Thank you, Carrie. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. I'm delighted to share that Grid Dynamics delivered another strong quarter, exceeding our own outlook and Wall Street expectations on revenue and non GAAP EBITDA. This was our second consecutive quarter of hundred million dollars in quarterly revenue or more.

There were many positive trends several of which I will highlight on the call. Today. I'm sure many of you are interested in knowing how the current macro environment is impacting our company. While you're all well aware of the risks and uncertainties with the global economy, in the first quarter, our performance was largely driven by customer specific trends. In other words, the patterns in the demand from our customers and the resulting monthly billable headcount shaped the quarter. With the ongoing tariff issues, having minimal impact. Our laser focus on technology and engineering excellence continues to ensure our success with our clients. Furthermore, the $100,000,000 quarterly milestone would not have been possible without the dedication of our global teams. I'm deeply grateful for their outstanding efforts and incredibly proud what we have achieved together. Now, let me provide you with some granular commentary around the demand environment. Every year, the first quarter is influenced by a degree of seasonalities as our customer are establishing their yearly spend. Consequently, we typically start off slow in January, as the quarter progresses business trends improve. Contrary to historic trends, we started January strong in terms of billable positions. That said, in February, we witnessed some changing priorities As the start of the year, impacted some of the clients.

In March, we signed several sizable new deals with existing and new customers. These deals span across industry verticals that included automotive, financial and CPG, and these included engagement [indiscernible] and supply chain applications. Also, for the first time in the company history, three of our top 10 customers are in the financial industry. After setting record levels, in late twenty twenty four, the company once again attained its highest ever billable engineering headcount, a leading indicator of future growth. Our second quarter outlook reflects these trends. I am pleased to share that our acquisitions are performing well. As I mentioned previously, with both acquisitions, we are anticipating realizing synergies more quickly than with any of our past acquisitions. And I am happy to report that we are well on track in delivering against the goal. Argentina based mobile computing acquired in October of last year and hence our follow the sun capabilities. In the first quarter, we enhanced our sales team and talent acquisition teams to support the incremental demand. Additionally, in the quarter, we successfully integrated engineering teams to support our enterprise accounts based out of The United States. UK based Juxed which we acquired in September of last year, elevated our industry expertise in banking and financial services.

Their focus on risk platforms structured products, equity derivatives and financial reporting is highly complementary to our current offerings in financial services. Since acquiring Juxt several global banks based in The US have expressed interest in working with Grid Dynamics. In the first quarter, we initiated several new across multiple global banks. We expect the customer to continue ramping their business throughout 2025. Coming to AI, Our AI initiatives continue to gain significant tractions across our customer base, with our pipeline of opportunities growing steadily quarter over quarter. We are seeing a clear shift from proof of concept to enterprise scale implementations that deliver measurable business outcomes. Our primary focus areas include AI based search solutions, that consistently open doors to new accounts. A Genetic AI platform being developed for clients and consumer goods fintech industries, comprehensive knowledge systems for enterprise knowledge management, and AI enabled productivity tools that enhance software development capabilities. These implementations underscore our ability to move clients beyond basic AI applications to sophisticated solutions that deliver substantial business impact in area ranging from sales enablement to supply chain optimization and development productivity. Our CTO Eugene Steinberg, who is on the call today, will provide you more color.

A key element of our 2025 strategy is to ensure that our investments are aligned to the changing needs of the industry. These investments will ensure that our technological leadership is maintained. This includes focused CTO driven teams creating innovative artifacts, training engineers for specific flavors of AI implementation, and newer training resources with our Grid university. I'm happy to report that for 2025, we're maintaining our full year revenue outlook that we provided to you all in February. We expect the second half to be seasonally stronger in comparison to first half and expect the ramp up of several deals signed recently to assist us in achieving our outlook. We acknowledge the ongoing uncertainty related to the macro environment. We are successfully navigating through the near term volatility and the strengths of our business is reflected in our Q1 results. In the quarter, there are several trends. And I want to share some of the notable ones. Partnerships In the first quarter, partnership influenced revenue, represented 16% of our total revenue. And we anticipate this contribution to accelerate throughout the remaining quarters of 2025. Mirroring our historic trends. We are experiencing increased traction with all hyperscalers, notably with Google.

Our pipeline is robust, and includes significant migration and modernization programs, as well as a growing number of data and AI projects. Our signature sponsorship of the Google Next event proved highly successful. We engaged in several conversations with Google, clients and prospects, which we expect to translate into expanded revenues. Number two. European business. We successfully completed B2C multi brand digital commerce replatforming. For the European brands of a major global automotive part distributor. We successfully launched [indiscernible] and Elaboration Services as well as a Conversational AI as a part of the major internal development productivity initiative at the large investment bank. As a leading global HR solution provider, are evaluating [indiscernible] to democratize data for business driven AI initiatives. At a leading meal preparation company, we continue to modernize their operational systems including the customer service and security solutions, in collaboration with one of the hyperscalers. Number three, India expansion India is one of the top locations and it continues to attract talent as our other European locations. Especially [indiscernible] Gen AI data, cloud, and cybersecurity. India serves many of our key enterprise customers across technology, CPG, retail, healthcare, and financial services industry. India has now emerged as the hub for multi agent multi modal platform engineering, as demonstrated by a recent [indiscernible] One of them with a leading multinational beverage company, the other one is a well known leader in the FinTech industry.

