Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Richard Freudenstein. It's my pleasure as Chair of Appen Ltd to welcome everyone joining us today for our annual general meeting. I'd like to begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians on the land on which we gather, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I also acknowledge traditional custodians of the various lands on which you are joining us from, and the First Nations people participating in our meeting. I pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. It is now just past 10:00 A.M., the nominated time for the meeting, and I've been informed that a quorum is present. I note the meeting has been validly constituted, and I am pleased to declare the meeting open.
I would like to begin by introducing my fellow directors that are present with us today: Robin Low, Non-executive Director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Management Committee. Stuart Davis, Non-executive Director. Our Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Ryan Kolln. Our three other Non-executive Directors are attending by phone as they are based in the U.S.: Steve Hasker, who is also Chair of our People and Culture Committee, Vanessa Liu, and Lynn Mickleburgh. We also have various Appen executives present, representatives from the company's auditors, KPMG, and representatives from the company's share register, MUFG Corporate Markets. There are four components to today's meeting. First, I will provide you with an update on the business from a strategic perspective. Second, our CEO, Ryan Kolln, will provide a market overview, a recap of the group's 2024 financial performance, and the outlook.
Third, we will open the meeting to questions on general business. Fourth, we will move to the formal business of the meeting, where the items set out in the notice of meeting will be put to shareholders. We will also allocate time for questions on each of the items of business when they are considered. Thank you to those shareholders who have submitted questions prior to the meeting. We have endeavored to address these during the upcoming presentations. Before I invite Ryan to speak in more detail about the performance of the business, our strategy, and the outlook, I would like to reflect on Appen's progress over the past year and the key areas the board has focused on. I will then provide commentary on the items of business we are asking shareholders to vote on today. Note that the values referred to in the presentations are U.S. dollars.
dollars, unless stated otherwise. In 2024, Appen recorded a statutory loss of $20 million, a significant improvement on the $98.1 million in the prior year. We returned to positive underlying EBITDA, before FX, of $3.5 million, compared to a loss of $20.4 million in 2023. Total operating revenue declined by 14.2% to $234.3 million, largely driven by the conclusion of our contract with Google in Q1. However, our non-Google revenue grew 16% for the full year and was up 36.1% in the second half compared to the same period in 2023. There were strong contributions from key growth areas. Revenue in China rose 70.7% to $58.9 million, driven by demand for generative AI. Our global product business also grew significantly, with revenue increasing 221.9% to $31.3 million as customers adopted our ADAP platform.
To support working capital and maintain balance sheet flexibility, we raised AUD 65 million through an institutional placement and share purchase plan. At year-end, Appen held $54.8 million in cash, equivalent to AUD 88.3 million. The board once again made the decision not to declare an interim or final dividend to ensure capital is allocated appropriately during this period of transformation. Throughout 2024, we continued to reset our business. Following Google's exit, we reduced our cost base by a further $13.5 million, building on the $60 million cost reduction programme implemented in 2023. These initiatives, along with operational improvements to project delivery and crowd management, were instrumental in returning the business to profitability. We remain committed to managing our cost base in line with the revenue opportunity. A key milestone during the year was the appointment of Ryan Kolln as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, effective 5 February 2024.
Ryan has led Appen through this critical phase with strong operational discipline and a clear focus on growth in generative AI. His leadership has contributed directly to our improved financial performance, and the board remains confident in his ability to lead Appen into the next chapter. While Ryan's appointment was the most visible change, our broader executive team has also been instrumental in the company's transformation, and I want to thank them for their continued efforts. Appen remains committed to delivering strong social governance and sustainability outcomes. In 2024, we completed a major digital upgrade of our crowd management platform. This, as well as greater earning opportunities for contributors as project volumes increased, contributed to an improved crowd net promoter score, NPS, which rose to 33 from 27.
At the same time, we continue to uphold the principles outlined in our crowd code of conduct and our global ethical sourcing and modern slavery policy. Customer satisfaction also improved, with customer NPS rising to 57, up from 35 in the prior year. Employee engagement also increased to 79%, up from 75%. Diversity also continues to remain a priority for us. Women represented 57% of our total workforce, and female representation amongst senior leadership team increased to 23%. We remain committed to our target of achieving 30% female representation in senior leadership roles. At the board level, female representation among Non-executive Directors remained at 50% for 2024. Appen announced today the resignation of Mini Peiris as a Non-executive Director, with Mini citing the increasing demands of her executive role in the U.S. as a factor.
