Korn Ferry (KFY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
June 23, 2026
What were the key takeaways from Korn Ferry's June 23, 2026 earnings call?
In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, Korn Ferry (KFY:US) reported a consolidated fee revenue of $760 million, reflecting a 7% year-over-year increase, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of growth. Adjusted EPS rose to $1.40, up 6%, while adjusted EBITDA increased to $130 million, also up 7%. Management provided guidance for Q1 FY '27, expecting fee revenue between $725 million and $745 million, indicating a stable outlook despite geopolitical challenges impacting new business growth.
What topics did Korn Ferry cover?
- Sustained Revenue Growth: Korn Ferry achieved a consolidated fee revenue of $760 million in Q4, up 7% year-over-year. Management emphasized that this marks the fifth consecutive quarter of top-line growth, underscoring the effectiveness of their strategic initiatives. Gary Burnison stated, "Our quarterly performance was outstanding," indicating strong operational momentum.
- New Business Trends: New business growth was reported at 2% year-over-year, with a notable impact from geopolitical tensions, particularly in the Middle East. Gary Burnison noted, "It's a little thing called the war," highlighting external factors affecting new engagements, particularly in the APAC and EMEA regions.
- Strategic Shift in Reporting Structure: Korn Ferry will transition to a regional reporting structure starting Q1 FY '27, moving from a solution-based presentation to segments focused on the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. This change aims to better align with client purchasing behavior and enhance operational efficiency, as stated by Burnison, "This reporting structure better reflects how work is delivered across the firm."
- Strong Performance in Executive Search: The Executive Search segment grew 7% in Q4, continuing an eight-quarter growth streak. Management highlighted that average fees have increased by almost 10% over the past two years, indicating a successful upmarket shift. Burnison remarked, "The brand around the executive search solution has certainly gone upmarket."
- RPO Business Growth: Korn Ferry's RPO business secured $137 million in new business during Q4, with 74% coming from new logos. This segment's performance is indicative of Korn Ferry's ability to penetrate new markets effectively, as noted by Rozek, "Our interim solution continues to perform better than other industry players."
What were Korn Ferry's June 23, 2026 results?
- Revenue: $760 million (up 7% YoY, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of growth)
- Adjusted EPS: $1.40 (up 6% YoY, reflecting strong earnings performance)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $130 million (up 7% YoY, maintaining strong profitability)
- New Business Growth: 2% YoY (flat on a constant currency basis, indicating deceleration)
- Estimated Remaining Fees: $1.9 billion (up 10% YoY, indicating strong future revenue visibility)
- RPO New Business: $137 million (74% from new logos, showcasing effective market penetration)
Korn Ferry's strong revenue and earnings growth in Q4 FY '26 illustrate the effectiveness of its strategic initiatives, despite external pressures on new business. The transition to a regional reporting structure and continued investment in client relationships position the company well for future growth. However, analysts will be closely monitoring margin stability and new business trends as potential risks moving forward.
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorLadies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Korn Ferry Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. We have also made available in the Investor Relations section of our website at kornferry.com a copy of the financial presentation that we will be reviewing with you today. Before I turn the call over to your host, Mr. Gary Burnison, let me first read a cautionary statement to investors. Certain statements made in the call today, such as those relating to future performance, plans and goals constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements. Actual results in future periods may differ materially from those currently expected or desired because of a number of risks and uncertainties, which are beyond the company's control. Additional information concerning such risks and uncertainties can be found in the release relating to this presentation and in the periodic and other reports filed by the company with the SEC, including the company's soon-to-be filed annual report for fiscal year 2026. Also, some of the comments today may reference non-GAAP financial measures such as constant currency amounts, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA and additional information concerning these measures, including reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure is contained in the financial presentation and earnings release relating to this call, both of which are posted in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at kornferry.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Burnison. Please go ahead, Mr. Burnison.