As part of our global initiative, India has upskilled a majority of its engineers and delivered leaders in AI assisted accelerated delivery with expertise across the entire value chain of AgenTic digital platform engineering at enterprise scale. Number four, internship. Our internship program gained strong momentum in the first quarter. We had a solid performance across all our operating regions. Our internship program typically lasts six months and trains interns in solving real world problems. In the first quarter, out of 11,000 applications received we selected several hundred gifted individuals. Additionally, many of the interns graduating from our training were placed in billable roles at the clients. Now let me turn over the call to Vasily, who will talk about notable projects during the quarter.

Thank you, Leonard. I am excited to share some key highlights from the quarter that showcase the impact of our work.

First, for a leading global technology company, Grid Dynamics developed a project intelligence tool that automatically consolidates information from sources into a centralized platform. This tool streamlines project execution by providing a single intuitive dashboard with real time consolidated insights. Designed to support over a hundred of internal teams, the tool enables faster issue resolution, accelerates time to market, and enhances overall product quality. For a leading luxury retail group, Grid Dynamics transformed their search experience by implementing Google Vertex AI search. This innovative solution delivered immediate and improvements across key business metrics. Conversion rates increased by 9%, click through rates by 21% orders by 3%, and revenue per visit by 9%. Based on these impressive results, we anticipate significant interest in this solution from other clients within our portfolio. For a leading payments technology company, we modernized a costly legacy banking integration system by transforming it into a cloud native microservices on Microsoft Azure. This modern architecture significantly reduces the total cost of ownership while delivering the scalability and resiliency demanded by today's banks. With this new platform, continuous deployment pipelines now push new features to production without downtime. Enabling the business to keep pace with evolving market demands and regulatory requirements.

Additionally, we estimate that our solution reduced the integration cycle duration by 90%. Therefore, dramatically accelerating customer onboarding and driving faster revenue generation. For another client, a leading US specialty retailer with over 2,000 stores we partnered to build a cutting edge, generative AI platform. Specifically, we developed a retrieval augmented generation pipeline powered by Google Vertex AI. That solution analyzes prior clicks, surveys, and local inventory to recommend the ideal product and bundled offers. We estimate that this platform will drive up to a 10% increase in user engagement and up to a 3% boost in revenues. Now let me turn this call over to Chief Technology Officer Eugene Steinberg. Eugene?

Thank you, Vasily. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm honored to join this call as Grid Dynamics' new chief technology officer.

I've been with Grid Dynamics since its founding. Helped establish our unique engineering culture and technology practices. Had the privilege to work with some of our best engineers develop innovative solutions in the cloud commerce platforms, AI and machine learning. For Fortune seven clients. As Rajiv transitions to lead our APAC expansion, I'm excited to build upon his foundation. And drive our technology strategy forward. Let me outline five strategic priorities that will guide our technology direction. First, industry diversification. While maintaining our strength in retail and TMT, we are developing AI and data engineering solutions for manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, fintech, and insurance. Are leveraging our strong horizontal technology capabilities and industry expertise to address specific client challenges and expand into new business domains. Second, amplify our offerings with AI. We are implementing our AI as a Spice strategy. Infusing AI capabilities throughout our service portfolio and engineering practices. Our engineering led approach delivers end to end AI powered business solutions rather than fragmented experiences. Our Grid U learning platform provides AI training for all engineering disciplines. Enabling every team member to leverage AI in their work. Third, operational excellence through AI. We are applying our AI expertise internally with our in house Orgentic AI platform. [indiscernible] efficiency while showcasing our capabilities to our customers.

This initiative has yielded productivity gains across multiple business functions in talent management, knowledge management, project management and sales. It also helps to train engineers in the Agendaq AI, and demonstrates our AI competence. Fourth, strengthening technical leadership. Our CTO mentorship program expands our ranks of project and account starters. Technical leaders who identify opportunities and grow client engagement. Our global talent network across 19 countries gives us access to exceptional emerging talent we nurture through focused development programs. Fifth, thought leadership. Our technology point of view broadcasting and dynamic talks program established Grid Dynamics as the technology partner of choice. These initiatives generate quality leads and partnership opportunities. What sets B Dynamics apart is our engineering led approach and eight years of experience in ML and AI development. We've been building advanced analytics and ML solutions since 2017. Giving us deeper expertise and proven methodologies for ex implementing AI at enterprise scale. We are seeing strong momentum several key areas. AI based search solutions remain a key entry point for new clients. We expand those relationships into broader engagements including commerce platforms, front end modernization, data engineering and catalog enrichment. Adjunctica AI platforms represent a major growth area. We are partnering with enterprises in consumer goods and payment industries to develop platforms for creating and deploying AI agents.