I would like to thank Mini for her contributions over the last two and a half years and wish her success in her future endeavors. Mini's insights into the dynamic digital marketplace, particularly within Appen's key market in the U.S., have been valuable. The company will not be seeking to replace Mini's position and is comfortable with the current size and composition of the board. The People and Culture Committee, chaired by Steve Hasker, will continue to carefully consider the skills required to drive the company's future growth in global markets. At last year's AGM, Vanessa Liu and Robin Low were re-elected by shareholders. This year, I am standing for re-election alongside Stuart Davis in accordance with the Constitution and ASX listing rules. Both Stuart and I will address shareholders on our canopy later in the meeting.
We remain committed to maintaining a well-balanced, high-performing board with the right mix of skills, experience, and diversity. Our governance practice continues to align with the ASX corporate governance principles and recommendations. Turning briefly to remuneration, the 2024 short-term incentive framework was weighted 80% to financial performance and 20% to non-financial metrics. The weighting for financial measures increased to 80% from 70%, reflecting the focus on resetting the business to achieve profitability. The final STI outcome was 85.9% of the maximum, reflecting strong results across both financial and operational measures. Today, under item five of the agenda, we are seeking shareholder approval to grant 1,026,000 performance rights to Ryan under the FY25 long-term incentive plan. The number of performance rights is calculated using the December 2024 VWAP of AUD 2.31. These rights are subject to vesting conditions based on total shareholder return and revenue CAGR, measured over a three-year period.
Ryan's total remuneration includes a fixed component of $600,000, an STI opportunity of $600,000, and the proposed LTI grant valued at $1.5 million. The board believes this structure is appropriately rigorous, competitive for the global technology sector, and aligned with shareholder interests. Later in the meeting, Steve Hasker, Chair of the Board's People and Culture Committee, will speak to the remuneration report in more detail. In addition to our remuneration resolutions and director re-elections, shareholders are being asked to consider item six on today's agenda, the renewal of the company's proportional takeover provisions. Under the Corporations Act, these provisions must be renewed every three years, or they will cease to have effect. The board considers this an important governance mechanism and gives shareholders a say in determining whether a proportional takeover bid should proceed. The board recommends approval of the resolution.
In closing, I am pleased with the progress Appen made in 2024. We delivered a significant improved financial result, resetting the business operationally, strengthened our customer base beyond Google, and positioned the company to participate further in the generative AI market. There is more to do, but the foundations are now in place. On behalf of the board, I would like to thank our shareholders for your continued support. I also thank our executive team and Appen employees around the world for their commitment and contributions during what has been a transformative year. I now welcome Ryan to give his CEO address.
Thank you, Richard. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Appen's 2025 annual general meeting. It's my privilege to address you as we reflect on a year of strong progress and outline our vision for the future.
As a global leader in AI training data, Appen is at the forefront of a transformative industry, and I'm excited to share our achievements, our role in the evolving AI landscape, and our strategic priorities going forward. Your presence here, whether in person or virtually, underscores your commitment to our journey, and I'm deeply grateful for the support we continue to shape at the future together. Let's set the stage for today's discussion with our agenda. I'll cover three key areas before handing back to Richard. First, I'll share some market insights around the AI market and Appen's role within it. Second, a recap of our 2024 performance, highlighting our financial and operational milestones. Third, our strategic priorities, 2025 guidance, and our longer-term financial targets.
This structure is designed to provide a clear understanding of where we stand, how we've progressed, and the path we're forging as a leader in AI data. The AI industry is evolving at a rapid pace, driven by breakthroughs in models, data, and computational power. At the heart of this revolution is data, high-quality, curated data sets that ensure AI systems are accurate, relevant, and impactful. Appen is uniquely positioned to meet this need, delivering bespoke data that powers AI applications across industries from smarter virtual assistants to safer autonomous driving and the exciting evolution from generative AI. To understand Appen's critical role in the AI ecosystem, let's examine the three pillars driving AI advancements: models, data, and compute. Model architectures such as transformers and diffusion models are the important foundation for AI development.
However, these are increasingly open source and accessible to anyone, meaning the competitive edge no longer lies solely in the model itself. Compute powered by GPUs and TPUs is largely about brute force, the raw processing power that many organizations can access. Like model architectures, this has fast become commoditized and is largely a scale game. The true differentiator of model performance is high-quality bespoke data. Our customers are highly competitive, and the custom data that we provide for them is the key differentiator of their model performance. At Appen, our mission is to enable the world's best AI through high-quality, human-annotated data. We achieve this by combining our global crowd workforce, advanced proprietary technology platforms, and over two decades of expertise. Our ability to create bespoke data sets is central to our value proposition, driven by the expert capability of our team and our proprietary software platforms.
Our AI data consultants engage with our clients to understand their data requirements. This is a highly collaborative process where we work together with our clients to define the project scope and success criteria. The next step is to configure our proprietary software platforms according to the project's requirements. Our platforms are custom-built to create high-quality data at scale, supporting a wide variety of use cases. The connectivity with our global crowd workforce is a critical component of our operations. We rely on a broad network of contributors around the world to create the data for our customers. The engagement with our workforce is highly automated through our software. The output that we deliver to our customers is high-quality data. This data is then used to build and improve the performance of their AI models. Next, I'll explore our platforms in more detail.
