Good morning, and welcome to the 2022 AGM of IDP Education Limited. My name is Peter Polson, and I'm the Chairman of your company. It is now 10:00 A.M., and there is a quorum present. The meeting is now open. On behalf of the board, I'd like to welcome all shareholders, guests, and other visitors attending in person and via our online platform. Shareholders participating in the AGM in person or through the online platform will have the opportunity to submit questions to the board, management, and IDP's external auditors during the AGM. Details on how shareholders can participate are set out in the notice of meeting and online virtual AGM guide, which have been made available. Both documents are also available to view online and download at the bottom of your screen alongside the Get a Voting Card and Ask a Question buttons.
While we will endeavor to answer all questions today, if there are similar questions, we will answer one from the group. Also, if we run out of time, additional questions will be followed up after the meeting. I now formally open the poll on resolutions. All polls will remain open until the conclusion of today's meeting. As we move through the items of business, I will respond to questions from shareholders and proxy holders. I will take questions from the room first, then from the online platform. Joining me today, we have board members, Professor Colin Stirling, Professor David Battersby, Greg West, Ariane Barker, Chris Leptos, Tracey Horton, and Michelle Tredenick. We also have Murray Walton, our Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and Ashley Warmbrand, our Company Secretary and General Counsel. You can find copies of the Chairman's and Interim Chief Executive Officer's speeches on our website.
Pardon me. As they have been released to the ASX this morning. Once again, thank you for joining us at today's annual general meeting. The financial year of 2022 will be considered one of the milestone years in IDP's history. It is a year when we plan to farewell Andrew Barkla and prepare for our new CEO. It was a time to reinforce our executive leadership, culture, innovation, and commitment to our customers. I take this opportunity to reflect on these strategic decisions, which have helped guide IDP to the excellent results we are pleased to report today. As we know, IDP's customers have contributed to creating stronger communities and economies around the world for more than 50 years. During the pandemic, borders closed, and the gulf left by an absence of international students and skilled migrants reminded the world that our customers are crucial to well-functioning societies.
With skill shortages impacting many IDP destination countries, governments are increasingly introducing policies to entice international people back to their shores. Our students and test takers are responding. This year, IDP's placement volumes increased by 45%, with growth to all key destinations. Likewise, IELTS volumes grew by 67% globally, with markets in India and Nepal leading the rebound. This contributed to a total revenue of AUD 793 million, an increase of 50% compared to the same period in financial year 2021. The resilience of our customers should not come as a surprise. Demand for international education has historically remained consistent throughout global and economic cycles. IDP customers often move away from the comfort of family and community at a young age to pursue global study or work dreams. These are not overnight dreams.
We know that more than two years of planning, preparation, and financial commitment often come together to shape these dreams into real actionable plans. Therefore, when the world began to rebuild after the pandemic, our customers reviewed their plans, often with a new sense of determination to achieve their life goals. As circumstances changed, our IDP teams were ready to assist with innovations that will help them fast-track their goals. This is something we are incredibly proud of. This year, the foresight and planning of IDP's board and management to retain our global teams throughout a period of uncertainty delivered significant benefits. While an alternative path could have been to reduce our people and services, we stayed true to our strategy of building a platform that connected our customers to global success. We did this because we believe in our vision.
We believe in our customers, and perhaps most importantly, we believe in our people. I will shortly hand over to Murray to outline the initiatives delivered that are reimagining the student placement model, expanding the IELTS test, and using technology to enhance human connections. Before I do, I would like to comment on the people I expect to help shape IDP's next chapter. As I mentioned in my introduction, I'm joined today by Tracey Horton and Michelle Tredenick, two directors who have recently joined the board and will be seeking election today. Michelle and Tracey are esteemed leaders who bring to IDP deep skills and more than four decades of experience advising Australian organizations. Both Michelle and Tracey are valuable additions to the board and round out our board skills matrix. I would also like to acknowledge IDP's management.
As announced earlier this year, after seven years in the role, Andrew Barkla resigned as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Andrew joined IDP with a clear vision to create a global platform and connected community. He saw the opportunity to combine IDP's physical footprint with a sophisticated digital platform to extend IDP's leadership position in creating a global education services company. As you will hear today, this strategy's successful execution, while still underway, enabled IDP to maintain close customer contact throughout the pandemic and rebound strongly when the world began to recover. Far more than any technology transformation Andrew led, his ability to unite the global team and celebrate the customer at every touchpoint will be his most significant legacy.
