You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: This is the 11th hour of the 11th month of the year like no other, and the good news is that our business has rebounded dramatically.
Revenue was up 27% sequentially to $435 million.
And our earnings and profitability, they were both very good, with $66 million of adjusted EBITDA, and a 15.2% adjusted EBITDA margin.
I'm also pleased with the work we did to ensure a strong balance sheet and position of liquidity.
This has served us well, not only weathering the pandemic storm, but being able to invest back into the recovery that we've seen.
I'd attribute these results to what I'm calling the three Rs.
First, the actions, strategy, solutions and messages we've taken have resonated in the marketplace.
Secondly, our clients have responded.
And third, our colleagues have been resilient through a year that none of us have experienced in our lifetimes.
Yeah, it's a testament to our strategy, but it's really about the resiliency of our colleagues across the globe.
I couldn't be more proud.
And while I'm pleased with the progress in the path we see ahead, there is no question that the magnitude of the humanitarian economic impact brought on by this pandemic will continue to permeate and shape the global landscape for quite some time.
And as we've said since early March, I do believe there will be more change in the next two years than in the last 10 years, and that brings tremendous opportunity, real tangible opportunity for Korn Ferry.
Almost every company on the planet is, and will have to reimagine their business.
Quite simply, different work needs to get done and work needs to get done differently.
And to get work done differently, companies will need to rethink their organizational structure, roles and responsibilities, how they compensate, engage and develop their workforce, let alone the top, the type of agile talent they hire, and how they hire talent in a virtual world, which will depend to a greater extent on assessment.
And these are Korn Ferry's businesses and that's real opportunity for our Company.
As an organizational consulting firm, we enable people and organizations to exceed their potential.
And to exceed potential, people need an abundance of opportunity, development and sponsorship, which is foundational to our service offerings.
We've also affirmed that changes people's lives.
As previously mentioned, I'm very proud to say, we're launching Leadership U for Humanity, a non-profit venture of the Korn Ferry Charitable Foundation, focused on developing the total mosaic, inside communities and within corporations.
One of our partners will include the Executive Leadership Council, a preeminent organization, whose mission is to develop and increase the number of successful black executives.
Across the globe, our goal is to take our expertise in IP and develop 1 million new leaders from diverse backgrounds, using our Korn Ferry Advance and Leadership U platforms.
We'll also be offering this to all of our colleagues.
We're also using this time of change as an opportunity to reimagine our business.
For example, we're moving from analog to digital delivery of our assessment in learning business, which represents about 23% of the Firm's revenue in FY '20 in a way that makes our IP more relevant and scalable.
To give you some perspective on how far we've come, at the start of the pandemic, we flipped the switch almost overnight, with nearly all of our assessment capability converting to a digital environment.
And on the recruiting side, we're further refining our platform processes such as AI, video and technology.
More and more, search will not simply about discovering and validating with someone who has gone, but finding out who they are.
We have this capability to differentiate our strategy.
And our strategy is absolutely taking hold and we see that payoff with our approach to clients as we create loyal, repeatable, sustaining relationship with clients who scale, and that's where we're moving our business.
That's our true north.
We have about 300 marquee and regional accounts, representing about 34% of global revenue, which we'd like to increase to 40% or so.
As such, we'll continue to develop account leaders from within, as well as hire from the outside.
So forget the new normal.
It's nearly nine months since the pandemic was declared.
And as I've said before, it's not just a marathon, but an Ironman triathlon of endurance, agility and change.
Embracing this change, we absolutely can make tomorrow better than today.
I truly feel we have the right strategy, with the right people, at the right time to accelerate through the turn.
And as we enter 2021, we will continue our strategic commitment to build the preeminent global organizational consultancy.
I look forward to what the new calendar year brings us.
As Gary said, the rebound in our business has been tremendous.
The sharp improvement in fee revenue in our fiscal second quarter is more than a result of improved global market conditions.
In fact, it really attributed to the resilience of our diverse mix of product and service offerings, our disciplined client management activities, and the growing relevance our solutions have in today's business environment.
Coming to the last nine months of economic upheaval, we now have a number of proof points that our strategy is succeeding.
The business we have today is less economically cyclical, with the time to recovery shorter and the trajectory of our recovery even steeper.
