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: Now, what a difference a year makes.
Last April was rather dark I think for all of us and May, with the George Floyd tragedy, was hopeless and, boy, I'll tell you this -- the Company has rebounded tremendously.
And in particular our colleagues have shown incredible resilience over the past year.
I'm proud of our colleagues, I'm proud of our Company, what we've accomplished and our performance amid the continuing echo of change in this post-pandemic world.
We are the world's premier organizational consultancy.
There is no question about that.
We're meeting the key objectives that we discussed last quarter, which included diversifying our offerings, capitalizing on our leadership and relevant solutions, driving an integrated go-to-market strategy, advancing our position as a premier career destination and pursuing transformational opportunities at the intersection of talent and strategy.
And all of this is translating to what I believe is outstanding performance.
During the quarter we generated about $555 million in fee revenue.
It was an all-time high that was up 26% year-over-year.
Our profitability was strong.
We had an adjusted EBITDA margin of a little over 20% and adjusted earnings per share of $1.21.
We've clearly accelerated through the turn and it's a testament to the pivot we made and the agility of our colleagues over this past year.
The diversity and relevance of our offerings and our ability to deliver our consulting services in a virtual world have helped clients achieve organizational opportunities and our Company deliver strong financial results.
In this new world there is tangible opportunity for Korn Ferry.
The center of gravity for today's workforce is shifting from a place of work to a location for collaboration.
It's no longer about the where, it's all about the why and how work gets done differently.
Almost every company on the planet is reimagining and will have to continue to reimagine its business from its strategy to its people to its culture.
Quite simply, companies are rethinking their organizational structure, roles and responsibilities, how they compensate, how they motivate, how they engage, how they develop their workforce, let alone the type of agile talent they hire and how they hire that talent and they're going to need to lead differently.
Gone are the days of vertical leadership that focuses on driving results up the chain.
Today companies need more horizontal leadership.
That's all about leading across the enterprise.
And these changes align with Korn Ferry's businesses.
Whether it's M&A services, change management, virtual sales effectiveness or customer experience services, Korn Ferry is poised to seize this opportunity.
We've also used this time of change as an opportunity to reimagine our own business.
In a post-pandemic world and beyond, we're delivering an integrated value change, digitally enabled and delivered.
To deliver this at scale, we're bringing everything together in a digital framework.
All this makes our world-class IP even more relevant and unique.
To fulfill our vision and position our Company for long-term success, we remain relentlessly focused on meeting the evolving needs of our clients.
Number one, we're driving an integrated solutions based go-to-market approach through our marquee and regional accounts.
That not only facilitates growth and enduring partnerships, but it's also key to more scalable and durable revenues.
We have about 350 marquee and regional global accounts and they continue to demonstrate the power of this strategy.
The accounts, they generated about $640 million in fee revenue during the year and they sustainably utilize all of our global capabilities even during challenging economic periods.
Today the fight for talent is more profound than ever.
The pandemic shakeout is driving a robust market for our talent acquisition expertise, capabilities and approach and we're helping companies find the right talent, fitting the right need, from senior level executives, the board members to professional level talent.
And looking at our digital and consulting businesses, we've been actively marrying our capabilities with today's megatrends.
The result is larger projects with greater sustainability and more durable revenue.
Right now, we're seeing high areas of demand in D&I and organizational transformation as well as our core solutions such as assessment, pay and governance and leadership and professional development.
We indeed have a lot of opportunity in front of us.
We've become a much different company with a broader and deeper mix of business.
Importantly, we're translating the value we are creating for our clients and the returns for our shareholders.
As part of our balanced capital allocation framework, I'm pleased to announce that our Board has approved a 20% increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.12 per share.
Looking to the fiscal year ahead, I truly feel we have the right strategy with the right people at the right time to help our clients drive performance in this new world.
Bob, it's over to you.
Our fourth quarter results continue to demonstrate the relevance and importance of our human capital solutions in the rapidly evolving business environment that we find ourselves in.
It also validates our strategy and highlights the strength and durability of our business model.
By all measures, the fourth quarter was the strongest quarter in our history with record revenue and profitability.
Our new business in the fourth quarter was also a record and it actually accelerated throughout the quarter, leaving us well positioned for growth in fiscal '22.
Now before I jump into the actual results for the quarter, I want to talk about a couple of proof points that we have shared with you in the past that really continue to demonstrate the success of our strategy.
