Star Equity Holdings - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 delivered modest top-line stability with revenue at $35.5M (-0.5% YoY) while adjusted net revenue rose 5.8% YoY to $18.6M; adjusted EBITDA increased 76.6% YoY to $1.3M as mix and APAC margin expansion drove improvements.
• Diluted EPS was a loss of $0.23 vs. a loss of $0.15 YoY; non-GAAP adjusted diluted EPS improved to $0.12 from $0.04 YoY, reflecting $1.04M after-tax non-recurring severance/professional fees excluded in adjusted results.
• Regional performance was mixed: APAC adjusted net revenue +16–17% YoY and adjusted EBITDA +146% YoY; EMEA revenue +12% YoY but adjusted net revenue -4–9% and adjusted EBITDA swung to a loss; Americas adjusted EBITDA modestly improved.
• Operating cash flow turned positive ($0.1M) vs. a $(4.3M) outflow in Q2 2024; total cash including restricted cash was $17.5M, with working capital ex-cash at $12.2M; management called out “land & expand,” digital tools (Hudson Fusion), and bolt-ons (ACG Japan; CMRG integration) as growth drivers.
• Potential catalysts: Aug. 21 shareholder votes on the merger with Star Equity (scale, diversification, overhead reductions), a resumption of share repurchases post-merger, and increasing adoption of Hudson Fusion digital services.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • APAC mix shift away from lower-margin temporary contracting, driving adjusted net revenue +17% YoY and adjusted EBITDA +145.8% YoY; “modest upturn” in APAC cited by management.
  • Positive OCF inflection: $0.1M inflow vs. $(4.3M) YoY; DSO held at 56 days; cash and restricted cash totaled $17.5M.
  • Strategic actions: acquisition of Alpha Consulting Group (Japan) and integration of McKinsey CMO Group (CMRG) to extend capabilities and footprint; management sees these as accretive to revenue near-term and capability enhancing.

• What Went Wrong

  • EMEA profitability deteriorated: revenue +6–12% YoY, but adjusted net revenue -4–9% and adjusted EBITDA swung to a loss of $(0.4)M (from +$0.3M); higher SG&A pressured margins.
  • GAAP bottom line remains negative: net loss $(0.7)M and diluted EPS $(0.23), with reliance on non-GAAP adjustments ($1.04M after-tax) to show adjusted EPS improvement.
  • Continued corporate/non-recurring costs: corporate costs ~$0.9M excluding $0.6M non-recurring; investments above maintenance levels ($1.4M YTD) weigh near-term profitability.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Good morning and welcome to the Hudson Global conference call for the second quarter of 2025. Our call today will be led by Chief Executive Officer Jeff Eberwein, Chief Financial Officer Matt Diamond, and Global CEO of Hudson RPO, Jake Zabkowicz. Please be advised that the statements made during the presentation include forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in our Form 8-K filed earlier today and in our other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our quarterly report on Form 10-Q. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements. During the course of this conference call, references will be made to non-GAAP terms such as constant currency, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted earnings per diluted share.

Reconciliations for these measures are included in our earnings release and quarterly slides, both posted on our website, hudsonrpo.com. I encourage you to access our earnings materials at this time as they will serve as a helpful reference guide during our call. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Jeff Eberwein. Go ahead, please.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Operator, and welcome everyone. We thank you for your interest in Hudson Global and for joining us today. I'll start by reviewing our second quarter 2025 results. Then Matt Diamond, our CFO, will provide some additional details on our financials. Lastly, Jake Zabkowicz, Global CEO of our RPO business, will provide an update on that business. For the second quarter of 2025, we reported revenue of $35.5 million, down slightly year-over-year in constant currency, while adjusted net revenue of $18.6 million increased by 5.1% year-over-year in constant currency. Our adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $1.3 million, improving from adjusted EBITDA of $0.7 million a year ago. In addition, we reported a net loss of $0.7 million or $0.23 per diluted share versus a net loss of $0.4 million or $0.15 per diluted share in the same period last year.

On an adjusted basis, Q2 2025 adjusted net income per share was $0.12 compared to net income of $0.04 in the second quarter of last year. Importantly, Q2 2025 marks the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in adjusted net revenue and adjusted EBITDA, which makes us believe the business has turned the corner. Growth was stronger in Q2 than this year's first quarter, and we expect this trend to continue through the end of the year and into 2026. While the macro environment for talent remains mixed, we see plenty of opportunities ahead, and we continue to make investments in our business to better support our clients' needs and streamline operations. Altogether, in the first half of 2025, we invested approximately $1.4 million in sales, marketing, and technology above maintenance levels to enhance future growth.