Gary Burnison
executiveOkay. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you, everybody, for joining us. I'm going to let our team walk through the numbers, but our quarterly performance was outstanding. It marks our fifth consecutive quarter of top line growth, underscoring the strength of our strategy. But let me first reflect on a moment. On these calls, I used to talk about opportunities measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, I think, in terms of opportunities measured in the billions, far beyond where we are today. In leadership, we spent a lot of time talking about the what, the how and the when, too often though the why and the who get overlooked. Despite all of Korn Ferry's success and evolution, our why has never changed, enabling people and organizations to be more of that. And I was reminded about a few months ago, while it's traveling in the Midwest. And now to nowhere, I heard the sound of a train horn, which I hadn't heard in years. It wasn't the sound that struck me. It was a feeling. In an instant, I was taking back to where I was raised, where trains ran next to our house. In that moment, peel back the years and made me reflect about the essence of who we are and what we do. And as I think about the Korn Ferry of today, this image feels particularly relevant. We're at the intersection of a present that feels far different than our past and the future that will even be brighter than today. That's why our foundational head mark is evolving from one Korn Ferry to We Are Korn Ferry. And We Are Korn Ferry, begins with deep client centricity. And expanding the breadth of our solutions we deliver within every client relationship. And there are just a few examples during the quarter, a Fortune 50 tech company. that turn to us to accelerate their sales organization or a global professional services firm to look to us as their sole source of interim technology talent. I mean I could go on and on and on. Including in the quarter, we won a number substantial RPO engagements, spanning multiple industries across all 3 regions. And when we take a client-centric approach and we leverage our relationships across geographies and deliver impact with the totality of the firm, we build sustainable relationships of scale. Over the last several months, I've looked in the mirror and realized that what got us here by itself is not what will get us there. To reach our destination, we need to shift our mindset, that's when our whole becomes bigger than the sum of our parts. As such, I want our industries to be accelerators. Our solutions to be innovators and enablers in our geographies to be the integrators. And so starting in this quarter, Q1, our external reporting segments are going to be reflected through a regional lens of the Americas, EMEA and APAC. And our solution level detail will be provided in 3 categories: Search comprised of executive and professional search, talent and organizational solutions comprised of digital and consulting and finally, Workforce Solutions comprised of RPO and interim. These categories serve our clients across the entire talent continuum. Search is about identifying talent. Workforce Solutions is about scaling talent, and talent and organizational solutions is about unlocking potential. Grouping our solutions like this more accurately reflects how work gets done today and orient our services to the competitive landscape and the way the clients buy these solutions. I'm confident that amid all the changes in the world today, it can also be the best environment, where good companies become even greater, aligning to opportunities ahead. I'm also incredibly proud enormously proud of our colleagues around the world. Their expertise and passion are the catalysts as we change people's lives, unlock the potential in people and unleash transformation across organizations. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob. Bob, go ahead.
Robert Rozek
executiveGreat. Thanks, Gary, and good afternoon, and good morning, everybody. I would be remiss if I didn't start by saying thank you to all the colleagues Gary was just referring to is fiscal '26 was another outstanding year for Korn Ferry. Despite uneven market conditions on certain macro environment, we achieved the new fee revenue high and delivered very strong earnings. We continue to skillfully execute our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market strategy, integrating our intellectual property data along with our consulting capabilities to drive enterprise-wide results for our clients, we continue to demonstrate how we're different, and we are different. Growing for the fifth consecutive quarter, while others in the industry continue to contract or just perform less worse. Our results demonstrate the resilience and effectiveness of our strategy and the benefits of our diversified business model. We continue to evolve into a comprehensive organizational and talent solution partner for all of our clients. We perform differently because we're not simply a monoline transactional business for a diversified data and IP-driven talent advisory with multiple synergistic revenue streams and growing earnings power. Now let me turn to our Q4 performance. This will be in addition to the detailed results in the earnings presentation that we posted, I'm going to provide you a couple of company-wide and solution specific highlights for the quarter. So for Q4, our ending estimated remaining fees under existing contracts grew 10% year-over-year to almost $1.9 billion with growth in every solution. Our business referral rate increased to 29.1% of consolidated fee revenue in the fourth quarter, that's up by about 320 basis points, and our marketing and diamond account penetration remains strong at 40% of our consolidated fee revenue. Now both these metrics really demonstrate the effectiveness of our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market strategy. Executive Search grew 7% in the fourth quarter and has now