First, our overall business has demonstrated more resilience than at any other time in our history and just by way of example, in just three quarters from our COVID recession trough, we've achieved new all-time highs in new business revenue and profitability.
In contrast, coming out of the great recession, approximately 10 years ago, it took over 12 quarters for fee revenue to rebound past the prior pre-recession high.
Our second marquee and regional account program that Gary talked about, really continues to add value, providing a steady, strong growing stream of fee revenue for our firm.
For all of fiscal year '21, 35.3% of our consolidated fee revenue was generated from these accounts.
Further, our year-over-year fee revenue on marquee and regional accounts was essentially flat, while the rest of the Company was down about 9%.
For new business, our marquee and regional accounts were actually up 11% year-over-year while the rest of the Company was flat.
And finally, our success driving cross line of business referrals continues to grow.
Just over three years ago cross line of business fee revenue referrals were approximately 15%.
Today, fee revenue from cross line of business referral stands at almost 27% for all of fiscal '21 and almost 29% for the fourth quarter.
Now let's turn to some important highlights of our fourth quarter.
As Gary mentioned, fee revenue in the fourth quarter was up $115 million year-over-year and $80 million sequentially, reaching an all-time high of $555 million.
Growth continued to be broad-based with fee revenue improving sequentially for the third consecutive quarter in each of our lines of business.
Recent growth trends for our flagship talent acquisition businesses have been particularly strong.
Consolidated fee revenue growth in the fourth quarter measured year-over-year was up 26% with Executive Search being up 20%, RPO and Pro Search up 46% and Consulting up 27%, all reaching new all-time quarterly fee revenue highs.
New business growth in the fourth quarter was also very strong with all business lines generating new business at levels higher than before the pandemic.
Additionally, earnings and profitability were at record levels in the fourth quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA grew $16 million or 17% sequentially to $113 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of over 20% for the second consecutive quarter.
Our earnings and profitability continued to benefit from both higher consultant and execution staff productivity and lower G&A spend driven in part by virtual delivery processes.
Our adjusted fully diluted earnings per share also reached a record level in the fourth quarter, improving to $1.21, which was up $0.26 or 27% sequentially and up $0.61, or 102% year-over-year.
Now, it's important to note that the fourth quarter expenses included $13.5 million of non-reoccurring expense accruals.
That's roughly 2.5 percentage points of margin related to our business recovery plan, as we decided to reimburse employees for the remaining portion of salaries that were foregone during the year.
Now, turning to new business, the month of March and April were the two best months of new business ever.
On a consolidated basis, new business awards, excluding RPO, were up 48% year-over-year and up 16% sequentially.
Measured on a sequential basis, new business growth in the fourth quarter also showed broad-based improvement led by our talent acquisition businesses with Executive Search up 29% and Professional Search up 18%.
In addition, our digital business was up 8% and consulting was up 5%.
RPO new business was also strong in the fourth quarter with an additional $115 million of new contracts.
Our cash balance also improved.
At the end of the fourth quarter, cash and marketable securities totaled $1.1 billion.
Now excluding amounts reserved for deferred compensation arrangements and for accrued bonuses, our investable cash balance at the end of the fourth quarter was approximately $642 million and that's up $108 million sequentially and up $110 million year-over-year.
Now it continues to be our priority to invest back into our business to maximize future growth.
Now, this includes the hiring of additional fee earners.
Over the last three quarters combined across all of our business lines, we have hired approximately 160 new consultant fee earners and that includes about 86 in the fourth quarter with the rest coming from quarters two and three.
Additionally, as Gary mentioned, consistent with our balanced capital allocation framework, our Board has approved a 20% increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.12 per share and that's going to be payable on July 30 to shareholders of record on July 6, 2021.
Starting with KF Digital.
Global fee revenue for KF Digital was $80.5 million in the fourth quarter, which was up 16% year-over-year and up 6% sequentially.
The subscription and licensing component of KF Digital fee revenue continues to improve.
In the fourth quarter subscription and license fee revenue was $24 million, which was up over 14% year-over-year.
Global new business for KF Digital in the fourth quarter reached $108 million, the second consecutive quarter of new business over $100 million.
Additionally, for all of fiscal '21, new business tied to subscription and license services improved approximately 72%.
Earnings and profitability also improved for KF Digital in the fourth quarter with adjusted EBITDA of $27.9 million and a 34.7% adjusted EBITDA margin.