These systems drive operational improvements and enhance customer experience. Enterprise Adjunctica AI solutions are seeing substantial demand. For example, we recently launched an Agenetic AI system for leading specialty retailer. This system coaches sales associates through AI powered role play. To provide product and services knowledge and salesmanship training. And improve customer interactions.

AI enabled development tools accelerates software deliveries through custom tools legacy systems modernization, and end to end quality engineering. These engagements often expand into broader digital transformation initiatives. I am committed to furthering our spirit of innovation and technical excellence expanding our capabilities in AI and platform engineering. To deliver measurable impact for clients. Thank you. And let me turn it back to Anil who will talk about financials.

Good afternoon, everyone. Our first quarter results exceeded our expectations both on revenue and non GAAP EBITDA. Recorded revenues of $100,400,000 slightly ahead of our guidance range of 98,000,000 to 100,000,000 On a year over year basis, this represents a growth of 25.8%. Excluding the impact of our recent acquisitions, the year over year growth was 10.1%, Both on a quarter over quarter and year over year basis, there were roughly 38 bps and 26 bps of FX related headwinds, respectively. Our non GAAP EBITDA came in at $14,600,000 outperforming our guidance range of $12.9 to 13,900,000.0 In the first quarter, we benefited from timing of revenue recognition with some of our fixed price contracts in line with project milestone completions. Looking at performance of our verticals, retail remained our largest vertical accounting for 31.4% of total revenues in the quarter. Revenues in this vertical grew 28% on a year over year with a slight decline of 3.7% on a sequential basis. The year over year growth was primarily driven by strong demand from our specialty retail customers, along with contributions from new client engagements. Finance contributed 24.9% of total revenues for the first quarter of twenty twenty five and became the second largest vertical Finance continued its strong performance with revenues increasing 7.9% sequentially and 144.3% year over year.

The strong year over year growth was largely driven by a combination of our recent acquisitions, that added global banking customers along with strength from our fintech and insurance customers. TMT accounted for 23.5% of revenues in the first quarter and remained flat compared to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four. On an year over year basis, TMT declined by 1.8%. Turning to the remain verticals. CPG and manufacturing represented 10.7% of our revenues in the first quarter It remained relatively flat on a sequential basis, but grew 12% year over year basis. The year over year growth was primarily from our recent acquisition. Other vertical contributed 7.1% of total revenues, remained flat sequentially and declined 15.1% compared to the same quarter of 2024 The year over year decrease primarily came from customers tied to the cost hospitality industry. And finally, healthcare and pharma made up 2.4% of our revenues for the quarter. We ended the first quarter with a total headcount of 4,926 up from 4,730 employees in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four and up from 3,892 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. At the end of the first quarter of twenty twenty five, our total U. Headcount was three fifty four, or 7.2% of the company's total headcount versus 8.5% in the year ago quarter.

Our non US headcount located in Europe, Americas and India was 4,572 or 92.8%. In the first quarter, revenues from our top five and top 10 customers were 35.6%, and 56.6%, respectively, versus 39.655.3% in the same period a year ago, respectively. During the first quarter, we had a total of two zero four customers down from two eleven in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty five and two ten in the year ago quarter. The year over year decline in the number of customers was primarily driven by our continued efforts to rationalize our portfolio of non strategic customers. Moving to the income statement, Our GAAP gross profit during the quarter was $37,000,000 or 36.8% compared to $37,000,000 or 36.9% in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four and twenty seven point seven million or 34.7% in the year ago quarter. On a non GAAP basis, our gross profit was $37,600,000 or 37.4% compared to $37,600,000 or 37.5% in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four and up from 28,100,000.0 or 35.3% in the year ago quarter. Non GAAP EBITDA during the first quarter that excluded interest income expenses provision for income taxes, depreciation and amortization, stock based compensation, restructuring, expenses related to the geographic reorganization and transaction and other related costs was 14,600,000.0 or 14.5% of revenues down from 15,600,000.0 or 15.6% of revenues in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four and up from 10,300,000.0 or 12.9% in the year ago quarter.

The increase on a year over year basis was largely due to higher revenues, partially offset by increase in operating expenses. Our GAAP net income in the first quarter was $2,900,000 or $03 per share based on a diluted share count of 87,800,000.0 shares compared to the fourth quarter net income of $4,500,000 or $05 per share based on a diluted share count of 83,800,000.0 and a net loss of 3,900,000.0 or $05 per share based on 76,200,000.0 diluted shares in the year ago quarter. Our sequential decrease in GAAP net income was due to higher levels of operating costs including stock based compensation. On a non GAAP basis, in the first quarter, our non GAAP net income was 10,000,000 or $0.11 per share based on 87,800,000.0 diluted shares compared to the fourth quarter non GAAP net income of 10,300,000.0 or $0.12 per share based on 83,800,000.0 diluted shares and 7,600,000.0 or $0.10 per share based on 78,400,000.0 diluted shares in the year ago quarter. On 03/31/2025, our cash and cash equivalents totaled $325,500,000.0 down from 334,700,000.0 on 12/31/2024. Coming to the second quarter guidance, we expect revenues to be in the range of $100 to 102,000,000 We expect our recent acquisitions contributing roughly 12% of the revenues.