grown for 8 consecutive quarters. Professional Search and interim fee revenue was up 14% with 17% growth in professional search and 12% growth in interim. Our interim solution continues to perform better than other industry players driven by both strong business referrals and expanding bill rates. Digital subscription and license fee revenue was up 10% year-over-year. And last, our consulting fee revenue grew 7%, driven by an increase in larger engagements and stronger bill rates. Now let me turn to overall company results. For the full year, fee revenue was about $2.9 billion, up 7%. We delivered close to $500 million in adjusted EBITDA, also up 7%. Adjusted EPS of $5.28, which was also up 8%. Focusing on the fourth quarter, we grew for the fifth consecutive quarter, as Gary mentioned, with consolidated fee revenue up 7% and reaching $760 million. Earnings and profitability also remained strong. Adjusted EBITDA grew $8 million or 7% to $130 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin remained very strong at 17% and adjusted diluted earnings per share grew $0.08 or 6% to $1.40. Total company new business grew 2% when you exclude RPO, 4% when you include it. The RPO business itself won $137 million of new business in the fourth quarter and 74% of that came from new logos. As I previously mentioned, estimated remaining fees under existing contracts at the end of the fourth quarter were almost $1.9 billion or 57% or about $1 billion of that is projected to be recognized within the next year and the remaining 43% or $800 million or so is going to be recognized beyond the next 4 quarters. Looking at our regional results. Fee revenue in the Americas, up 8%, with strength in Exec Search ProSearch and interim and RPO. EMEA fee revenue also grew 8% with strong growth in consulting and professional search and interim. And our Asia Pac fee revenue was kind of flat year-over-year. Finally, we continue to maintain a disciplined approach to capital allocation. In the fourth quarter, we purchased 1.24 million shares using approximately $78 million. Now if you remember, when we talked in our last earnings call, we said we're going to lean more heavily into buybacks, and that's exactly what we did. For all of fiscal '26, we returned $221 million to shareholders through the combination of share repurchases and dividends, invested $85 million into CapEx for the development of Talend Suite in the delivery of other productivity tools for other solutions. Now turning to our outlook for the first quarter of fiscal Assuming no further changes in worldwide geopolitical conditions, economic conditions, financial markets, foreign exchange rates, we expect fee revenue to range from $725 million to $745 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin to be right around 17% and our consolidated adjusted diluted earnings per share to range from $1.32 to $1.38. Now before I conclude, as Gary mentioned earlier, the company will continue to build on our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market strategy. We expect this initiative to continue to drive deeper client penetration and industry-leading growth. Through this initiative, we are orienting more towards regions for our integrators, as Gary said. This will also result in a change to the company's financial reporting segments. As Gary mentioned, beginning in the first quarter of fiscal '27, our external reporting segments will transition from global solution-based presentation to 3 regional reporting segments, the Americas, EMEA and APAC. The region segment results will include fee revenue and profitability through adjusted EBITDA, and then we'll continue to provide solution level results for new business, fee revenue and estimated remaining fees under existing contracts through the 3 solution groupings, again, search, executive search and professional search, talent and organizational solutions comprised of consulting and digital and workforce solutions comprised of RPO in interim. We really believe this reporting structure better reflects how work is delivered across the firm. Aligns much more closely with how our clients are actually buying our services and better enables our We Are Korn Ferry operating model. Now to consist assist folks in understanding the impact of these changes, the company will be providing recast supplemental unaudited information containing historical financial information for the 3 reporting segments following the filing of our Q1 FY '27 10-Q in September. In addition, our Q1 FY '27 press release will reflect the new reporting segments. In the investor presentation that we will post to our website will reflect both the new reporting segments and the selected financial data previously mentioned for our 3 solution groupings. Now in conclusion, we continue to be extremely encouraged by the strength of our business, the progress we've made executing our strategy and the continued trust our clients place in Korn Ferry. Our diversified portfolio, global scale and integrated solutions position us well to navigate through any business environment. We are going to continue to invest in our people, our platforms and drive our long-term growth opportunities. We remain focused on driving performance, delivering value to our clients and shareholders, and we look forward to continuing with industry-leading differentiated success in the year ahead. With that, we would be glad to answer any questions you may have.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Trevor Romeo with William Blair.
Trevor Romeo
analystI had a couple on the executive search business. I think, first of all, I think in the press release, you mentioned kind of winning more work at the higher levels of the organization. I wanted to dig in there. So when you talk about the higher levels of the organization, is that primarily Korn Ferry gaining market share in those areas? Or is it some kind of shift among the client base? And is that a sustainable trend that you would see continuing?
