environments. This advantage becomes even more pronounced during periods of uncertainty when businesses prioritize channels that drive measurable impact and build real trust. As Mark Cuban recently noted on his XFeed, the explosion of AI-generated content is creating a million Vanilli effect, a growing skepticism of what's real versus what's synthetic. In his words, this will drive people back to authenticity and heightened demand for face-to-face interactions that build credibility, connection, and lasting value. We couldn't agree more. This conviction ultimately shapes how we operate and where we invest for long-term value. Our approach remained laser-focused, on three core pillars of customer centricity, 365-day engagement, and portfolio optimization. We've made great progress in our portfolio optimization efforts where we're pursuing targeted acquisitions that diversify our offerings and expanding our presence in resilient sectors with attractive long-term growth opportunities that have a demonstrated track record of delivering impactful in-person B2B experiences, notably Our acquisitions of This is Beyond and InsureTech Insights are already advancing our strategic priorities and contributing to growth. In June, InsureTech Insights held its U.S. edition, drawing strong industry participation and reinforcing our position in a high-growth vertical. Similarly, This is Beyond's flagship events, We Are Africa and L.E. Miami, delivered exceptional experiences in Q2, convening a highly curated global community of luxury travel leaders. Their focus on premium, purpose-driven experiences aligns with evolving B2B customer expectations and further strengthens Emerald's position in the high-growth global luxury travel market. These early performance indicators underscore the strength of our portfolio, optimization strategy, and our disciplined approach to integration and value creation, leaving me energized for what's ahead. So in closing, our second quarter performance illustrates the strength and resilience of the Emerald platform, our ability to deliver as plans, integrate value-enhancing acquisitions, and navigate external challenges reflects both the commitment of our team and the trust of our customers. We remain confident in our capacity to drive meaningful long-term value for shareholders while continuing to deliver exceptional experiences for our customers. And with that, I'll hand things over to David for a deeper look at our financials. David?