Our technology ecosystem is composed of custom-built software platforms. Mercury is our new workforce and project management platform. It streamlines the assignment and management of our global contributor networks to client projects. ADAP, our data annotation platform, provides a highly configurable interface for contributors to produce accurate annotations, supported by AI quality validators. We have a similar annotation platform that has been custom-built for our China clients called Matrix Go. Our newly enhanced CrowdGen platform serves as a dynamic interface for our crowd workers, enabling them to explore earning opportunities, enrich their profiles by taking tests and quizzes to showcase their skills, and getting paid for their tasks. We have made significant advances in our technology in the past year. Both Mercury and CrowdGen were launched in 2024 with a focus on improving the experience for our crowd, delivering internal operational efficiencies through automation and better quality for our customers.
The new Mercury and CrowdGen platforms are tightly integrated with our data annotation platform. This results in a fast project setup with improved quality outcomes for our customers. We continue to evolve our platforms with a very clear focus on enhancing data quality and speed while also improving the productivity of Appen's internal workforce. This will ultimately support increased revenue and provide a pathway for elevated margins. The depth of our expertise and versatility of our platforms enables us to support a wide variety of clients and use cases, from assisting social media companies with content categorization to empowering enterprise SaaS AI agents and supporting foundation model builders with supervised fine-tuning data. We also enable innovation in areas like AR/VR, robotics, and agentic AI. By collaborating on these advanced projects, we adapt to the fast-evolving AI landscape, reinforcing our role as a trusted partner for our clients.
The demand for AI is incredibly diverse, reflecting the broad spectrum of customers we support. There's not only variety in the tasks that we support, but also the duration of the projects. There are typically three varieties of projects that we support: long-term continuous feeds of data, larger-scale one-off projects, and smaller-scale pilots. Continuous data feed projects running for six months or much longer and addressing real-world changes or ongoing model improvements made up 51% of our revenue in 2024. This forms a core part of our more predictable revenues each year. Larger one-off projects, typically exceeding $100,000 in revenue and focusing on specific model enhancements, contributed 40% to our revenue. Smaller projects, generally under $100,000 and aligning with the important experimental nature of AI, accounted for 9% of our revenue. It's worth noting that most of our larger projects started as a small pilot.
Together, these project types drove our 2024 performance, demonstrating our ability to operate at scale while also meeting the fast-moving requirements of the AI market. Generative AI is an important driver of the market. We see three key trends emerging from the generative AI-related projects. First, tasks like reasoning and red teaming require hours of iterative work involving a high cognitive load. For example, some annotation tasks can take well over two hours to complete. Second, the crowd workforce requirements are becoming much more specific. Projects increasingly require nuanced domained expertise and higher educational levels. For example, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of projects requiring PhD-level education. Third, we are seeing more projects that are experimentative and shorter in duration. This is due to the highly experimentative nature of generative AI model development.
Supporting customers here is important as these projects can scale to large opportunities very quickly. As generative AI use cases mature, we expect to see more longer-term data requirements to support ongoing model improvement. A recent generative AI evaluation project highlights our capabilities. A client needed domain-specific model responses assessed for relevancy, accuracy, and harmlessness within a four-day period. Responding to this demand, we engaged over 500 contributors with diverse expertise in areas like coding, math, and healthcare, leveraging our platform to ramp the workforce within hours. We subsequently delivered 100,000 annotations with exceptional quality, showcasing our ability to handle high-volume tasks that are time-sensitive with high precision. To capture further market growth, we're focusing on three strategic pillars. First, an expert-led approach to sales and marketing, where our technical teams build deep, trusted relationships with AI researchers and product teams within our customers.
Our customers are highly technical, and we are retooling our organization to bring our expertise to the forefront of our conversations with our customers. Second, we are evolving our data offerings to address the rapidly changing needs of our clients, supported by our flexible technology infrastructure. The AI market is changing very rapidly, and we are building robust and flexible platforms with the ability to evolve with the market. Third is technology-enabled efficiencies, leveraging AI-driven automation to enhance data quality and reduce cost to deliver. We utilize generative AI heavily throughout our operations, including how we validate the quality of our data and provide real-time feedback to our contributors. As mentioned, data labeling tasks are becoming more complex with higher quality requirements and much shorter timeframes. Advanced technology is critical to be successful going forward.