Gary Burnison
executiveWell, we certainly -- I'll tell you that over the long run here, the brand around the executive search solution has certainly gone upmarket. And you can just look at the climb in our average fees. And the average fees are up almost 10% just over the last couple of years. And if I go further back than that, it would be very dramatic. So I think that we've proven that we can take the access that's afforded us and surround it with a lot of adjacent solutions that not only diversifies the firm that positions us. And I can think of 6 or 7 big marquee consumer changes this year in the United States that we were part of. So yes, we've definitely we've definitely moved up brand. Now whether we're taking market share or not, I don't look at -- I look at the market opportunity is $300 billion. I think the search market is probably $14 billion or $15 billion. So we tend to look at the $300 billion and what we can do to drive share there. Having said that, it is incredibly important to us. That gives us unparalleled access. And I think we've proven that if we're careful about it with high quality, we can monetize that access.
Trevor Romeo
analystThat's helpful. And maybe a follow-up on the search business again. Just in terms of the volume side, I think that's been a pretty good story the last few years with executive turnover being kind of elevated and the demographics and such. But I think this quarter, the new engagements were more like flattish -- so from what you can see kind of in the pipeline, I guess, what would you say about kind of the volume trends that you see now and you'd expect going forward? Is that kind of moderating? Or what would you see there?
Gary Burnison
executiveWell, it's certainly been -- it's accelerated for sure, over the last couple of years. I'll just tell you that trailing 4 months here and even so far this month, it's looking very, very good. And so again, I'm going to -- like on the last quarterly earnings call, I mean our business essentially deals with the outliers of achievement and whether that is in workforce solutions or talent and organizational solutions it's dealing at the very, very high end. And out of the 170 million working Americans, it's certainly with the outliers of achievement, the $10 million or $15 million that would be in the "C suite" or upper management. So I can only tell you that the demographic trends are real. And the last 4 months have continued on PEG.
Trevor Romeo
analystOkay. And maybe one more if I don't mind, kind of a similar theme, but on the -- on the Pro Search and interim side, I think a lot of the growth there seems to be driven by maybe mix shift to higher skills, higher salaries, like the interim bill rate being up $20 versus last year. I think the Pro search kind of fee per placement is also growing nicely. So maybe you could just speak to kind of what you're seeing across the different verticals in that business? And maybe in the context of the skill sets, where are you kind of seeing the candidates move up in the skill set curve and how that's kind of helping you outperform the peer set there?
Gary Burnison
executiveWell, I think the outperformance is I would point to the ability to have a client-centric approach and drive deeper relationships with our clients. So what we found is that solution is very, very synergistic with the rest of the firm. That is number one. And we have seen -- we just got into that solution 5.5 years ago. And today, for example, an interim, that's almost a $400 million annual solution, where there's a market opportunity of billions and billions of dollars and it's the same for -- both of those are massive markets. And clearly, over time here, I mean, I think we started, Bob, with the rate per hour in the interim as like 100 was close to $100 a year. And so it's gone from 100 to 150. And right now, the principal areas that we are in are technology, finance and accounting, HR and supply chain. But you can imagine that we're just getting started here on this. And so we've definitely seen a pickup over the last 3 months or so, 4 months around the interim solution. And so some of that -- clearly, some of that's market, right? The the penetration level was going down forever, 36, 37 months. And so you've seen that. that stabilized, that's definitely helped. But I think it's these other factors as well. And like I said, we're just getting started with this.
Robert Rozek
executiveYes. Trevor, this is Bob. The thing I would add to it is has being part of our ecosystem. So you heard Gary talk about the size of the inner business. North of 10% of that comes from referrals across the organization. right? So those are engagements that never would have existed had they not been part of the Korn Ferry family. The other stat I mentioned in my remarks our business referrals and so the preferred work across the system is now up to a little bit north of 29%, right? If you go back prior to the beginning of this year, we were kind of stuck at 25% for a number of quarters. We put the We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market strategy and place at the beginning of this year. and you've seen that ramp throughout the course of the year up to 29% now. So I think some of what you're seeing in these businesses is just being part of our ecosystem and engagements and deeper client penetration result in more business referrals across.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from George Tong with Goldman Sachs.