We expect second quarter non GAAP EBITDA to be in the range of $12,500,000 to $13,500,000 For Q2 twenty twenty five, we expect our basic share count to be in the range of $84 to $85,000,000 and our diluted share count to be in the range of 88 to 89,000,000. For 2025, we are maintaining our full year revenue outlook of $415 to $435,000,000 that we provided in February. The revenue outlook represents a growth of 18.4% to 24.1% on a year over year basis. At the midpoint of $425,000,000 we expect our 2025 revenues to grow by 21.2% on a year over year basis. That concludes my prepared remarks. We are now ready to take questions.

Thank you, Neil. As we go into the Q and A session of this call, I will first announce your name. At that point, please unmute yourself. And turn on your camera. The first question comes from Brian Bergen of TD Cowen. [indiscernible] Thank you. Hey, Brian. I'll kick off. Why don't we try digging in more on client behavior?

If we can dig in as far as clients activity through the month, I know Lenergy some of that commentary, but but then into April, can you go into more detail as it relates to the pace of client decision making, then just on the margin, of that deferral cancellation Obviously, you guys affirm the outlook for the year, so it sounds good. But if you could give more detail on that behavior, it would be helpful.

Alright. I'll I'll I'll answer the first part, and I'll have Anil to comment on margins. So as I mentioned about the the clients in general, you know, we are we just finished April. So we're gonna gonna data for three months, of the q one and some more information about April as well. Obviously, it's a very fluid situation, but right now, we haven't seen any.

Impact of the recent economic political activities. Our clients obviously exhibit some cautious in terms of the long term projections. But in general, the projects, especially the project of strategic importance for our clients, continue uninterrupted. Saying that we don't know what's gonna be happening soon. Additional impacts. But I tell you that with my personal conversation with the leadership of the clients, and my executive team conversation with other executive of our clients, Pretty stable and confident. Yeah. So that's pretty much the best way I can do. I'm sure you'll have some follow-up questions, but let's I need to address the So so, Brian, you said deferrals. So can you I'm trying to understand. Are you talking about can you can you just go through that Yeah. Not yeah. Sure. I didn't I didn't mean kinda like deferred expenses. I was talking more so about project deferrals or anything like that, which it doesn't sound like you're experiencing. Which is good. Maybe maybe, though, I will follow-up, Leonard, a little bit on the on the guidance for the year. So just based on what you do see for 2025 and and the growth guidance midpoint that you have, how much of that work is is is in hand, so to speak, so contractually committed?

You mentioned some of these deals you've signed that will ramp. How do you can you just talk to that dynamic as far as contractually committed versus pipeline conversion that you may need to get still?

Yeah. I mean, you know our business dynamics work. Contractually, commuting, only works if there is a, you know, the more stable business. Right? So obviously, all the budgets which we are talking about they are being committed. Right? So there there is a there is a longer term arrangement on the the deliverables. Sell them to a few months projects anymore. It's not, like, five, ten years ago. So all the programs especially on a plat replatforming on implementation of the AI technologies, on moving forward with, you know, various cloud solutions, You know, recent agenda GA is a little bit different, but they're all part of the longer term plan. And the plan comes from the business decisions. Again, the business decisions have been made for 2025. And, that's gonna result in a good January unseasonably good January. We will see a little bit of February. It's kind of a reaction to some of our clients, as you know, some of the retail CPG related clients, they have the adjustments. Most of them, the fiscal year starts in February. But overall, the ramp up which we expected in March continues into April and you know, with plan to May as well.

So as far as annual guidance, Brian, I I think there are a couple important points I have to mention. Look. We haven't been in a in a guidance world for a full year for a very long time. And, you guys have been asking us when are we gonna build the confidence? So we shared the confidence in our guidance with a high level of conservatism. When we did it a quarter ago.

That conservative still presents, but maybe not to the same level of conservative as as a quarter ago. So we have a still, you know, pretty good run-in terms of the understanding how we're gonna arrive with the numbers. I'm talking about the business not just observing today, but we know in the not just in the pipeline, but in execution stage. Right? When we'll see a little bit more dynamics between May and July, it will give us a little bit more factual assessment where we're gonna be. [indiscernible] but, ultimately, we're not reading on, you know, the coffee grounds, which is based on what the world is. And where we are. So we're not really naive in terms of what's going on around us. It's just been a little bit smaller, more nimble, more technology focused on a customer revenue creation? We have maybe a little bit more confidence than some others.

Okay.

That's clear. That that's helpful as as it relates to the initial outlook you gave. Understand that. One more for you. Just as it relates to hiring, nice to see the record billable employee base. Talk about your hiring intentions here, in 2Q and maybe for the balance of the year. How are you thinking about that versus balancing utilization and and bench optimization?

Well, look.