Our growth strategy remains focused on organic expansion, targeted bolt-on acquisitions, and cross-regional service integration initiatives designed to broaden our client base, extend our geographic footprint, and unlock additional value for our clients. Now I'll turn the call over to Matt Diamond to review our financial results by region, as well as some additional financial details from the second quarter. Thank you, Jeff, and good morning everyone. Q2 2025 revenue for our Americas business increased 2%, and adjusted net revenue decreased 1% year-over-year in constant currency. We reported Q2 2025 adjusted EBITDA of $0.7 million compared to last year's adjusted EBITDA of $0.6 million. Q2 2025 revenue for our Asia-Pacific business decreased 3%, while adjusted net revenue increased 17% year-over-year in constant currency. This is largely due to a shift in revenue mix with temporary contracting work comprising a lower share of revenue in the quarter.

In Q2 2025, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 million, up from adjusted EBITDA of $0.8 million a year ago. Q2 2025 revenue for our EMEA business increased 6% versus the prior year in constant currency, while adjusted net revenue decreased 9%. Our Q2 2025 adjusted EBITDA loss was $0.4 million compared to adjusted EBITDA of $0.3 million in the second quarter of 2024. Turning to some additional financial details for the quarter, overall, day sales outstanding was 56 days at June 30, 2025, unchanged versus DSO at March 31, 2025. The company had an inflow of $0.1 million in cash flow from operations during the second quarter of 2025, compared to $4.3 million of an outflow from operations in the second quarter of 2024. We ended the second quarter with $17.5 million in cash, including $0.7 million of restricted cash.

In connection with our acquisition activity in recent years, our balance sheet as of June 30, 2025, reflects $5.8 million of goodwill and $2.0 million of net amortizable intangible assets. The company's working capital, excluding cash, was $12.2 million, slightly above year-end 2024. I'll now turn the call over to Jake to discuss our RPO business.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Matt, and good morning. Although we continue to face challenges similar to those experienced in 2024, many of which are industry-wide, we are encouraged by clear signs of improvement. The overall increase in adjusted net revenue in the second quarter of 2025 reflects the modest but meaningful recovery in business activity, particularly across the Asia-Pacific region. Thanks to proactive steps we have taken and continue to take, our business is better positioned for growth today than ever before. Year to date, we continue to make strategic hires aimed at deepening our capabilities and enhancing our ability to deliver scalable, high-impact talent solutions to our clients. As I mentioned in the previous earnings call, a major investment for us is in our digital platform, Hudson Fusion, and we are building out the team to support the product with our clients.

We also recently executed two important strategic transactions: the acquisition of Alpha Consulting Group, a Japan-based recruitment services provider, marking our formal entry into the Japanese market, and the integration of McKinsey CMO Group, a boutique firm specializing in recruitment marketing, brand strategy, and talent engagement. These developments reinforce our commitment to investing in high-impact areas that deliver long-term value to our clients and our shareholders. Additionally, we are encouraged by continued new business wins and a robust sales pipeline. We believe that we are well positioned to convert this pipeline into tangible results and capture new opportunities as the market conditions improve. In line with our first quarter momentum, we continue to execute on our land and expand strategy throughout Q2, focusing on expanding our geographical reach and broadening our service offerings to both existing and prospective clients alike.

As a result, we secured approximately $31.1 million in adjusted net revenue from renewals and expansions at existing clients and approximately $11.4 million from new local wins over the prior four quarters. Our talented team is well positioned to deliver exceptional results, and we remain focused on building a more resilient, agile, and growth-oriented business for the long term. I'll now turn the call back over to Jeff for some closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jake. Before we open the line for questions, I want to reinforce Jake's message. While we continue to navigate a challenging global environment, we believe Hudson RPO is well positioned for strong future growth and is poised to outperform its peers. The operational improvements we have made across the organization are expected to strengthen our bottom-line performance in the coming quarters and drive long-term value for our shareholders. Finally, I'd like to remind you that the special meeting to approve the merger with Star Equity, announced in May 2025, is scheduled for August 21. We strongly encourage all shareholders to vote for the merger. We expect the new entity to deliver significant value through greater scale, enhanced revenue diversification, and the elimination of redundant public company and overhead costs. Operator, can you please open the line for questions?