These priorities ensure we stay responsive to market trends and deliver consistent value to our clients. Now, let's turn to our 2024 performance. In 2024, we delivered 16% revenue growth, excluding Google. Our China division grew 71%, reflecting our dominant position in the China market. We successfully captured growth from generative AI, with 28% of revenue in H2 FY 2024 from LLM-related projects. Our annotation platform became increasingly integral to project delivery for our major clients. We reduced operating expenses by 26% compared to 2023. The combination of revenue growth and reduced costs led to a return to profitability, with $3.5 million underlying EBITDA before FX in 2024. This was a $23.9 million improvement versus 2023. Excluding Google, Q4 2024 revenue grew 37% year-on-year, reaching $66.7 million. Growth was driven by large technology clients in the U.S. and in China.
Our China division was a standout performer, growing 71% in 2024 compared to 2023. We partnered with leading large language model builders, technology companies, and automotive clients, delivering infacility annotation projects that have more predictable revenue streams. Generative AI was a major driver of our growth, contributing 28% of our H2 2024 revenue. While non-LLM segments grew steadily at 2% half-on-half, the growth in generative AI projects reflects our ability to pivot to high-demand areas of the market. Global product revenue represents projects from our largest customers that are delivered on Appen's data annotation platform. The complexity of generative AI projects is increasing, and therefore customers are utilizing our highly flexible ADAP platform rather than their internal data annotation platforms. Cost management was a cornerstone of our 2024 strategy. We reduced operating expenses by 37% from H1 2023 to H2 2024, completing a $13.5 million cost reduction program.
By leveraging automations and optimizing our operations, we've created a leaner, more efficient organization without compromising our ability to deliver for clients. This discipline sets the stage for sustainable profitability. Our financial turnaround is evident in our EBITDA performance. In Q4 2024, we achieved an underlying EBITDA before FX of $4.7 million, marking a return to profitability. Our focus on profitability remains steadfast, and we're committed to maintaining this momentum as we scale our operations and pursue new opportunities in 2025. Looking to 2025, our strategy centers on delivering value through enhanced quality, speed, and revenue diversification. I'll now outline our operational strategy, 2025 guidance, and longer-term targets. Our strategy for 2025 is designed to strengthen Appen's core business and drive sustainable growth by focusing on six critical areas outlined in our plan. First, we're highly focused on growth, particularly in LLM-related projects.
We're appointing a new sales leader and bolstering our go-to-market teams with greater technical expertise. Note that we have already signed a new sales leader from a very high-profile AI services company who will be starting in mid-June. Second, we're driving operational efficiency and automation by utilising AI across our operations. This includes further incorporating generative AI into our platforms for higher-quality data delivery. Third, we're accelerating our technology innovation by utilising AI across our software development teams. We're also running a high-velocity innovation prototyping approach where we're rapidly testing new ideas before building into our platforms. Fourth, we're growing our people, particularly expanding our technical expertise and our project delivery teams. Investment in talent ensures we are bringing delivery excellence and thought leadership to our customers. Fifth, following the launch of our CrowdGen, we are evolving our data workforce.
This includes utilizing generative AI in the interview process and how we match contributor skills to projects. Finally, we're committed to prudent cost management, including leveraging automation to maintain our cost base as we scale. By executing in these six areas, we're positioning Appen to deliver superior data quality, speed, and revenue diversification, ensuring that we meet the evolving needs of clients while driving profitable growth. I'll now provide a 2025 guidance statement before commenting on our longer-term targets. Notwithstanding some of the inherent uncertainties within our business, this information reflects Appen's commitment to providing greater transparency. In doing so, we hope to provide investors and shareholders with a clearer view of our strategic direction and financial expectations. We are optimistic about our 2025 revenue opportunity. This is supported by a few drivers. First is the more predictable project work from large U.S. tech customers, typically H2 skewed.
We're delivering very high-quality work for our large customers. In some cases, quality is at an all-time high. This lays a great foundation for growth. Second is sustained growth in China. The market opportunity is significant, and we are very well placed to continue to grow in China. Finally, work not yet included in pipeline, including less predictable generative AI work, which is typically awarded directly with short notice. This is a very dynamic part of the market, and we have strong capabilities that are highly valued by our customers. Considering this, Appen provides the following 2025 guidance: revenue between $235 million and $260 million and positive underlying EBITDA. In relation to Appen's longer-term targets, we continue to be backed by solid market fundamentals and tailwinds. The opportunity for Appen is driven by large-scale investment in the development and utilisation of generative AI, by robust estimates for market growth.
Our strategy to capture long-term growth remains focused on driving growth via strengthened sales, marketing, and client engagement, evolution of offering to support the changing customer needs, and delivering operational efficiencies by innovative technology investment. Considering this, Appen is targeting sustainable and profitable growth, reflected by greater than 20% three-year revenue compounded annual growth rate to FY 2027 and circa 10% underlying EBITDA margin by FY 2027. In closing, 2024 was a year of resilience, growth, and transformation for Appen. We navigated challenges, seized opportunities in generative AI, and strengthened our financial foundations. Looking forward, there remains a significant opportunity for Appen to capture material value from the AI data market. We are only at the beginning of the impact of AI, and the role we play in creating high-quality data remains a critical component. Thank you for your continued support and belief in our vision.