The the hiring machine, as you know, with Grid Dynamics, [indiscernible] We've been blessed not to go through a lot of, you know, rationalization up and down on the flavor of the day. So we're we're we've been very consistent with the internship program with the Grid Dynamics University. Grid Dynamics Labs, with rotational technology, with expansion on technology, So technical talent is harder to acquire, but tend to stand longer if the projects are Right? So, obviously, region to region depend. You know, we there there's no there's no secret. There are certain regions. You need to put a little bit more effort to build that stability. But in terms of expanding the hiring, it's never been a big issue with us. It's just relevance of technical skills. And what we do, Brian, many, many times more now we really don't demand and depend on the market capability from hiring of the specialty talent but internal kind of polishing and honing the skills as they present. Because as you know, dynamics of the technology stacks change quite fluidly. That helps us to kind of stay strong with the streamline of hiring.

Okay. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you for all detail. Of course.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you, Brian. And the next question comes from Puneet Jain of JPMorgan.

Puneet, please turn on your camera and unmute yourself. Thank you.

Hey. Thanks for taking my question and a very nice quarter.

So I understand, like, the macro environment, like, it's uncertain.

But are you seeing any change in your client behavior? Maybe especially, like, in the retail vertical, TMT vertical, Apple being the largest customer there. Are you seeing, like, clients could be prioritizing more cost? Deals instead of revenue generating? Any change that you have seen in last one month? Versus, in q one?

I'm gonna answer your question in generic, but I will have Vasily, to talk about Apple. It's his baby been from the from the day we started the account. So so that I had a pretty substantial client tour in the past. Three, four weeks myself, plus we've been a pretty substantial contributor to Google Next There was a nice booth, and we met many clients there as well. Not just specifically related to individual projects. So we can have a pretty good assessment where we are. So first of all, our client base is not really China dependent. I think it's very important for the industry to understand that you know, dependency on a labor in China is much lesser than it used to be. But in our clients, we ask this question specifically. It's a usually high single digits. [indiscernible] This is not my field of. That's what they tell me. Now the other, you know, countries also a bit more questionable, but we're not you know, feeding, you know, Amazon and Stein, you know, Stein with a some kind of available end products. So we're pretty stable there. Again, the supply the logistics, we all know, we're in the news that, you know, amount of the you know, the containers is is lowering.

So what does it mean? We we certainly believe that we need to be very careful terms of understanding the business. But as of today, May 1, we're good. Now Apple is a bit interesting story, which is, again, it's it's quite good for us. And you see the announcements and all this good stuff. But I don't wanna steal this under from Vasilis. So please, Vasilis.

Yes. Sure. So talking about Apple, I mean, without I'll say, disclosing much detail, I would say that, we've historically been working on the part of business, which is more related to online services and things which are less dependent on the supply chain side of things. Therefore, it's as one of the, I would say, probably, fastest growing profit centers. I would say, it's it it's going to be less affected That's our expectation at least. And so far, as of today, we haven't heard anything related to any any expected slowdowns. So that's the fact.

Okay. No. That's very helpful. And then it seems like on delivery side, like, your rest of the world which I'm assuming most of it, is India, grew nicely in the quarter, like, added, like, hundred plus employees on sequential basis. And with Rajiv also focusing more on India delivery, from here on, How should we think about your India as a delivery center? Like, can it ramp like, how large can it become? Can it become, like, the largest location for you over next few years? Okay.

Well, so to people who don't know who Rajiv is, Rajiv Sharma was our CTO for a while. Now we have our first and only first CTO of the company Eugene Steinberg, who took the role and, you know, he came back to the role many years later. He's more mature and definitely [indiscernible] as a leader, not just a scientist. And you guys know Eugene well. So there are a couple of reasons why Rajiv is going to be in India, but it's not delivered. So so the number one priority is scaling technical talent. [indiscernible] I mean, he is a fantastic technology, spiritual leader, of not just the global world, but specifically in India and many people look upon him with the greatest level of respect. And that's one region which we need to scale technology capabilities because we are truly follow the sound strategy. I would not deviate it from one region to another, whether it's Latam, India, Europe, whatever we're gonna end up in next. Because if if we're not the it's not Grid DNA. So we we continue to push hard with many facets to grow India with a equal level of technology capabilities, and we have three locations.

Right? So whether Bangalore, Hyderabad or Chennai, you know, they're well they're all not the same. But for the size of Grid Dynamics, they have no brilliance to tapping. So that's his number one priority. Number two priority, obviously, there are we have a large number of GCCs. And GCCs are very critical for our business because many decision making, processes happening right now in India. So Rajeev was instrumental in working there, and it's easier when you are your home base in Bangalore. We have a nice office there. And then sit in Jersey and going back and forth. It made a lot of sense. And third one, he's really managing director of APAC. So I just don't want people think it's just just a glorified title because are expanding our business relationship with other countries in the region, particularly more near term Singapore. So it's it's a very fundamental thing. I trust Rajuki. He's a very good friend. So the delivery remains as a global organization and redeem because Rakov is there. By the way, very likely you will hear from him next time. As you notice, I tried to rotate the executives and, you know, there's a size of the table.