Speaker 1

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Michael Jay Mathison of Sadati & Company. Go ahead, please.

Speaker 0

Good morning, you guys. Congratulations on the quarter.

Speaker 2

Good morning.

Speaker 0

Turning to some of my questions, it was an interesting quarter by region. Let's kind of decompose a couple of things. Let's start with Asia. That's 60% of your business. Net revenue in Asia was up 16%. What led to those much higher margins?

Speaker 2

I'll turn this over to Jake, but just mathematically, the biggest thing I would say is that revenue was very depressed. Last year, we saw a significant slowdown in hiring in financials, companies that we do business with in the financial sector. The biggest statement I would make is that things started to return to normal in that sector in Asia-Pacific, let's say the end of last year. The Q2 results reflect more of just a return to normal. When looking at it on a year-over-year basis, the biggest thing I would say is just last year was a depressed number.

Speaker 0

Got it. Okay. Favorable comps. Great. Let's turn to the Americas region next. Roughly 20% of sales, 22%. Your revenue was up, even though it made the headlines big time, just, what a terrible quarter it was, in the American Jobs Report. To what do you attribute the discrepancy? Are you just selectively in sectors that are doing well, or just the balance and mix of your business?

Speaker 2

We do think we're gaining share. Jake, you want to provide some additional detail on that?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Jeff, of course. Good morning. I think in the Americas, you have two things or actually three things that have really worked for us this last quarter. One is our new logo sales. We started to see an increase in the clients that we've implemented, and that is contributing to our top-end revenue growth, which is really exciting because that new logo sales pipeline is continuing to grow. Also, that land and expand strategy, looking at how are we offering different products into different regions, into different geographies, and we're seeing that pick up as well, which we will continue to build out over the next couple of quarters. Really, the growth has been the new logo sales wins, as well as that land and expand with some of our existing accounts and existing partners expanding their services within the Americas.

Speaker 0

Right. Right. Let's look at Europe then. In some ways, that was the most striking outperformance. Europe has been very flat economically. You were up 6% in constant currency. Anything that would explain that outperformance?

Speaker 3

Go ahead, Jake.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah, great. Really great question. Europe, we, you know, we've really taken a turn in Europe right now, and we're seeing some traction with our investments in the Middle East, which has been a long-waited, long waiting for us to see that. It's really good to see that, you know, that revenue come in the door. Also, the team has done a really good job of that land and expand, and we're offering different products to our partners. We're seeing an uptick in our boutique executive search in the European theater, which is nice as well.

I'd look at, you know, the overall broader market, and while there's still a lot of, you know, questions and some considerations, and I'd say headwinds, the changes that we've made over the last, say, 12 months have really positioned us to continue to grow across all of the regions, and we're starting to see some of that pick up.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thanks. Mike, I would just say, big picture, we see our base, our legacy clients, returning to more normal activity levels after going through a period of depressed activity levels. Hopefully, the overall market will improve going forward. We're not counting on that, but we're winning new clients at a faster rate than we have historically. That's exciting. We have three new regions that we never had before. The Middle East, as of about 18 months ago, went from nothing to now starting to get traction, starting to get revenue. We're building a business in Latin America and starting to see revenue there and starting to see some client wins there. This recent acquisition in Japan, we have many, I would say, global clients.

Historically, whenever they've needed help in Japan, unfortunately, we had to say, "Sorry, can't help you there." Now we can help them, and we've got a team on the ground that's very experienced. We're really hoping that acquisition is one plus one equals three, where we get immediate business just from our existing clients that we haven't been able to service in Japan historically.

Speaker 0

Great, kind of turning to just more corporate development issues. You mentioned that you'll be, I'll use the word integration because you've used it, integrating the McKinsey CMO Group. You were careful not to say merger. Could you explain a little bit what that means?

Speaker 3

Go ahead, Jake.

Speaker 2

Yeah. The McKinsey CMO Group is really a boutique firm in the U.S. that specializes around brand strategy and marketing and employment brand, as well as having a pretty robust contingent and project practice. Over the last couple of months, we looked at, you know, speaking with the owner, Crystal McKinsey, and how can we further look at a deal where it makes sense for the team to join Hudson Global. Crystal and team officially joined Hudson Global as team members this quarter. We're integrating that business into our overall product portfolio. From a standpoint of looking at that, strengthening our capabilities in brand marketing to our existing clients, as well as taking that contingent base that her company has had, and hopefully looking at further landing and expanding into different geographies and different products there.