Keen Fai Tong
analystA little bit deeper into the new business trends. So X RPO new business was up 2% year-over-year or relatively flat on a constant currency basis and that moderated a bit from the prior quarter. Can you talk about what contributed to the deceleration in new business ex RPO and what the implications are for revenue over the next year?
Gary Burnison
executiveYes. It's a little thing called the war. So the Middle East, it definitely has had an impact in a big way on the levels of new business. And it's a little bit of a flywheel impact. So we've -- trailing 4 months, we've seen strong, strong new business in Americas, but it's definitely impacted APAC. No question about it, and it's obviously impacted EMEA and the Middle East. So that's what I would point to.
Keen Fai Tong
analystGot it. And then with respect to margins, EBITDA margins in the quarter were flat year-over-year. Can you talk about some of the puts and takes on margin performance?
Robert Rozek
executiveYes. Yes, I'm glad you asked it, George. I saw your note, you mentioned it. There's really one reason why if you look at the revenue overperformance in the quarter, you have to pay people for that. And so we ended up having to book more bonus expense in the quarter, which is something I'd happily do to drive that type of revenue growth every quarter, to be honest with you.
Operator
operator9 Your next question comes from Mark Marcon with Baird.
Mark Marcon
analystReally nice results. Gary, can you talk a little bit about like just from a leadership perspective internally to Korn Ferry, what you're going to do in terms of reporting structures? Are you going to have like a head of search, a head of talent and organizational ahead of Workforce Solutions? Or are you going to have the Head of Americas in EMEA and APAC. How is that going to work? How is the reporting structure go? How is it going to end up optimizing the performance on a go-forward basis for you?
Gary Burnison
executiveWell, I -- so first of all, we started this a little bit over a year ago, Mark. And the starting point is mindset. And so we've been very, very deliberate starting with leadership 15 -- actually 15 months ago around mindset and client centricity. Up to this point, we haven't -- we don't have 5 businesses. We have one business with up to this point, 5 solutions. So you are going to be left with a matrix organization for sure. And the truth is that we have to pivot more for its geographies. We were, I think, a little bit over-indexed on solutions. And so we do have a head of APAC in the Americas and EMEA and we have to -- if you want to get a client centricity, you've got to get out in both top down through the enterprise accounts, but you also have to do a bottom-up, and the bottom up is on a regional basis. And so we have carefully over time here, over the last year, shifted mindset. Now ultimately, say, in another year where that ends up to directly answer your question, I think that's premature. But for sure, we've shifted the focus of the organization, including the 1,800 partners and principles that we have at the firm that are responsible for originating business. And the -- we -- every single day now, the leadership team looks at every piece of new business that's open over a certain level. And keep in mind, you're talking about 40 or 50 engagements a day where the team and it's very programmatic with the regional leaders, with the solution leaders with the industry leaders about who does what. And we are looking at each of those engagements to making sure that we have a good team on it, what the opportunity is and whether we can not only land something but expand it. So every single day that's been happening now for about 13 or 14 months. And so my starting point rather than org structure has been on mindset, mindset of our leaders and mindset of the organization because the fact is when you look at the data, we do business with almost 14,000 clients around the world. of those clients represent 90% of our revenue. When you look at those 5,000, you're going to find that 60%, 65% of those are only utilizing about 1.5 of our solutions. And if you look at the logos there, the opportunity just come screaming off the page. So I think we have to continue to evolve this organization. And I just looked in the mirror a year ago, Mark, and I said, "Wow, what you're doing, including how you're going to clients, how you're representing yourself to Wall Street, you're dividing before you are uniting. We have one firm. " And what I want in 3 years is that when colleagues go to clients, they say we are from Korn Ferry, not I'm from this or I'm from that. And that's really what we're striving for. And a deeper penetration of that very, very rich client base
Mark Marcon
analystFully makes sense. And so I hate to ask a segment question after that. But how should we think about the the margins on digital and consulting, was that also reflective of the strong performance and then the bonuses that were associated there?
