The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (IPG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of the Interpublic Group of Companies Inc. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to David Thomas, Chairman of the Board, Mr. Dave Thomas, the floor is yours.

Well, good morning, and welcome to our Annual Stockholders Meeting. I am David Thomas, Chairman of the Board. Participating this morning are Philippe Krakowsky, our Chief Executive Officer of the corporation and a member of our Board of Directors; Ellen Johnson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Andrew Bonzani, Executive Vice President and General Counsel; and Robert Dobson, our Senior Vice President and Secretary. Also participating today are the independent members of our Board of Directors, all of whom are standing for reelection. They are: Jorge Benitez, Jocelyn Carter-Miller, Mary Steele Guilfoile, Dawn Hudson, Jonathan Miller, Patrick Moore, Linda Sanford and Lee Wyatt, Jr. Also in attendance are members of Computershare Shareowner Services who are appointed as inspectors of election to count the votes and to certify the results of the voting. The Secretary reports that the holders of over 92% of the outstanding shares of common stock are present or represented by proxy. A quorum is present, and we can conduct our business. [Operator Instructions] We will dispense with the reading of the minutes of the 2023 Annual Meeting and will now move forward with the proposal set forth in our proxy statement. If you need a copy of the 2023 annual report or the proxy statement, the link to the annual meeting materials is provided online. If you have not yet voted or wish to change your vote, I encourage you to do so now. [Voting]

You can do that by clicking on the cast your vote link. The polls will remain open until the end of the meeting. I will now turn the meeting over to Philippe Krakowsky, our Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to first inform stockholders that you can find the webcast of our earnings call announcing both the year-end 2023 and first quarter '24 results on the Investor Relations page of our website. Moving to the items of business for the meeting. First is the election of directors to serve until the Annual Meeting of Stockholders in 2025. Information about our directors standing for reelection appears on Pages 5 through 9 of our proxy statement. The second item of business is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the independent public accounting firm of the corporation for 2024, and that appears on Page 32 of our proxy statement. The third item of business is the advisory stockholder vote on compensation paid to Interpublic's named executive officers, which you can find on Page 35 of our proxy. Now that we have presented the proposals, we will address any questions on the proposals raised by the Secretary. Mr. Secretary?

Mr. Krakowsky, there are no questions to be raised at this time.

Thank you. The final item of business is the stockholder proposal requesting that the corporation adopted policy providing for an independent Chairman of the Board, is the stockholder or stockholder representative present to make a statement in support of this proposal.

Hello, this is John Chevedden...