On behalf of the board of directors, I would like to thank Andrew for his tenure, and I look forward to maintaining a close connection with him as a special advisor. Looking ahead, we are delighted to welcome Tennealle O'Shannessy to the position of CEO and Managing Director. An influential leader in global education, Tennealle has a proven track record of building successful digital businesses with a customer-centric approach, experience that aligns with IDP's ambitious strategy to reinvent the international education sector. Following an extensive global search, Tennealle stood out as the right person to build on our vision and empower our global teams to help more people achieve their lifelong learning and career goals. I look forward to working alongside her in the years to come. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge our Chief Financial Officer, Murray Walton, IDP's global leadership team, and its broader global staff.
IDP is an exceptional business driven by extraordinary people. I'm immensely proud of the global nature of our organization and its ability to connect with customers in a way that adds value to their communities. To hear more, I'd like to now hand over to Murray. Thanks, Murray.
Thank you, Peter. In my role as the Interim Chief Executive Officer, it's my pleasure to present the operational update for financial year FY 2022. As Peter said, this was the year we took great steps to reinvent our industry as we rebounded from the pandemic and accelerated our ambitious strategy delivery. I will outline these key achievements today. I will also share how we proudly strengthened our relationships with our customers across all touchpoints in their journey. Finally, I will also highlight some global challenges we are navigating, and what we are doing to help us strive toward a sustainable future. To start, I would like to focus on our student placement business. As Peter mentioned, this year we placed students into a record 55,400 courses with growth across all of our key destinations.
Perhaps more importantly, FY 2022 was the year we made the complicated process of applying to a university faster, easier, and more accurate. Building on our investment in data science and university partnerships, our FastLane service, launched in December 2021, instantly empowered students to receive an in-principle offer from an institution. By 13th of June, FastLane was accepted by 65 leading universities and colleges, and almost 3,000 students had received formal offers after using the FastLane service via the IDP Live app. Complementing FastLane, we also introduced a range of initiatives, including a centralized application processing system and electronic document management. All features focus on quality and trust. In a sometimes noisy and confusing marketplace for institutions, IDP is the only global player guiding our customers from their first search to the classroom. This means our institutional clients can trust the quality of our process.
During the entire journey, our clients and our customers have genuine experts by their side. These innovations are redundant if they don't help improve our customers' experience and our clients' ability to attract the right students. We are pleased to advise that despite the pandemic's challenges, we have created stronger, more trusted relationships with our customers. In recent years, we have prioritized listening to customers at every stage of their journey through our global Net Promoter Score program. In FY 2023, after reviewing over 38,000 survey responses, our global NPS rose by six points. I would like to now draw your attention to our English language testing business, IELTS. This year, IELTS strengthened its position as the world's most trusted high-stakes language test. With the goal of helping more people access our test, our product portfolio and geographic footprint expanded.
Notably, IDP's acquisition of the British Council's Indian operation is delivering synergies above our initial estimates. With integrated teams now providing tests across more than 550 locations in India, the project has exceeded our expectations in terms of team unity, efficiencies, and customer experience improvements. Our expansion in India and substantial contributions from Nepal and Thailand were key contributors to the 67% growth in test volumes. Despite the high growth and expansion, we have not taken our eye off the human connection central to IELTS' success. On the digital front, all product innovation this year has focused on enhancing human connections, not replacing them. While it's in the early stages of the rollout, IELTS Online demonstrates our ability to innovate continually. Customers are now empowered to choose the option that positions them to achieve their best score.
Importantly, unlike other online options, IELTS Online has retained our focus on human conversation through video call speaking assessment, a factor we believe is critical to effectively assessing someone's ability to live, study, and work where English is the primary language. After all, language is human. Language testing should be as well. Underpinning the business growth across IELTS and student placement is the continual evolution of our digital platform. Our digital campus in Chennai, now in its third year of operations, is running exceptionally well. The innovation this team delivered through COVID empowered our counseling teams to move quickly to support customers and at scale when global travel resumed. The digital campus supports IDP's global network, which expanded this year as we welcome new teams in the emerging market of Nigeria.
As we've said before, no digital transformation as significant as IDP's can be successful without the culture that embraces innovation, collaboration, and customer focus. I reiterate Peter's comments and would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our global teams. The last two years have not been easy. We have been physically isolated by the challenges of climate change and lower global mobility, and we have had skills shortages thrown at us, our people, our industry, and our customers. These are challenges we will have to continue to manage well into the future. Our teams have been guided by a tested and now proven strategy that aims to help the world's next generation of global leaders connect to their lifelong learning and career aspirations.