Our operating experience through the COVID-19 recession, thus far, demonstrates a number of important points.
First, our more diversified business is clearly demonstrating greater resilience than in the Great Recession, where fee revenue in the quarter, immediately following the trough quarter, was approximately 43% less than the prior peak quarter.
For the current COVID-19 recession, the decline in fee revenue from the peak quarter to the quarter immediately following the trough is only 16%.
So you can see a very dramatic improvement.
Gary mentioned our marquee and regional account programs.
These are client relationships that continued to deliver less cyclical, more resilient revenue than the rest of our portfolio.
And we achieved this result by actively managing the accounts with global account leaders who use a disciplined talent management strategy.
Through the first six months of fiscal '21, we saw our marquee and regional account fee revenue decline approximately 14% year-over-year, which compares favorably to the decline in the rest of our portfolio, which was down 23%.
In our digital business, we continue to see meaningful progress selling subscription-based solutions.
Our FY '21 Q2 subscription base fee revenue was $22.7 million, which was up 43% year-over-year, and up 7% quarter sequential.
Subscription-based new business also improved in the second quarter, reaching $29 million, which was up 39% year-over-year, and 25% quarter sequential.
While the shift to more subscription-based fee revenue will have a short-term negative impact on fee revenue growth, it clearly positions us with more durable fee revenue for the long-term.
In our consulting business, we continue to see success with our effort to capture larger engagements.
And as we said in the past, those that are valued at 500,000 and more.
These engagements provide us with incrementally better visibility in a more durable stream of revenue.
In FY '21, our Q2 consulting new business was pretty steady with the prior year, despite last year's number being an all-time high, which included a single non-recurring engagement of $12 million.
And these large engagements are also driving rapidly growing consulting backlog, which again enhances our revenue visibility and durability.
And last, our RPO business continues to enjoy great success, especially as companies increasingly look to outsource and variabilize their cost base.
RPO new business in the second quarter was $120 million, which is just shy of an all-time high.
So as I said when I started, we now have real proof points that our strategy is working.
Now turning to our quarterly results.
In the second quarter, all of our business segments were up sharply from the trough of the first quarter, with a significant improvement from the rate decline that we saw in the first quarter.
For the second quarter of FY '21, our fee revenue was $435 million, which was up $91 million or 27% sequentially, and down only 12% measured year-over-year.
Fee revenue declines improved consecutively year-over-year each month of the quarter.
On a quarter sequential basis, fee revenue in the second quarter for exec search was up 23%, RPO and pro search was up 25%, with pro search being up 20%, and RPO up 27%, consulting was up 28%, and digital was up 34%.
More importantly, as fee revenue has improved, we've been able to drive higher earnings of profitability by leveraging the cost-saving actions we recently put in place, as well as the productivity and cost efficiencies resulting from our emerging digital and virtual delivery processes.
Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was up $56 million sequentially to slightly over $66 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.2%.
Our adjusted fully diluted earnings per share were also up in the second quarter, reaching $0.54, which was up $0.73 sequentially.
Our balance sheet and liquidity remained very strong.
At the end of the second quarter, cash and marketable securities totaled $774 million.
When you exclude amounts reserved for deferred comp arrangements and for accrued bonuses, our investable cash balance at the end of the second quarter was approximately $458 million.
Finally, during the last couple of quarters, we have discussed a number of restructuring and cost-saving initiatives designed to help the Firm through the trough of the COVID-19 crisis.
Some of these cost-saving actions, like salary cuts, were highlighted as being temporary in nature.
And it is important to note that based on our Q2 performance, we have in the second quarter made an accrual to pay all of our employees 100% of their salaries for the second quarter.
And therefore, our cost structure in this quarter is fully loaded as it relates to current compensation expense.
Starting with our digital segment.
Global fee revenue for KF Digital was $75 million in the second quarter and up 34% sequentially, and up approximately $9.3 million or 14% year-over-year.
The subscription and licensing component of KF Digital fee revenue in the second quarter was approximately $23 million, which was up 7% sequentially, and up $7 million or 43% year-over-year.
