Gartner, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Gartner First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, David Cohen, GVP of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Gigi, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your joining us today for Gartner's first quarter 2019 earnings call. With me today are Gene Hall, Chief Executive Officer, and Craig Safian, Chief Financial Officer. This call will include a discussion of first quarter 2019 financial results and our current outlook for 2019 as disclosed in today's press release. In addition to today's press release, we have provided a detailed review of our financials and business metrics and an earnings supplement for investors and analysts. We have posted the press release and the earnings supplement on our website, investor.gartner.com. Following comments by Gene and Craig, we will open up the call for your questions. We ask that you limit your questions to one and a follow-up. On the call, unless stated otherwise, all references to revenue and contribution margin are for adjusted revenue and adjusted contribution margin, which exclude the deferred revenue purchase accounting adjustment and the 2018 divestiture. All references to EBITDA are for adjusted EBITDA, with the adjustments as described in our earnings release and excluding the 2018 divestitures. All cash flow numbers, unless stated otherwise, are as reported, with no adjustments related to the 2018 divestitures. All growth rates and jeans comments are FX neutral, unless stated otherwise. In our discussion of global business sales, or GBS, we will refer to the GXL product, These are the products for business leaders across the enterprise. Gartner for marketing leaders is GML. Gartner for finance leaders is GFL, and so on. In aggregate, we refer to these products for business leaders as GXL. Reconciliations for all non-GAAP numbers we use are available in the investor relations section of the Gartner.com website. Finally, all contract values and associated growth rates we discuss are based on 2019 foreign exchange rates. As set forth in more detail in today's earnings release, certain statements made on this call may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements can vary materially from actual results and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those contained in the company's 2018 annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, as well as in other filings with the SEC. I encourage all of you to review the risk factors listed in these documents. Now I will turn the call over to Gartner's Chief Executive Officer, Gene Hall.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. We delivered another robust performance in the first quarter of 2019. Total revenues were up 11%, fueled by double-digit growth in each of our business segments, research, conferences, and consulting. We continue to make a significant global impact. We helped more than 15,000 enterprise clients in more than 100 countries around the world with their mission-critical priorities, while providing great jobs to more than 15,000 associates globally. Research, our largest and most profitable segment, is the core of our value proposition. Our research business was up 11% over this time last year. As we described in our recent Investor Day, we have the Gartner formula for sustained double-digit growth that drives success in our research business. It consists of indispensable insights, exceptional talent, sales excellence, and enabling infrastructure. For each of these elements, we drive relentless, globally consistent execution of best practices and continuous improvement and innovation. Global technology sales, or GTS, serves leaders and teams within IT. This group represents more than 80% of our total research contract value. GGS contract value growth accelerated and was more than 14% year-over-year. Sales productivity wants to get improved. We then delivered double-digit growth in every region, across every size company, and in virtually every industry. Global business sales, or GVS, serves leaders and their teams beyond IT and represents about 20% of our total research contract value. This includes supply chain and marketing, which we've addressed for several years, as well as other major enterprise roles, including HR, finance, legal, sales, and more. Each of these roles has the same need for our services as IT, and demand continues to grow. Our new GXL product line gains momentum. GXL products provide greater value to clients because they're tailored to the client's individual needs. This in turn results in higher prices per user and stronger retention. Beyond better pricing and retention, GXL products provide exponentially more growth opportunities because we can sell these high-value products throughout our clients' organizations. At our investor day, we shared the growth trends of the individual GXL products. Our GXL products continue to accelerate in line with these trends. For Q1 2019, GXL contract value grew 76% year-over-year, and new business was up 84%. As expected, legacy products contract value declined. Total GBS contract value improved modestly, sequentially, as growth in GXL just offset the decline in legacy contract value. We continue to expect double-digit contract value growth in GBS by the end of the year. Overall, our research segment continues to deliver strong results. Our conferences segment also delivered a terrific performance in Q1. with a double-digit revenue growth of 17%. Gartner conferences combine the outstanding value of our research with the immersive experience of live interactions, making every conference we produce the most important gathering for the executives we serve. And we continue to invest in our conference's portfolio. In GTS, we're expanding our flagship conference, Gartner IT Symposia. This year, we'll hold an IT symposium conference in Canada. In GBS, we're building out our conference portfolio to align with the GBS roles we serve. In early April, we held our Gartner Marketing Symposium. The program featured expanded content coverage, including a dedicated track for B2B marketers and one for emerging customer and market insights. The results for this conference surpassed expectations. Total attendees were up more than 40% to about 1,700 attendees. We also plan to launch an executive summit to support the finance function within the year. And we'll continue to expand our GBS conferences over time. In addition to that, we'll continue making investments in the advantage business. Our consulting segment also achieved double-digit growth in Q1 with revenues up 16%. Gartner Consulting is an extension of Gartner Research and provides clients a deeper level of involvement through extended project-based work to help them execute their most strategic initiatives. Our growth in the quarter is a combination of strength in our labor-based business and in our contract optimization business. I recently met with many of our top-performing salespeople from around the world. This includes salespeople from GTS, GBS, and conferences. I continue to be inspired by their energy and passion for serving our clients. They have best-in-class selling skills, and they continue to embrace and implement the Gartner formula for sustained double-digit growth. Our future garden remains bright. We provide incredible value by helping our more than 15,000 enterprise clients with their most important initiatives. Our business model allows us to drive strong double-digit growth in all our key metrics, including cash flow. And we have an incredibly talented team across the business. With this foundation, we're on track to achieve sustained double-digit growth in revenues, earnings, and cash flow for years to come. With that, I'd like to hand the call over to Craig to give you an in-depth view of the quarter. Craig? Thank you, Gene, and good morning, everyone.