I look forward to engaging with your questions and insights. I'll now hand back to Richard.
Thank you, Ryan. I'd now like to open the meeting to general business questions. You'll have the opportunity to ask questions pertaining to each resolution when we come to the formal business of the meeting. Before we begin, visitors are reminded that this is a shareholder meeting and therefore only shareholders, proxy holders, body corporate representatives, or attorneys are able to ask questions at this meeting. Visitors have been issued with a red card. If shareholders holding a blue or yellow card wish to make comments or ask questions, you should raise your admission card. When called upon, please state your name or, if you're acting as a proxy, identify whom you are appointed to represent prior to making a comment or asking a question.
In the interest of all shareholders, I would ask that you be concise in your question or comment, and we will endeavor to respond in the same way. I will now take general business questions. I think there's a microphone. Yeah, should be a microphone coming.
Thank you. Thank you, Richard and Ryan. Peter Gregory is my name from the Australian Shareholders' Association. We are, in fact, the voice of individual shareholders, and I'm here on that basis today. Today, I'm holding proxies for 29 shareholders with a total of 65,600 shares. I'd like to, I guess, ask about the general state of the nation. In 2020, revenue for Appen was about $400 million. Now, last year was $235 million. Underlying EUPAT then was $45 million. It's come down to minus $10 million.
In the broader context, everything I hear, whether I read the newspaper, watch TV, talks about AI taking over the world, being just a massive change, the greatest revolution that we've experienced for a long time. At the heart of it, and I quote Ryan's comment, "At the heart of the revolution is high-quality data," which is Appen's core business. That's what you do, and I understand do well. These results over time make Appen shareholders feel that the opportunity is somewhat being missed for the company. Can I ask, perhaps I'd direct this to Ryan, if you don't mind, if he could talk about Appen's market share, market position?
Also comment if there's been deterioration in pricing that's causing, in the market that's causing loss of revenue? If the demand is not as near as strong as the hype suggests? And perhaps comment on what's happening with competitors and how they're impacting on Appen's business?
Thanks, Peter. Good morning. Good to see you. I might make just a couple of general comments and then I will hand to Ryan for a little bit more specificity around that. Certainly, a few years ago, it was a very, very different market and we were riding the wave of a couple of big tech customers that were giving us a lot of work where we were doing very, very well. There was a bit of a tech downturn in 2021, I think, where these customers cut their spend considerably and we suffered as a result of that.
You've seen the business having to resize because of that and it's now moved much more into the generative AI world. I think you saw from our results that excluding a customer that we lost, we actually grew our revenue by 16% last year and our long-term aspirations are to continue to grow by about 20% per year. I think we're on the way back is the short answer. It's been a tough couple of years, though. Maybe Ryan, you want to address that?
Yeah, I'll echo Richard's comment. The markets evolve very quickly and continue to evolve rapidly. Like I outlined in my speech, we are retooling the organization to support the new type of data modalities that we're seeing, particularly with generative AI. It's a very exciting and a very promising outlook for the business to grow as we go forward.
From a competitive landscape, like any market that grows very quickly, more competitors come in and we have seen that occur. It is very competitive and we're competing at the same level as our competitors, so doing very well. We don't see major competitive pricing pressures. Our customers are very focused on high-quality data and getting it as quickly as possible. In the majority of cases, pricing pressure hasn't been an issue for us.
Could you give a number on what you think your market share or market position might be now compared to a couple of years ago?
I think it's certainly declined and I think the comment that Richard made is the market was very different a few years ago. It's highly competitive now. We think about our market quite differently.
In China, we're clearly the dominant player there and there's comparables versus companies like SpeechOcean and another data tank where we are typically two times the revenue of the nearest competitor. The U.S. market is highly competitive and there are many, many different players, some of them privately listed, some of them public. It is a little bit difficult to get a precise revenue guidance around exactly how all of the other competitors are playing out. It is very competitive. There are some players who are stronger in some parts of the markets than others. It is a challenging market to pinpoint exactly what our share is because it is so dynamic in different areas. I think the focus for our business, though, is clearly growing revenue and growing faster than the market is growing.
There's a lot of things that we've laid out in our strategy to be able to do that. That remains the laser focus of the business to win back more share in the market.
Okay. Can I now ask about the new markets business? Understand the comments you made about China, but I think it's government and enterprise are the other two components you have there. Understand government would be slow because it's government. Enterprise, can you comment on what's happening there, the non-fangs, for want of a better word?