It's only right now. So it used to be two. Now we have two tables. It's four. Right? And I just want you guys to understand not 20 fifth's 20 it's gonna give me twenty fifth's you know, event for Anil and Leonard. We have a really great team in the company. So [indiscernible] He has a great leadership person in India. We trust him more humbly. So he will continue to do his work. And the growth is gonna be, very consistent because, again, we're not offering India as a low cost alternative to other regions. We are basically working to complement local decision making in India. So very seldom when we have just Indian team or just European team or just the temp team, Because we're trying to build this mechanism, you know, management idea for GCC's local, it makes sense to have more talented people in India. So it's not a staffing, it's growth. But it's become the number one country in the world, Absolutely, it will. I mean, yeah, it's it's like on a country basis, can compete? Know, there are only two populous countries in the world, and we're not in China today. So the answer is absolutely yes.

Now on the regional level, I mentioned many times we're gonna do the balance work because it depends on the on the customer base. But the growth in India, not absolute numbers, but percentage numbers, is greatly driven by scaling technology capabilities. Sorry. It's a long answer, but I just wanted to use No. The whole overview of what we do in need.

It's okay. If I can quickly squeeze in another one, like, follow-up to Brian's question on the guidance. So it seems like the guidance implies like, slight growth, like, zero to 2% sequential growth in second quarter. Followed by quite nice ramp in second half. We calculated four to 9% on average sequential basis in second half. So what drives this visibility on second half ramp? Like, which [indiscernible] Will drive that high growth in second half of this year.

Do you wanna get the financial answer or business answer? That's your choice.

Which one?

I'll I'll have both Alright.

So, we'll have your friend to answer first. So then, Anja, please give me the financial look, Abhi, Puneet. Let's look at the range that we have. Right? Four fifty to four thirty five. Very simple. You know, I know you you what you're trying to do is you're trying to understand the risk. Right? Those numbers. Let's start with a very basic math. Right? You have hundred, hundred two, that's hundred and two. Right? If you look at the first half versus second half, you have three to 4% purely on working days. So if I do not add a single person for the rest of the year, don't add a single client for the rest of the year, That'll give me some, tailwind. Now the second part is if you look at Leonard's commentary, right, he talked about January through March and April. And as we said, you know, we're dealing with some record billable headcount. So if I take that number as I have today and extrapolate even for the second half, then what you'll see is that there's another level of, you know, a tailwind, so to speak. And right there, you'll get minimum your low end of the guidance right there.

And then, obviously, I'm not taking into account any other things. Now are many other business aspects that I'm not taking into account and many other positive things. But I'll pass it on to Leonard who'll talk a little bit about what is going on there. So our guidance, you know, we can get to that range by taking very conservative, approaches to the numbers.

So the you heard the financial answer. Now the business answer. We grow on all the fronts. Even in q one, if you look at q one versus q four, it's it's a flattish quarter. Right? I mean, numbers don't don't lie. But the dynamics was very interesting. There were a couple of clients we there was some resets from February because of their internal challenges to which we're in a way to you know, recover it from there. And we had a growth. Now q two, we do plan quite nice growth in a few accounts, but we also anticipate more or two ramp downs. That usually happens. Now by the end of this q two, we definitely expect the ramp up. Now which way it's gonna go? Is it gonna be, again, a slower ramp up or a faster ramp up? We don't have it right now. But we don't anticipate a slowdown in in the second half unless you know, hell breaks loose. And excuse me. There's some other I I I'm I'm not anticipating that to happen. So are not really conservative internally because we continue spending. But we wanna be very careful not to do what sometimes happens.

People get excited too much about throwing numbers. Then they have to you know, restart the guidance, then they have to modify something. But it's it's even dealing with you guys is a not as a significant challenge. As internally to disturb the process. We're bullish on a on a growth. We believe it it is happening right now. We're bullish on a growth in a not just not in traditional retail and CPG, but other segments, which is even as nice diversification. But you know, when it comes to number, you know, Anil is a king. She wants to be something which we will not be looking with excuses later. That's pretty much where we are.

That's fair. You so much.

Thank you, Puneet.

Thank you, Pete. Good afternoon.

The next question comes from Mayank Tandem of Needham. Go ahead, Mayank.

Great. Thanks. Good to see you guys. Congrats on the quarter.

Thanks, Mike.

Leonard, I might have missed this. Did you comment on new logos and if you could just go through that again, if you did, Apologize for that. And which verticals did you see the most traction in terms of new client activity?

Of course. By the way, guys, next time, I'm gonna bring CTO if you're not gonna ask him. So you know, don't don't do you know, he feels like a an award Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So So, Mike, you asked one question on AI, please. I am soliciting you guys. To not only worry about what's gonna happen with the tariffs, but also understand what value would bring because there's a lot of really cool stuff. Again, maybe it's gonna be better until next quarter than users. Give me a couple, you know, encouragements that I'll keep the CTO on the call. But I didn't forget your question. So the new logos. So there there are two parts of new logos. As you know, Grid Dynamics and you've been with us for a very long time from the beginning. As a fairly generic strategy, which called eighty fifteen five. 80, it's a stable business with the growth of the matured accounts. Of the revenue. 15% something we acquired from the previous calendar year of and 5% in new logos, like brand new logos. So the a brand new logos in q one, it was a very minimum, financial impact, which is usually it is the case.