It wasn't, to your point, you call out an acquisition, but more of a, "Hey, let's figure out a way to integrate and hire the team to help drive our overall strategy and growth in the Americas, in the Americas market.

Speaker 3

This is Jeff again. What that looks like in dollars and cents is that instead of paying, you know, X amount for the business, what we did is we hired the team. There were some modest sign-on bonuses, and then there's a profit-sharing arrangement. It looks and feels like an acquisition, but technically, we just hired the whole team, and so they became Hudson.

Speaker 0

Great. Got it. Thank you. That runs me out of questions. Congratulations again on the quarter.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Michael.

Speaker 1

Again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. Our next question comes from David Siegfried, a private investor. Go ahead, please.

Speaker 0

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. The Alpha Consulting Group acquisition, is that something that would be immediately accretive to the bottom line?

Speaker 3

David, go ahead, Jake. David, great, great question. Can you, I thought you were muffled a little bit. Can you just repeat your question for me if you don't mind?

Speaker 0

Oh, yeah. That Alpha Consulting Group acquisition, would that is immediately accretive to the bottom line?

Speaker 3

Yeah, we expect, you know, we do expect some immediate revenue and, you know, growth in the region. That was a formal acquisition. We went through all the, you know, the purchase, the asset purchase agreements with Alpha Consulting Group, and we expect to see immediate revenue with their current base, as well as landing and expanding, you know, our base in the Asia-Pacific region. As you know, a good portion of our business is in Asia-Pacific. As Jeff mentioned earlier, we were supporting our clients that had needs in Japan from outside of Japan. Now, with the Alpha Consulting Group acquisition, we have a robust team in Japan delivering on local services, which is a must-need, you know, given that Japan is the second largest market in the Asia-Pacific region. We do expect immediate revenue. We do expect the team to, you know, pick up.

Like I said before, it's a very strategic move for us, you know, as a leader in the Asia-Pacific region, to have that localized presence in the Japanese market.

Speaker 2

I think that, David, the technical answer to your question is, on the bottom line, no major impact on day one. Their business was struggling to get to scale. They had revenue, they had a team, they were delivering service, but they didn't have a historical record of being consistently profitable and were in a business where, to grow, it hits your bottom line immediately. It's a tough business to break into. At the time we closed the acquisition, they were roughly break-even as a business. Our best estimate is that it'll be, from a bottom line point of view, roughly break-even for a quarter or two, and then it'll be a meaningful profit generator thereafter. We paid a very modest amount upfront, just a few hundred thousand dollars, and we worked out a profit-sharing arrangement for when they do turn the corner and start generating profits.

We look at it as a win-win. They're going to have much more revenue as part of Hudson Global than they would have staying on their own.

Speaker 0

Good. Yeah. That McKinsey CMO Group acquisition or, you know, merger was very similar to the structure that you had in the Middle East a year and a half ago.

Speaker 2

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 0

Pretty much just brought the talent on.

Speaker 2

Exactly.

Speaker 0

There is no deal.

Speaker 2

The Middle East is, we've been really trying to grow the Middle East and hiring salespeople, building the team. It has been EBITDA negative over the last year, and we think it's right on the cusp of turning the corner. It's just the way the accounting works in our business. You know, investments immediately hit the bottom line. They don't get capitalized the way, you know, a factory would be or buying assets. We're really just hiring people, which costs money in the short term. You hit a period where it's break-even, and thereafter, it should be profitable if we're making good decisions.

Speaker 0

Good. There was no deals for a year and a half, and now two deals in a short period of time. Is that just because where you're at in the business cycle, it just makes sense? Is that something that can continue, you know, this type of deal flow?

Speaker 2

We are always looking. We have learned a lot by just being in the market and looking, and it's helped us refine what's a good fit and what's not. Our preference is to hire and grow organically, rather than acquire, but we're open to either. I would say we don't have to do anything at this point. We have filled in the last major geographic hole we had in our portfolio with Japan, and it's hard to think about any significant market in the world that we can't address. That was a really critical step for us. You know, there's really no such thing as being half global. You either need to be a regional player or a global player, and if you're a global player, you have to be able to serve clients in all the major markets. That was a very important box that we checked.