Yep. Our performance on the enterprise market isn't where we want it to be. We are making some changes to address that. I mentioned we're bringing in a new sales leader who's coming from a very high-profile AI company.
We're retooling the organization to make sure that we've got our technical expertise at the front of our sales and putting a lot more depth into our go-to-market function. We are working very hard to improve that situation with enterprise, noting that there's more work to be done there.
Can I also just build on that a little bit? I think what you're seeing in the market generally is you are seeing the big tech players investing very heavily in this space. What you're seeing with companies, and I see it with other companies I'm involved in, is it's more still in the pilot experimental phase and that will grow and change over time.
That's part of the reason why enterprise is a little bit slower, that the companies out there that fit into what we call enterprise are doing a lot of small experiments rather than big investments in this at the moment as a general rule. That will change over time, we believe.
Okay. Can I just make a comment on the guidance? I think it's $235 million, which is where last year's results were, revenue, sorry, I'm talking about, to $260 million. I would have liked to have seen a guidance that was somewhat more ambitious than that, given the presentation you've just given, Ryan.
Can I make a couple of points on that, Peter? The first is our revenue ex-Google last year was $220 million. If you take Google out of the equation, then our guidance is for an increase in revenue from the rest of our business.
We'd love to be more ambitious. We'd love to be more specific. As I think Ryan has outlined, it is a very dynamic market. We have line of sight of some of our revenue, but not all of our revenue. What we want to do is give a range of guidance which makes people as much information as we can be relatively certain of to people who understand our business, but we're not going to make up numbers. If you look at our long-term aspiration, if you look at the way the management team will be rewarded in the long term, that's that 20% revenue CAGR. Are there any other general questions? Thank you.
Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Gordon Doyle. I have two very simple questions.
As someone who is dependent on my dividend income, I'd like to know when I can expect a dividend again, and I'd like to know when the share price will recover?
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Doyle, for your question. Answering the second one first, we'd all like to know when the share price will recover. None of us are happy with the share price. I think there's a number of things that contribute to the share price position. The first is obviously the performance of the company. I think based on our results last year, where you saw a significant turnaround in the performance of the company, and if we continue to deliver the performance, then we hope the share price will continue to improve. The second aspect of which we have less control is sentiment.
The share price was on a very good rise until recently, and then for reasons that were not quite clear, sentiment turned against us. What we are trying to do by issuing guidance today is to create more certainty for our shareholders on where we are heading in the short term and where our aspirations are for the long term. We hope that will help improve the share price. If we deliver what we say we are going to deliver, I would hope that the share price will rise considerably. In relation to dividend, I think without prejudging anything, we really need to make sure that we are growing our revenues and growing our profit to deliver long-term shareholder value. I think that means we are very focused on retaining our capital in the short term.
I anticipate that we probably won't be declaring a dividend for a little while, but as we continue to grow our profits, we will continue to review that. Are there any other general questions? Thank you for those questions and comments. We'll now progress to the formal business of the meeting. The notice of meeting was made available to all registered shareholders within the required notice period. With your consent, I will take that document as read. During the course of the meeting, I will present various resolutions to the meeting. We will strive to ensure that all shareholders who wish to speak have a reasonable opportunity to do so. I've been advised that all proxies received for the meeting have been checked and I declare them valid for voting. I will disclose proxy votes on your screen prior to the vote being taken for each item.
These figures include the results as recorded at the closing time for receipt of proxies, which was 10:00 A.M. on Wednesday, 14 May 2025. There are a number of voting exclusions that apply to the resolutions being presented at the day's meeting. These are outlined in the notice of meeting. Voting on all resolutions will be decided via a poll, which I now declare open. The poll will be taken at the end of the meeting and the results announced to the ASX shortly after the close of the meeting. As Chair of the meeting and as detailed in the notice of meeting, I will vote, where authorized, all undirected proxies in favor of each resolution. The first item of notified business is to receive and consider the financial report, the Director's report, and the Auditor's report for the year ended 31 December 2024.
There is no formal resolution required for this item, but I invite shareholders to ask questions or make comment on the financial report or the reports of the directors and auditors, ask questions or make a comment on the management of the company, or ask any questions of the auditor relevant to the conduct of the audit, the preparation and content of the auditor's report, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the preparation of the financial statements, or the independence of the auditor in relation to the conduct of the audit. I will now take questions on the company's financial statements, the performance of the company over the last year, the director's report, or the auditor's report. Are there any questions? Okay. Thank you. I will now move to the next item of notified business, the remuneration report.
Before we move to questions and a vote on the remuneration report, I would like to hand over to Steve Hasker, Chair of the People and Culture Committee, for his report.