If you look at the ramp up if we don't get a lot of contribution by q three, then this 5% is going to be very difficult. So but we did see the numbers but they're small. Now we did very well for us in those 15%. So some of them key logos we acquired last year are giving us really nice ramp up in Q1 and going into Q2 as well. The reason being is much more diversified in verticals. You know? And it's not just the verticals. You know? When we talk about the the fintech, we talk about technology, when we talk about CPGs now, we start talking about manufacturing where we we we didn't forget the, you know, even the health care because some of the payment systems the new acquired accounts, they're directly tied tied to the medical field there, you know, health insurances. When we take insurance business, which we were very muted because it was not a huge revenue, now we're picking up and a health insurance payment, logistics, and all this stuff. So the business are becoming more compounded.

Farmer still small, but the number of accounts growing. And why? Because, again, we're playing the same all algorithms, you know, the the IFC accelerators which we put in place. So the the short answer for your question, we got a good uplift from the accounts from their last year, especially second half of last year. And it's just an initial stage of the logos which we're working with is a brand new logos. In 2025.

And and let me add one thing to that, Mayank. You see, the definition of our logo addition when we come are significant enterprises. So we in the quarter, we did add.

We did add Lowe's, but internally, we don't wanna time we have a logo, we're just not gonna come on and talk about it. We Leonard makes his comments. And, Whitney, these are significant enterprise, logos. So in the quarter, we had, and we did not believe that it elevated the talk, but there were additions.

And and when there there is a big logo and a big enterprise, we just started, we'll also be a little bit careful because, you know, you guys as we do, we don't like infant mortality. Right? So I don't wanna go through that. Oh, we had these great guys, and they're fantastic business, and they have, you know, $50,000,000 revenue. And then something and we're silent two quarters later. So now we have a pleasure and a choice to be selecting what we call new business acquisition. So I'd rather just have this $80.15 5 continue Of course, there's addition on the top of the acquisition, all the stuff. But this I'm I'm pretty satisfied with this rate of growth of innovative clients which we acquired from 2024.

That's a very helpful color. Thank you so much for that.

I have one quick follow-up for you, Anil, around margins. How should we think about the cadence of gross margins What are the puts and takes? And the same question for EBITDA margins. Your guidance implies a downtick in the second quarter. But any perspective you can share for the full year? I know you haven't given formal guidance on EBITDA margins for the year. I believe but any thoughts around how that will trend? Would be helpful. Yeah.

So sure. Let's talk about the the q one to q two. Right? Now as I said in my prepared remarks, we benefited from, the timing of some of my fixed price, contracts. Right? So as you can see, q one was, what, 37.4%, which is kind of flattish over q four. Historically, you always see that as we go from q four to q one, there's compression. Right? Now if you look at that moment, there were, you know, hundred plus bps and over margin movement because of that particular thing. That is one one one thing. Now as we go from q one to q two, this year, we don't have a lit uplift on the number of days. So it's kind of, flattish. Again, year to year, it might, depend on that. The the other thing is that we are making investments as we speak right now. Know, there's a lot of stuff going on on AI. There's a lot of work going on on AI scaling and training. So there's some investments that we are working on. And, that has an impact on some of the comps and, OpEx. And as you can see, business is picking up.

So there's question about, you know, the bench has to adjust to the upcoming demand. So there's a little bit of that also. Going there. So when you put all those things together, yes, you're right. See a little bit of this, but a large portion of it is little bit of a timing, and it would have been more the cadence would have been normal if some of these things didn't play out. Now as I look into the full year, right, Last year, we did about 15% EBITDA margins for the full year. Look. The way you have to look at the businesses the margin profile should improve as we go. Quarter to quarter. The only question is what is what do I need to do to support the growth What do I need to do to support the, investments? That's the only question that we debate. But as we progress in the course of the year, yes, you should see margin expansion.

Right. So I I also wanna give you, again, a business answer. So it's usually it's on Neil's domain. Right? What real for me to ask the question, how quickly we're gonna ramp up? India. Right? There is another fact, obviously, from the the war which started more than three years ago. We are heading a bit ex excessive number of countries. To really clamp down on operating costs. Beyond the technology. We're not gonna slow down technology. Right? This is no way. This is our key, and we we wanna rule the world in our business. We're not gonna slow down investment into quality engineering. Operational excellence on a delivery management, and all this good stuff. However, we anticipate the scaling of the key locations, which is not just India. I mean, Latam was a great investment into Argentina. And we would like to think the way how we planned the conversions on a successful locations as we grow actually give us meaningful impact. This is on a back end stuff. On the front end stuff, know, we we we continue to push hard on the you know, from the $2.05 10 to 10, you know, basic $5.10 to 20 strategy, which means we wanna build the clients 5 to $20,000,000 annual revenue as a core.

At least 5,000,000. That successful implementation is actually up a bit too because it's not about client concentration. It's a client meaningful work.

