Cengage Learning Holdings II, Inc.

Greetings. Welcome to the Cengage Group's third quarter fiscal year 2026 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Richard Weiss. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning, and welcome to Cengage's fiscal 2026 third quarter investor update. Joining me on the call are Michael Hansen, Chief Executive Officer, and Dean Tilsley, Chief Financial Officer. A copy of the slide presentation for today's call has been posted to the company's website at cengagegroup.com forward slash investors. The following discussion and the earnings materials contains forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as believe, expect, intend, may, could, should, will, estimate, likely, or similar words, and are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance, and relate to future results and events, and they are based on Cengage's current expectations and assumptions. Forward-looking statements relate to the future and are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict, and many of which are outside of our control. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Many factors could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement made during this discussion or any earnings materials is based on currently available information and speaks only as of the date of this discussion and the date of the earnings materials. The company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, except as required by law. On today's call and in our slide presentation, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions and the rationale for using these measures and reconciliations to its most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are provided in the legal disclaimer and in the appendix to the slide presentation. I'll now turn the call over to Michael for an update on the business, followed by Dean, who will take you through the third quarter and year-to-date details before we open the call for questions.

Michael? Thank you, Richard, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results reflect strong momentum across our major businesses and continued progress executing our strategy. Q3 adjusted cash revenue increased 10% with meaningful growth across nearly all segments. U.S. higher education outperformed expectations driven by robust digital and institutional sales, reinforcing the strength of our platform strategy and customer relationships. Our work segment also delivered solid growth, led by the advanced career certificate programs and continued momentum in career and technical education. These gains were partially offset by federal regulatory headwinds and immigration-related impacts on our cybersecurity and beauty and wellness business. During the quarter, we announced new partnerships and products that strengthen the connection between education and employment and help learners build career-ready skills. We deepened our AI partnership with Amazon Web Services to deliver scalable, trusted AI solutions that personalize instruction, save educators time, and better prepare learners for the workforce. By combining AWS's AI capabilities with our expertise in learning design, we are embedding AI readiness across programs in healthcare, business, and many other fields. We also partnered with LinkedIn Learning to expand access to 20 expert-led courses in AI, machine learning, security, and threat intelligence, helping address the AI skills confidence gap among graduates and working professionals. Our AI strategy is deliberate and course-specific. Rather than building a standalone model, we leverage leading LLMs and embed them directly into our platforms to deliver targeted value within the flow of instruction. This ensures educators receive support when and how they need it, and students learn in alignment with instructors' intent. Engagement with our AI tools remains strong. We are expanding availability of student assistant and seeing increased adoption with measurable improvements in learning outcomes among active users. Following a successful beta, we launched instructor assistant in January and will broaden access over the coming year. Our AI roadmap continues to focus on strengthening career alignment, evolving assessment for Gen AI world, improving platform usability, and supporting diverse learning preferences. In higher education, we launched Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, a business perspective. And we are developing a Gen AI guide to the humanities, added AI modules across introductory computing, and introduced an AI primer throughout our business school curriculum. Well beyond AI, we continue to enhance platform usability and guided experiences. In our school segment, we launched Explore, our unified K-12 digital learning platform designed to engage every student and personalize instruction. Explore is a key step in transforming our school business into a predominantly digital model. Consistent with our operating model, we are unifying all businesses under a single Cengage brand. This simplifies our go-to-market approach, strengthens institutional partnerships, and creates additional cross and upselling opportunities. In closing, Our third quarter results demonstrates strong operating performance and continued progress against our strategy to connect education to employment. I want to thank our customers for their partnership and my colleagues for their dedication to serving learners around the world. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Dean Tilsley, for more details on our third quarter financial performance. Dean?