This strategy continues to guide our teams as we enter a new chapter with Tennealle as the Chief Executive Officer from February next year. To you, our stakeholders and shareholders, thank you for staying with us as we delivered what we promised. Five years ago, we first spoke about our goal to transition IDP from a bricks-and-mortar organization to a world-leading omni-channel service provider. As our ambitious vision becomes a reality, we thank you for your commitment. We genuinely believe access to global study and career opportunities is fundamental to a thriving, cohesive, and smarter community. We are proud of our role in helping people acquire the skills and connections they need to succeed in the world, and we look forward to an exciting future. Thank you.
Thank you, Murray. We will now turn to the formal business of today's meeting. The notice of meeting was sent to shareholders and a copy is available online on the ASX website. I'd like to summarize the proxy and voting procedures for this meeting. Shareholders and proxy holders have the opportunity to consider and submit their vote on each resolution up to the end of the meeting. Following discussion on each item, the proxy results will be displayed on the screen. Where undirected proxies have been given in favor of the chairman, I will be voting those proxies in favor of all items, except item seven, which will be voting undirected proxies against. Please note, only shareholders and proxy holders may ask questions. Online questions will be required to be entered on the virtual meeting platform using the instructions on the platform or in the online meeting guide.
All online questions will be moderated to ensure they are appropriate to be put to the meeting. We will now move on to the items of business for this meeting as set out in the notice of the meeting. The first item of business is to receive the financial report for the year ended 30th of June 2022. Our auditor for 2022 financial year, Jen Carvelo of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, is available to take questions relative to the conduct of the audit and the preparation and content of the independent audit report. Please direct any questions that you have for our auditor through me. Are there any questions in the room relevant to the audit? If there aren't any, are there any questions via the online platform?
There are no questions.
Thanks, Ashley. The next item of business relates to the election and re-election of directors. As the first part of this resolution relates to my re-election, Ariane Barker will chair this part of the meeting. I will now hand over the chair responsibility to Ariane.
Thank you, Peter. Agenda item 2A is for the re-election of Peter Polson as a director. Peter's skills, experience, and qualifications are set out in the notice of the meeting. Peter will now say a few words.
Thanks, Ariane. It is a great honor to serve as chairman of the board for IDP and guide and support the organization. During my time as chairman, the company has undergone significant change and growth, and I believe, achieved great success. As we head into the next phase, which includes a CEO transition, I ask for the support of shareholders, so that I can continue to lead the board through this period of change. Thank you.
Thank you, Peter. Are there any questions in the room? Are there any questions through the online platform?
There are no questions.
Thank you. If there are no more questions, I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. I will now hand the chair back to you, Peter.
Thanks, Ariane. Agenda item number 2 B relates to the re-election of Greg West as a director. Greg's experience, skills, and qualifications are outlined in the notice of meeting. Greg will now say a few words.
Thank you, Peter. By way of background, I'm a chartered accountant with experience in higher education sector, investment banking, and capital markets. More recently, I was Chief Executive of a dual-listed ASX, NASDAQ biotech company, and prior to this, in senior roles in investment banking with Bankers Trust, parent company in Deutsche Bank. In addition to my other ASX board roles, I'm on the council of the University of Wollongong and on boards of its universities in Dubai, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. I'm Executive Chair of Education Australia Limited, which was responsible for the Australian university ownership in IDP. As many of you would know, over recent years, Education Australia has either transferred its ownership in IDP to its university shareholders or sold some of its IDP shareholding. IDP is in a transition phase with two new directors and a new Chief Executive Officer.
In addition to my regular director's duties, I see my immediate contribution as delivering ongoing board stability and experienced board oversight while we complete this significant transition. Thank you.
Thanks, Greg. Thank you, Greg. Are there any questions in the room that relate to Greg's re-election? Are there any questions on the platform?
There are no questions.
Thanks, Ashley. Agenda item number 2 C relates to the election of Tracey Horton as a director. Tracey's experience, skills, and qualifications are outlined in the notice of meeting. Tracey will now say a few words. Thanks, Tracey.
Thank you, Peter, and for your kind words earlier. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm honored to be standing for election as a director of IDP today. I'm an experienced company director. I joined my first board in 2002, and I have been sitting on boards full-time since 2012. As a result, I bring to IDP extensive board and committee experience that I've gained in a wide range of industries and situations in the listed private government and not-for-profit sectors. During my executive career, I worked both in Australia and in the United States in central banking, strategy consulting, and also in the education industry. In addition to my role here at IDP, which I'm just starting, I currently sit on the boards of GPT Group.