And, operational efficiency, not just the margin, but the operational efficiency is driven by the depth of the relationship. We see that picking up too. So those are kind of three elements which we kind of look from the business perspective to increase. When it comes to variation quarter to quarter, Anil will tell you 20 convincing stories in next quarter, you'll find another convincing story. So the I'm I'm not terribly worried about it. I just wanna make sure we continue to rate grow the business. We have a net generation, which is very critical. We we need to be in the business of self sustainable. Position. And Anil is doing a fantastic job on on controlling the cost as we continue to expand into the technology world.

Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate all the color. Congrats.

Question. Right.

No.

It's okay. Let him go. Let me pass it on to the others. They're waiting. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Comes from Maggie Nolan of William Blair. Go ahead, Maggie. [indiscernible] Well, I'll ask a somewhat engineering question. You talked a lot about your Adjentic AI solutions. In several of your examples. Are these custom built by Grid? To what extent are there kind of pre built solutions by your partners? And is this a primary driver of your partner revenue growth?

Yeah. Thank you for the question. This Grid Dynamics is mostly working in the mode when we are developing some of the solutions in the kind of from the first principles. And some of the solutions, of course, we are using a lot of the open source [indiscernible] In some of the cases, we are also leveraging cloud native technologies Pretty rarely, we are deploying solutions which are completely kind of black box end to end solutions because this is mostly work for the system integrators, mostly engineering company. So we are building solutions for larger enterprise organizations with unique requirements. Comes to security, when it comes to to very diverse and very proprietary data sources. It comes to very specific workflows and official solutions do not fit them. And in these cases, we are building custom solutions [indiscernible] authentic platforms, leveraging a lot of open source components and cloud native services. Which deliver and automate those workflows.

Thank you for that. Maybe Anil, quick follow-up to that. Are you discussing different fixed price or outcome based pricing models to go along with that?

With the clients?

That's a good, good question, Maggie. And, you know, I don't have an exact answer. This stage because these are, new things, that are moving around. But, yes, we are open to everything. My preference is, more fixed price because we have more, control. But this is as we speak right now, you know, many of these new things are happening. I don't know whether Hold on.

Hold on. So, Meg, I know you're asking Neil. He's the wrong guy to ask this question. He's just signing the checks. The guy who really is in dreaming the the scale of the fixed bid arrangements which Anil really alluded to, is Vasily. So I'll let Vasily answer because it's very, very critical to understand not just we innovate technology. We do not do technology for technology. There has to be a good business value proposition for the clients to check on ROI, and for us to be able to enjoy the fruits of the partnerships, please. Sure. Sure. Thank you, Marlon.

Yeah. So when we were talking last time and maybe, like, a year ago, we were talking about small POCs, like, to see how the technology really helps the business. And those engagements were pretty small in size, I would say. And, they were like, 100% were fixed bit. So nowadays, there is a there is a good understanding of the what the the technology can do for the business. Therefore, there are more popular I would say, fixed capacity type of engagements when we set up the team. Which develops the platform. And then there is a road map for, building business cases on top of that. And, of course, the customers are not interested in losing the team which built the platform after the implementation just to to to come up with an idea that we need to oh, we need to gather the team together now to build the business cases. So we see nowadays AI drives more of a kind of long term engagements which are linked to specific business impacts. And, of course, as Leon said, business business cases and financial impact is is one of the key decision factors when the customers are making decision making decisions on investment in certain areas.

So that's for sure surely happens.

Thanks, Vasily. If I could just squeeze one in on talent. Are you comfortable just given all the recent hiring? Are you comfortable with the balance of junior versus senior talent? Are are you trying to rebalance the pyramid and maybe tie that back to your margin commentary? Thanks.

We're never satisfied with our pyramid. Megan.

You know?

Our historic business requires a lot of seasoned experienced people. That's just foundation. But this inverted pyramid. Right? And the inverted pyramid cannot scale as efficient as a traditional pyramid. So we we observed it all at the time, we have actually the you know, two nodal distribution. We have a lot of senior people and quite a few junior guys, and we squeeze the the middle guys. Right? And what was alluded you, when you start building more longer term fix capacity programs and project in the business, then you create a more normalized distribution. Matter of fact, the brightest and the best of interns are the best addition to the, you know, more junior people in of bringing them from the market. So what we start doing is we obviously, from the hiring perspective, focus on the mid mid level people. Why? Because good mid level people become more senior view. Senior people, usually, you train yourself. Together with the r and d team. And the junior guys finding, in the market, [indiscernible] don't possess the all the skills we need to bring them into the actions right away. So the interns who become part of this fixed capacity pods, they're wonderful because in a very few months, and they're brilliant.

Remember, using our AI tools, we reach out to thousands now, 10 thousands of applicants to create this full body of the top notch intellectually technical, you know, interns So that that process propagates. Now I'm I'm I'm not super happy yet for the full distribution, but I think it'd be a little bit more normalized as we speak.

Thank you.

Thank you, Maggie.

Thank you, Maggie.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Q and A session for today. I will now pass it over to Leonard for closing comments.

And I have complete confidence in Grid Dynamics' ability execute with excellence. While we must navigate the uncertainties of the current global economic environment, I'm confident that Grid Dynamics will continue to uphold the qualities that set us apart. We are building strong momentum across our business and I look forward to giving you an update on the next earnings call. Thank you.