Global new business in the second quarter for the digital segment was up approximately 17% year-over-year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of KF Digital was up $15.1 million sequentially to $23.1 million with a 30.8% adjusted EBITDA margin.
Now turning to consulting.
In the second quarter, consulting generated $126.7 million of fee revenue, which was up approximately 28% sequentially, and down approximately 12% year-over-year.
Demand for our consulting services continues to strengthen, enhanced by our growing virtual delivery capabilities.
And in particular, growth was strong in some of our virtually delivered solutions in leadership and professional development, and assessment and succession, which were up sequentially 53% and 38%, respectively.
New business in the second quarter for our consulting services was also up sharply.
In the second quarter, consulting new business was up approximately 17% sequentially, with growth in North America, Europe and APAC.
Adjusted EBITDA for consulting in the second quarter was up $13.5 million sequentially to $20.1 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.9%.
RPO and professional search generated global fee revenue of $85.6 million in the second quarter, which was up 25% sequentially and down 10% year-over-year.
RPO fee revenue was up approximately 27% sequentially, and professional search fee revenue was up approximately 20% sequentially.
With regards to new business in the second quarter, professional search was up 9% sequentially, and RPO was awarded a near record $120 million of new business, consisting of $59 million of renewals and extensions, and $61 million of new logo work.
Adjusted EBITDA for RPO and professional search in the second quarter was up approximately $7.8 million sequentially to $13.8 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.1%.
Finally, for executive search, global fee revenue in the second quarter of fiscal '21 was approximately $148 million, which was up approximately 23% sequentially with growth in every region.
Sequentially, North America was up approximately 32%, while EMEA and APAC were up approximately 5% and 21%, respectively.
The total number of dedicated executive search consultants worldwide in the second quarter was 512, down 73 year-over-year, and up two sequentially.
Annualized fee revenue production per consultant in the second quarter was $1.16 million, and the number of new search assignments opened worldwide in the second quarter was 1,331, which was down approximately 15% year-over-year, but up 19% sequentially.
Executive search also benefited from cost reductions, productivity enhancements, and streamline virtual delivery processes in the second quarter, as adjusted EBITDA grew approximately $20 million sequentially to $28.2 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.1%.
Globally, our monthly new business trends continue to improve throughout the second quarter.
Excluding new business awards for RPO, our global new business in the second quarter measured year-over-year was down only approximately 7% and that was from record-high new business in the second quarter of fiscal '20.
With the year-end holidays approaching, both November and December are typically seasonally slower months for new business.
However, on a month-to-date basis, what we're seeing in November is that it is in line with last month and last year.
With our typical seasonal patterns hold this year, we would expect January to be our high month of new business in the quarter.
Now approximately three months have passed since our last earnings call, and while our advances have been made in the science, societal and economic impacts of COVID-19, there remains significant uncertainty about the ultimate consequences.
Now on the positive side, there have been several announcements regarding vaccines that have greater than 90% effectiveness.
In addition, the world has adopted new ways of working and interacting with substantial acceptance of business being conducted virtually.
On the negative side, there are number of unanswered questions regarding the capacity to manufacture the vaccines at scale, as well as how they will be distributed and administered to the population at large.
In addition, we are seeing governments reinstating lockdowns as the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations reach all-time highs.
With also an unprecedented nature of what we are currently experiencing, combined with so many unanswered questions and ever-changing data points that does continue to cloud near-term predictability of our business.
So consistent with our approach for the prior three quarters, we will not issue any specific revenue or earnings guidance for the third quarter of FY '21.
Despite November new business, again, that is as of today, in line with prior months and year ago levels, we would remind you that our third quarter is our seasonally low quarter due to time of around the year-end holidays.
Typically, what you would see is the sequential decline from second to our third quarter, does range sort of 3% to 5%.
Ignoring any incremental impact from COVID, we would expect that pattern to be the same in the current year.
But what we're not able to determine the levers if the -- if and when to what extent there will be any incremental impact from COVID-19, which potentially could have the effect of exacerbating our typical sequential decline.
We'd be glad to answer any questions you may have.

user
compname reports q2 adjusted earnings per share of $0.54.
q2 adjusted earnings per share $0.54.
will not issue any specific revenue or earnings guidance for q3 of fy'21.

assistant