Thank you, Richard, and good morning, everyone. As chair of the People and Culture Committee, it's my pleasure to present Appen's remuneration report for the year ended 31 December 2024. This report outlines our remuneration framework, the outcomes achieved for the year, and how those outcomes align with Appen's performance and strategy. It's included as part of the director's report in the 2024 annual report and is the subject of item two of business at today's meeting. The People and Culture Committee is responsible for overseeing Appen's approach to people, to culture, to leadership development, to succession planning, as well as executive remuneration.
In fulfilling this role, the committee aims to ensure that our remuneration practices are transparent, competitive, and closely aligned with the interests of our shareholders. We seek to reward performance that delivers sustainable long-term value, and we are committed to sound governance and continuous engagement with our stakeholders. In 2024, Appen remained focused on executing its transformation plan and restoring financial performance. The business returned to EBITDA profitability, delivering underlying EBITDA before FX of $3.5 million and an improvement of $23.9 million year-on-year. Revenue, excluding the impact of the terminated Google contract, grew by 16% to $220.9 million. This was driven by strong growth in generative AI projects and improved customer delivery. These financial improvements were achieved alongside strong customer satisfaction, higher contributor engagement, and improved internal coordination across the company. Short-term incentive outcomes for FY 2024 reflected this operational and financial progress.
The group STI scorecard included 80% weighting on financial metrics and 20% on non-financial measures. The weighting for financial measures increased to 80% from 70% in the prior year, reflecting the focus on resetting the business to achieve profitability. EBITDA was assessed at 90% of target and revenue at 96%. For non-financial outcomes, Appen achieved 118% of target for customer NPS, 150% for crowd NPS, and 100% for employee engagement. Pleasingly, there was overachievement for multiple non-financial measures. However, non-financial outcomes are capped at 100% of target. These results translated to a final STI outcome of 85.9% of target for key management personnel. In line with policy, 75% of STI was delivered in cash and 25% in deferred equity for the CEO. The board believes these outcomes fairly reflect performance while maintaining discipline in remuneration practices.
With respect to long-term incentives, legacy grants awarded in relation to previous roles held by current KMP were tested during FY 2024. The 2021 award, tranches one through three, lapsed in full as the three-year EPS performance condition was not met. With respect to the 2022 annual awards, tranche two, and the 2023 annual awards, tranche one, the relevant service conditions were met during FY 2024 and the performance rights vested. There were several changes to Appen's key management personnel during the year. On the 5th of February, 2024, Ryan Kolln was appointed CEO and Managing Director, having previously served as Chief Operating Officer. Ryan relocated from Canada to the United States to assume the role.
His remuneration includes a base salary of $600,000, a target short-term incentive opportunity equal to 100% of base salary, with a maximum of 150%, and a target long-term incentive equal to 250% of base, subject to performance. As part of the leadership transition, the former CEO, Armughan Ahmad, stepped down on February 5th, 2024. He achieved a 12-month payment in lieu of notice, no STI, and all unvested LTI was forfeited. His previously approved share-based sign-on bonus continued to vest in accordance with his contract until 2025. On February 27, 2024, Justin Miles was appointed Chief Financial Officer following a period as interim CFO. His remuneration was benchmarked against relevant North American and Australian peers and includes participation in both STI and LTI programs. Subject to shareholders' approval under item five, the board has approved a long-term incentive award for Ryan Kolln for FY 2025.
The grant has a face value of $ 1.5 million equivalent to 1,026,000 performance rights. The number of performance rights is calculated using the December 2024 VWAP of AUD 2.31. These rights will be tested over a three-year period from the 1st of January, 2025, to the 31st of December, 2027, with two equally weighted performance hurdles: absolute total shareholder return, or TSR, and revenue compound annual growth, revenue CAGR. Vesting for TSR will begin only if the company delivers at least 95% TSR and full vesting at 120%. For the purposes of calculating TSR, the starting share price will be AUD 1.92. For revenue, vesting begins at 19% CAGR and reaches full vesting at 26% or greater. The grant includes malice and clawback provisions. Turning to non-executive director fees, the total amount paid in 2024 was $ 659,800.
This remains well within the shareholder-approved fee pool of AUD 1.4 million unchanged since the 2021 AGM. There will be no changes to non-executive director fees in 2025. Fees are benchmarked against ASX-listed peers to ensure they reflect the scale and complexity of Appen's operations. Non-executive directors do not receive short or long-term incentives. The minimum shareholding policy requires all non-executive directors to hold shares equal to at least one year's base fee within three years of appointment. All directors who have served for at least three years are compliant. Today, we are seeking your support for two remuneration-related resolutions. The first is the non-binding advisory vote on the 2024 remuneration report under item two. The second is the approval of the proposed FY 2025 long-term incentive award for the CEO under item five.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that the board is committed to good governance and remuneration practices that reflect Appen's business strategy and shareholder outcomes. In the past year, we have prioritized simplicity, transparency, and stronger alignment between pay and performance. Appen remains firmly focused on its long-term growth strategy, and we believe our remuneration framework remains fit for purpose. We aim to align structure, framework, and outcomes with sustainable shareholder value creation while also attracting and retaining top talent in the North American and Australian technology markets. With this, the board recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the resolutions. Thank you, and I will now hand back to the Chair.