The McKinsey CMO Group, those were skill sets that we didn't have so much internally. If a client needed help with those things, we would typically partner with someone or advise them on who they could hire. Now that we can do that in-house, it just gives us a bigger suite of services we can offer. One of Jake's big themes over the last 18 months since he's been here is increase share of wallet with existing clients. We have some phenomenal clients, and in many cases, our share of wallet is really, really small. It's never easy to grow, but it is easier to grow with an existing client than it is to land a new client. We are pushing on all fronts, and it's nice to see that effort start to have some results.

Speaker 0

Yeah, excellent. I agree. I was looking at the trailing 12-month new logo wins. I mean, those are growing. That's really good to see. How's the Hudson Fusion, the AI rollout in Europe going? How's that being accepted by customers? How does that measure up to other, like your competitors?

Speaker 3

David, great question. We're really excited about the development of Hudson Fusion and what the team is doing, right? Hudson Fusion is our proprietary tools that we're giving, you know, we're providing to both our current base as well as existing. We are just in the infancy stages of launching it. We have a couple of clients that are using it right now. They're using our Count IQ platform, which is underneath the Hudson Fusion umbrella, which is our market insights. Over the next couple of months and quarters, we expect to see significant adoption again, both in our existing base as well as in new logos.

Good news is from our standpoint is, now that we have a product offering and have a digital offering that we didn't have before, it's a very easy equation to our clients and introduction to our clients because all clients now, specifically in the HR field, right? There's a big pressure to automate, digitize, and leverage AI as part of the processes. Having this tool now, we see great signs of adoption and also being able to sell into our new logos and into our existing base. More to come there. As we get further adoption, David, we will be sharing that. It is a unique differentiator across the board. Regarding how it differentiates from our competitors, listen, AI, there's a lot of different forms of AI.

The bespoke way that we're taking it is a modular approach in that we want to be able to solve our clients' problems and not fit a square peg into a round hole, right? Truly a customized approach in that regard. We are definitely seeing that with some of the new clients that are coming on that platform. More to come. I think that AI is definitely going to continue to transform our business. I must say that Hudson and what we're doing right now with this investment is going to be a key player in that.

Speaker 2

David, I would just add that our digital division, which we just launched in the spring with the hiring of Steph Edwards, is probably the most important thing we've done recently as a company. It's the number one thing our clients talk about. This suite of services and tools that we're rolling out is something that existing clients are going to adopt. It's something we have to have in order to win new business and to win new logos. We only have one data point, but just recently, it was exciting to me. We have a client we've been speaking to that's actually going to start a relationship with us by using our digital services. This is the first time ever we've led with digital. The way we got a foot in the door was with Hudson Fusion, and they're going to start using that.

We hope it will lead to more business with this client. They could eventually become an RPO client, for example. That's just kind of icing on the cake. When we launched our digital division, we weren't expecting that clients would want digital only to start a relationship. That could be a great way for us to just get a foot in the door with new clients. Once we have a foot in the door, our team is pretty good about expanding the relationship over time.

Speaker 0

Good to hear. That's nice. What will be your capital allocation priorities, assuming the merger with Star Equity goes through? What will be the use of cash? There's still a nice amount on the balance sheet. What are you going to do with that going forward?

Speaker 2

Yeah. The number one priority is, make profitable investments in our existing businesses. I think all the businesses have organic growth opportunities, and in some cases, those require some capital investment. Funding growth at existing businesses is, I would say, the number one priority. Number two priority is we have some really great operating management teams, as evidenced by Jake at Hudson. If there are bolt-on acquisitions to do or acquisitions like the two we just announced, I would say that's kind of priority number two. We think our shares are really cheap. We have a long history of buying back shares. We haven't been able to do much of that in the last 18 months because of the merger discussions. That's something we hope to turn back on after the merger closes.

Speaker 0

Yeah, that's a question because I noticed that the merger information looks like the talks of this merger started December 2023. Why is it taking so long? You know, we're two small companies. I'm not complaining, I'm just asking, you know.

Speaker 2

Yeah. No, it's a good question. If you read all the disclosure and the proxy, the idea was kind of launched, as you said, in late 2023. The two companies formed a special committee to evaluate it, an independent special committee. I obviously wasn't involved in either special committee, nor was management of either company. Very independent. They hired financial advisors, legal advisors, and started talking to each other. They just couldn't agree on terms in the spring of 2024, so they decided to pause. Star Equity ended up doing a pretty significant acquisition in May of 2024, and then the timing just lined up. The two companies started talking again in late 2024, which is what led to the deal announcement in May of 2025.