Now turning to Consulting.
In the fourth quarter Consulting generated $153.6 million of fee revenue, which was up approximately $32.6 million or 27% year-over-year and up approximately $17.3 million or 13% sequentially.
Fee revenue growth was broad based across all solution areas and strongest regionally in North America.
Consulting new business also improved in the fourth quarter, growing approximately 53% year-over-year and 5% sequentially.
Additionally, new business tied to large engagements, those over $500,000 in value, was up approximately 56% in the fourth quarter and up approximately 31% for all of fiscal '21.
Regionally, new business growth was also broad based and remained strongest in North America.
Adjusted EBITDA for Consulting in the fourth quarter was up $16.1 million or 145% year-over-year with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.7%.
RPO and Professional Search global fee revenue improved to $120.3 million in the fourth quarter which was up 46% year-over-year and up 26% sequentially.
Both RPO and Professional Search benefited from the post-recession surge in demand for skilled professional labor.
RPO fee revenue grew approximately 58% year-over-year and 34% sequentially, while Professional Search fee revenue was up approximately 27% year-over-year and up 17% sequentially.
With regards to new business, in the fourth quarter, Professional Search was up 17% sequentially and RPO was awarded $115 million of new contracts, consisting of $23 million of renewals and extensions and $92 million of new logo work.
Adjusted EBITDA for RPO and Professional Search surged to approximately $30 million in the fourth quarter, which is up approximately $17.2 million or 136% year-over-year and $10.3 million or 53% sequentially.
Adjusted EBITDA margin for RPO and Professional Search was 24.9% in the fourth quarter.
Finally, in the fourth quarter, global fee revenue for Executive Search exceeded $200 million for the first time in Company history.
Global Executive Search fee revenue was up approximately 20% year-over-year and up approximately 19% sequentially in the fourth quarter.
Growth was also broad based and led by North America, which grew 28% year-over-year and 23% sequentially.
Sequentially, fee revenue in EMEA and APAC was up approximately 15% and 9% respectively.
The total number of dedicated Executive Search consultants worldwide at the end of the fourth quarter was 524, which was down 32 year-over-year and up two sequentially.
Annualized fee revenue production per consultant in the fourth quarter improved to a record $1.54 million and the number of new search assignments opened worldwide in the fourth quarter was up 39% year-over-year and 32% sequentially to 1,712.
In the fourth quarter, global Executive Search adjusted EBITDA grew to approximately $49.8 million, which was up 5% year-over-year and up 19.5% sequentially.
Adjusted EBITDA margin was approximately 25%.
The acceleration of new business in the month exiting the fourth quarter and entering the first quarter of fiscal '22 has positioned us very well for further growth.
Our combined total new business in the months of March, April and May was easily the highest total for any three-month period in Company history.
Additionally, strong new business activity has been broad based with all of our lines of business taking advantage of both the market strengthening and the acceleration of demand for our unique combination of service offerings.
For the last couple of quarters demand across all of our lines of business has been strongest in North America, but I will say during the fourth quarter, we did begin to see signs of acceleration in international markets as well.
Now if recent new business activity continues and normal seasonal patterns hold, we expect that new business in the first quarter will remain strong.
We saw that in May and so far new business month-to-date in June is in line with our expectations.
Recognizing normal seasonal patterns and assuming no new major pandemic-related lockdowns or changes in worldwide economic conditions, financial markets or foreign exchange rates, we expect our consolidated fee revenue in the first quarter of fiscal '22 to range from $535 million to $555 million and our consolidated diluted earnings per share to range from $1.04 to $1.14.
As we close out the fiscal year, we are very encouraged by the momentum in our business.
This is the momentum that we believe is reflective not only of the macro conditions but of the intentional steps we have taken to build this business and extend our comprehensive offerings to our clients to enhance our financial profile and really to position Korn Ferry for long-term success.
Through the power of our offerings, we look forward to building on these results for quarters and years to come.
With that, we'd be glad to answer any questions that you may have.

user
compname posts q4 adjusted earnings per share $1.21.
q4 adjusted earnings per share $1.21.
fee revenue of $555.2 million in q4 fy'21, an increase of 26% from q4 fy'20.
q1 fy’22 fee revenue is expected to be in the range of $535 million and $555 million.
q1 fy’22 diluted earnings per share is expected to range between $1.04 to $1.14.

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