Thanks very much, Steve. I now put the resolution to the meeting as displayed on the screen. Details of the votes received for this item are on the screen. I now open this item for discussion.
Are there any questions? Peter.
Thank you. Can I ask for the future for FY 2026 that you move the STI allocation to being 50% cash and 50% equity to achieve a greater alignment between shareholders and KMP outcome?
Thanks, Peter. As Steve outlined, it's currently 75% cash, 25% equity, which is not completely out of line with market practice, but we'll certainly look at that going forward. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. As the next item relates to my own reelection as a director, I'll hand the meeting over to Robin Low, the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.
Thanks, Richard. So I'm going to put the resolution to the meeting as displayed on the screen that Mr. Richard Freudenstein, being a director who is retiring in accordance with clause 68 of the company's constitution and ASX-listing rule 14.4, and being eligible, offers himself for reelection, be reelected as a director of the company. Before opening this item for discussion, I'll ask Richard to say a few words about his reelection. Don't have to go far.
Thanks, Robin. I've now had the privilege to serve on the Appen board for three and a half, almost four years. I believe I have the range of skills that enable me to add value on the board of Appen. In particular, I've worked as a CEO of both a large customer-facing subscription business and a fast-growing range of digital businesses.
I'm currently a board member of two other ASX-listed businesses, both of which are in the ASX top 30 companies in Australia, giving me great insight into corporate governance and the strategy in two of Australia's largest public companies. I've served on the board of REA Group Ltd for 17 years, giving me a good understanding of digital and customer-facing businesses in both Australia and internationally. I have international executive experience, having worked in the U.K. for many years and served on a number of boards in Asia. I am really excited about the opportunities for Appen in the dynamic AI landscape in which it operates. I would be honoured to be reelected to continue to serve the interests of Appen shareholders. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Richard.
Details of the votes received for this item are on the screen, but I open it for discussion if there are any questions. No? Okay. No questions. Congratulations, Richard.
Thank you, Robin. The next item of notified business concerns the election of Mr. Stuart Davis as a non-executive director. I put the resolution to the meeting as displayed on the screen, which I will not read out. Before opening this item for discussion, Stuart will say a few words about his reelection.
Good. Thank you, Richard. I have had the pleasure and the privilege to serve on the Appen board for three years. I believe I have the experience and skills to navigate the opportunities and challenges arising from a fast-changing environment driven principally by the innovation in the AI space.
In particular, I've been a board member of ASX 100-listed company NEXTDC for 11 years, during which period the market cap has increased from AUD 350 million to nearly AUD 10 billion today. NEXTDC is at the forefront of digital infrastructure in Australia, providing me with insights into the demand for AI and the speed of change. I've been on the board of PayPal Australia for over eight years, giving me a good understanding of the digitisation and use of data for both customer-facing activities and for merchant activities. I've also had international executive experience, having worked in Hong Kong and New York and running banking businesses in Taiwan, Australia, and India. I'd be honored to be reelected to continue to serve the interests of Appen shareholders during this exciting time for AI-related businesses. Thank you.
Thank you, Stuart. Details for votes received for this item are on the screen. Sorry.
I now open this item for discussion. Are there any questions on Stuart's reelection? All right. Great. Thank you. The next item of business is in relation to the grant of rights to our CEO and Managing Director, Mr. Ryan Kolln. I put the resolution to the meeting as shown on the screen and as described by Steve in his report. Details of votes received for this item are on the screen. I now open this item for discussion. Are there any questions? Okay. Thank you. The next item of business is the renewal of proportional takeover provision in the company's constitution. I put the resolution to the meeting as shown on the screen. Details of votes received for this item are on the screen. I now open this item for discussion. Are there any questions? All right. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formalities for this meeting.
Shareholders are now asked to complete their voting card. To cast your vote for, against, or abstain, place a mark in the corresponding box for each item on your voting card. If you place a mark in more than one box in relation to a resolution, your vote for that resolution will be invalid. Link will collect your voting card. I now declare the poll closed. As mentioned earlier, the results of this meeting will be announced to the ASX as soon as they have been counted and verified. I now declare the meeting closed. I would like to take this chance to thank my fellow directors and Ryan and the management team for their diligence and commitment to the business. I'd also like to thank shareholders for your support and participation today. I look forward to meeting with you again at next year's annual general meeting.
Thank you very much.