GPT is an ASX-listed property company based in Sydney, focused on the office sector, shopping centers, and logistics, and Campus Living Villages, CLV, which is an owner manager of student accommodation here in Australia, in the U.S., and also in the U.K. I'm also an acting president of the Takeovers Panel. I hold a Bachelor of Economics with honors and a Master's of Business Administration, and I'm also a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. As a result of these many and diverse experience, I've developed expertise over the years in the areas of strategy, development and implementation, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and business management. I'm fully committed to fulfilling my responsibilities as a director of IDP with the highest integrity and with your support. I'm very much looking forward to contributing to IDP to deliver long-term value for shareholders over the next several years.
Thank you very much. Thanks, Peter.
Thanks, Tracey. Are there any questions in the room? On the platform?
There are no questions.
Thanks. As there are no more questions, I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. Well done. Agenda item 2D relates to the election of Michelle Tredenick as a director. Michelle's experience, skills, and qualifications are outlined in the notice of meeting. Michelle will now say a few words.
Thanks, Peter, and thank you to all our shareholders for giving me the opportunity to seek your support for my election to your board. I joined the IDP Education Board around a month ago and present myself for election at this AGM. I've been a full-time non-executive company director for over 10 years, and today I have the privilege of sitting on a number of company boards, both listed and private boards across a range of industries. In my executive life, I've held a number of senior executive roles. My expertise lies in financial services, strategy, and the technology digital space. I have been and continue to be closely involved with many of the major challenges facing companies today, including digital disruption, global operating models, corporate and social responsibility, and the continued rise in customer and community expectations of businesses.
I hope I can bring these experiences and these skills to IDP as a board member and to helping IDP continue to change the game in the international education industry. I ask you for your support, and I thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you, Peter.
Thanks. Are there any questions in the room? On the platform?
There are no questions.
Thanks, Ashley. I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. Congratulations. Adoption of the remuneration report. We will now turn to agenda item three, which relates to the consideration of the 2022 remuneration report. The vote on this item is advisory only. At last year's AGM, the remuneration report received what is called a first strike, as more than 25% of the votes that were cast were against the adoption of the report. The board took this first strike very seriously and has worked hard to address the concerns raised by some of the shareholders.
Today, if 25% or more of the votes on item three are cast against adopting our remuneration report, this will constitute what is known as a second strike, and we will be required to put the resolution in item seven, which is a contingent spill resolution to this meeting. A contingent spill resolution requires all directors on the board who were directors when the 2022 remuneration report was approved to offer ourselves for re-election at a subsequent meeting. This is a very serious discussion. I will now move on to questions on this item. Are there any questions in the room? Online?
There are no questions.
Thanks, Ashley. As there are no more questions, I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. Based on the proxy and direct votes received ahead of the meeting, I'm pleased to see that our remuneration report has received votes in favor greater than 75% of issued capital of the company. On this basis and the basis of these results, I confirm that we have not received a second strike. Therefore, as set out in the notice of meeting, the contingent spill resolution, which is item seven, will not be put to today's meeting, as there have been sufficient support to avoid the second strike. Item number four, a grant of rights to the incoming Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Tennealle O'Shannessy.
We will now turn to agenda item number four, which relates to grant of rights to our incoming CEO and Managing Director, Tennealle O'Shannessy. The decision to voluntarily put the grant of these rights to shareholders was one of the initiatives that was adopted as part of our response to the first strike on our remuneration report last year. The details of the resolution are set out in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions with regard to this resolution? If not, are there any on the platform?
There are no questions.
Thanks. Item number four, grant of rights. If there are no more questions, I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. Thank you. We will now turn to agenda item number five, which is a special resolution seeking shareholder approval to amend IDP's constitution. The proposed changes to the constitution are summarized in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions with regard to this resolution in the room? Online?
No.
Okay. I'll now display the proxy position with regard to this resolution. Item number six. We will now turn to this item with a special resolution seeking shareholder approval for the renewal of the proportional takeover provision in the constitution. The rationale for this resolution is set out in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions or comments in the room? Online?
No.
Okay. I will now display the proxy position in this for this resolution. It is set out on the screen. We will not, as mentioned earlier, this item number seven this resolution does not need to be put to the meeting based on the results of the voting on the remuneration report. Ladies and gentlemen, that now completes all of the items of business for the 2022 AGM. The final result of the polls will be provided to the ASX today and will be placed on the company's website. A webcast of the meeting will also be available on the company's website. Thank you all very much for joining us online today and in person for IDP's 2022 AGM, and thank you all for your ongoing support.
I confirm that the polls will close in the next five minutes and that this concludes our meeting for today. Thank you again.