I think the biggest takeaway from that is we have independent directors on each board who take their fiduciary duty very, very seriously and wanted to do a thorough analysis and make the best decision they could on behalf of shareholders. It took a while for it to come together.

Speaker 0

Yeah, no, that's reasonable. Looking at that merger information, you're guiding for like 13% net revenue growth, 2025, 2026, 26% growth, and potentially 17 to 18% growth over the next five years from that point. It appears after listening to the call today that even without necessarily economic improvement or increase in hiring, just with your new logo wins, your expansion to other territories, Japan, and all that, that you feel confident that you can continue to grow this significantly going forward.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I'll let Jake address that. I would just say the thing about a long-range forecast is, you know, we don't factor in recessions, but we also don't factor in booms like what we had coming out of COVID. It's more of, hey, if you just have a regular mid-cycle economic environment where the global economy is growing at a historical rate, you know, 2% or something like that in real terms, what should we be able to do? You can tell we're excited about our future. Jake, why don't you address that a little bit more specifically because that's your forecast.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Jeff. David, great question. If I look at where we were 18 months ago, we've made a lot of different investments and different levers that we can pull and we can offer to our clients, right, as we want to continue to grow and need to continue to grow, no matter what the market condition looks like. Yes, the macroeconomy does have a significant impact and lately it's been headwinds facing us with a lot of the announcements and changes. However, being able to offer different services into the Middle East and Japan and Latin America, being able to offer new products such as boutique executive search, EVP, and branded marketing, contingent search allows us to become more diverse and more robust with our clients. That goes to our land and expand strategy.

Even though the macroeconomy has been giving us a lot of headwinds, our strategy with the diversification is allowing us to continue to pull on different levers with our partners to grow and expand and increase that share of wallet. We have a lot of opportunities with our current base to continue to do that, obviously with the focus on new logo clients in the same purview to help drive our overall growth strategy. David, yes, we are becoming more robust, more diversified, and that is allowing us to continue to grow, and hopefully grow even faster when the broader market and the economy does rebound.

Speaker 2

I would just further to on that, what really made us aggressively recruit Jake and convince him to join Hudson was, we saw in him someone who was at Korn Ferry RPO. Korn Ferry just started breaking out their RPO results separately recently. If you look at those results, you can see that Korn Ferry's RPO business generates about $100 million a quarter in revenue. Jake was there when they were generating $40 million a year in revenue. He was a part of the team that grew from $40 million in revenue to $400 million in revenue on an annual basis. He’s seen firsthand what it takes to grow, what it takes to build. You know, it's never easy, but we think under Jake's leadership, we're incredibly well positioned to have a really good growth rate going forward.

He knows what it takes to win, and that's what we're out to achieve.

Speaker 0

Yeah, good to hear. Jake, when you look at, I think you were 10 years at Korn Ferry. If you look at where you're at in this cycle or in this process so far with Hudson Global, I mean, are we, you know, I think you're starting out at a lower point of revenue run rate, but do you see the pieces coming together here?

Speaker 3

David, great question. Everything that we've been doing for the last, say, 20 months since I've been here was, again, focused on growth. That is our guiding principle in creating values for our clients, our shareholders, and our employees, right? We've gone through a lot of change. We've gone through a couple of acquisitions and integrations. We've hired new leadership, right? We've promoted existing leaders in their business that have been with us for many, many years to give them different challenges and capabilities and skills. We've really looked at how do we increase our share of wallet, maintaining that operational excellence with our clients. What impresses me about our team is throughout all of this change, we're still delivering to our clients at a very, very high caliber. That's a true testament to our leaders and our overall business, not to mention offering new products, right?

It's not fair to compare the two, but if you think about where we are and where our run rate here at Hudson Global, we have a significant run rate in front of us. If we can continue to drive that land and expand strategy, offer different products that our clients are asking for, and being able to provide that at the same quality, if not better, than what we've been historically known, being able to know and to do. Very excited about the run rate. I think that we have a lot of opportunities and options at the table in front of us right now.

Speaker 0

Yeah. Excellent. Thank you for taking my questions.

Speaker 3

Absolutely, David. Good question. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jeff Eberwein for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for your interest in Hudson Global. You can tell that we're very excited about our future, and we look forward to future quarters and showing our future results. Have a great day.