Gary Burnison
executiveI think the reality is we had pretty broad-based growth across the firm mark. -- with the exception is George. The exception is the Middle East, and I didn't finish my answer to George Hopefully, what we've seen in every crisis is opportunity, but we've also seen in every crisis, there's pent-up demand. And so I do believe as the -- hopefully, as the sky is clear here, and oil starts to flow through the strength. I think you're probably going to see some pent-up demand. It may be 6 months out -- but there's no doubt that that's had an impact on the levels of new business for sure. But I would say, Mark, that it was pretty broad-based.
Mark Marcon
analystThat's great. And are you -- I know it's really early, Gary, but are you seeing any signs of, at least in APAC and EMEA in terms of some increased optimism in saying, okay, looks like things are finally getting back to normal, and we should see a decent burst.
Gary Burnison
executiveWe just had a bunch of colleagues together from all over -- actually all over the world, about 700 of our partners and principles. And there is definite hope -- can I say so far this month have we seen it? Not materially, but I do think that calmer mines will prevail here, and there's probably going to be some pent-up demand for sure.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Tobey Sommer with Truist.
Tobey Sommer
analystI wanted to ask about what initiatives or changes you have in place maybe dovetails into the new segment reporting to drive that 29% of reference sales to a higher level. Is there an accompany any sort of change in incentive comp in addition to reporting structure? What levers are you kind of pull.
Robert Rozek
executiveTobey, it's Bob. Yes, One of the things I've noticed -- again, if you go back and look at the program that we've had in place to drive that, we're back into, I think, 2018 or 2019 was 14%. And we put the program in place. And every year, we continue to open it up from our people, make it a little bit richer, and we saw success up to a point, right? And we kind of got stuck at 25% and we're there for whatever it was, 4 or 5 quarters in a row. And then you use Gary's phrase 1 of the earlier responses, it really is about changing mindset now. And what we're doing literally, we get together, we get those e-mails every day. We get together every other Monday, we go through the opportunities that arose over the prior 2 weeks we go through all of our what we call must-wins other engagements over a certain threshold. We go through all of our marquee and diamond accounts and that's every 2 weeks and the collaboration that we're getting and the mindset change that we're getting from our folks, I think, is actually what's influenced us to go from the 25% to 27% because I've made the program richer. Again, we broadened it out and we were kind of stuck I think this next level of achievement is really driven by the behaviors and practices that we're putting in place at the organization.
Tobey Sommer
analystIn consulting, can you talk about the degree to which some of your services, because I know it's a broad array of things that we're doing are priced on a value basis as opposed to time and materials and just average bill rates and hours billed to the client it's reforming at all.
Gary Burnison
executiveYes, I do. I actually do. I think even there's a number of solutions that could actually transform including search. It's pretty -- it's kind of archaic how we -- how the industry does that. I think there's now an opportunity once you get to a scale that you can actually change the paradigm. So it could search be sold as a service. Could you sign up as a retainer, I do believe that there is the opportunity, and we are pushing the team particularly on the consulting side to look at value because up to this point, it's been pretty much the old method. I mean not totally, but that's probably truer than not. And I'm pretty convinced of the value that we bring. You have to align strategy with an organization with people, with compensation how you develop people. I just know out of all my years as CEO, it's about people, it's about talent, players players win games, coaches lose games. So we're challenging the team. I can't say that we have an answer today, but I would expect that to change quite a bit actually over the next 3 years. I wouldn't be a bit surprised by that.
Tobey Sommer
analystThe bill rates in consulting that you report currently, are they an imputed bill rate? Or is that literally the average rate that clients are seeing on invoices?
Gary Burnison
executiveWell, I'm not going to say what they see on invoices but that's a real rate. I mean that's a real economic rate per hour for sure.
Robert Rozek
executiveYes. Tobey, you basically take our fee revenues and divide the hours worked into it to come up with what the average billing rate would be.
Gary Burnison
executiveBut again, just to be clear, so I answered the question correctly, we may not engage with a client in that way. We will say for a project, Phase 1 is this Phase 2 is that -- so we don't sit there and charge like a law firm wood by the hour. That's not -- so I don't want to give you the wrong impression. But I do believe in terms of the spirit of your question around value, I think there's something there.
Tobey Sommer
analystAnd if I sneak one last one in. With respect to the Executive Search business and AI, private companies say that they can do some of the intermediate steps in delivery along a search process more efficiently, but customers just ask for more want to see more candidates, et cetera. So they're kind of neither experiencing margin expansion from efficiencies or faster time to completion or price erosion. What's your experience in that round?
Gary Burnison
executiveWe have 17 work streams, 5 are anchored around search. And what we're concerned about there, clearly, what the efforts are showing us is we can be way more efficient. No doubt about it. That's now been proven over the last year on these 5 work streams out of the 17, no doubt about it. But what we're very, very mindful of where we operate is that we have tremendous IP and we use that IP when assessing candidates when we do it in our consulting solution. We use the same IP throughout the entire firm. We use it in our RPO solution as well. What we are very, very protective of is we don't want that proprietary data to get outside. And so as we go down this path, for me, anybody can generate a name. And it's not what they've done, it's who they are. And when you're talking about the outliers of achievement here, I'm still going to put a very, very strong argument forward that it's around culture fit. And we're not human doings, we were human beings AI is not going to disintermediate humanity. Will technology make us more efficient? Yes. Will it solve the supply and demand and balance of labor absent immigration, yes. Will it make our firm more efficient for sure. That's what those 17 work streams are showing. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we protect our IP, particularly that we're operating in 70 countries, 100 countries around the world with different privacy laws, like we are very, very careful about letting that out, that's -- we're in the trust business. And so we -- I'm not that focus on the efficiency gain for the search process that we're going to get from AI. Are we doing it? Yes. We're absolutely doing it. But I'm focused on the customer experience and so we have a lot of things in motion there. But I'm telling you, I'm going to be like very conservative around who people are, what they tell us, what their assessments show. We've done $113 million assessments of executives. We have to guard that data and that is a big, big differentiator for us. So yes, we are definitely using it. We're using it in the learning and development solution in terms of coaching, using agents. And we can all have different views on that. But clearly, we're headed in a direction where technology is going to have to fill the gap between supply and demand and balance of labor.
Operator
operatorYour final question will come from the line of Josh Chan with UBS.
Karandeep Singhania
analystThis is Karan Singhania on for Josh. I wanted to ask on the North America Executive Serge business. It looks like margins in the business have been pretty strong -- it was like 31% this quarter. So -- just wondering how should we think about margins for the segment for this year?
Robert Rozek
executiveI would say that the margin profile, again, I wouldn't focus necessarily on search in North America as we get to a pretty big company, and we got a lot of levers to pull. I would just keep you focused on the range that we've talked about from an overall Korn Ferry perspective in the 16% to 18%. We guided to Q1, right, snack in the middle of that 17%. And that's how we're managing the business. So we don't to Gary's point earlier, when you think about the mindset change, right, we can't look at clients and go to market one way and then manage internally a different way. So Gary 1 firm, we got 5 offerings, but we're managing the firm as 1 firm. So I'd suggest that you just focus on the 16% to 18%.
Karandeep Singhania
analystOkay. Got it. And as my follow-up, how should we think about the capital allocation priorities for this year? Would you continue to lean more heavily towards bio bags and on CapEx, do you expect it to come back to more normalized levels this year?
Gary Burnison
executiveWe typically, over time, we've deployed a pretty balanced approach, systematic approach to to capital deployment clearly in this last quarter. As we said we were going to do on the last call, and as Bob mentioned earlier, we did what we said. Clearly, when you look at the firm over the last 10, 15 years, 20 years, 60% of our growth has been organic and 40% has been inorganic. And the last investment that we made was in the interim solution, which was an organization in the U.K. and Ireland, and it's been an absolute home run for us. And that was almost 2 years ago. So we've -- there's been periods of time where we've leaned more into stock buybacks. We've been consistently raising our dividend for I don't know, 6 or 7 years, and there's times when we lean more into inorganic growth.
Operator
operatorThere are no further questions, Mr. Burnison.
Gary Burnison
executiveOkay. Sarah, thank you for hosting. Thank you for everybody for joining us, and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody.
Operator
operatorLadies and gentlemen, this conference call will be available for replay for 1 week starting today running through the day, June 30, 2026 ending at midnight. You may access the Echo replay service by dialing 800-770-2030 and entering the access code 4218957 followed by the pound key. Additionally, the replay will be available for playback at the company's website, www.kornferry.com in the Investor Relations section. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.
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