Boldly moving forward

Fellow shareholders, Rising to the extraordinary challenges of this year, Jacobs’ response has both impressed and inspired me.

We accelerated value creation, shifting toward higher-growth end markets and positioning for tomorrow. We leveraged technology to deliver more — for our clients and for ourselves — and embraced innovation as part of who we are. Our commitment to sustainability influenced all that we did, in our operations and for our clients and community.

We invested in our people, prioritizing initiatives to help them develop their capabilities and careers, improve wellbeing, and increase flexibility and creativity. And we continued to enhance our culture, taking care to make sure it aligns with our aspirations and our values: We do things right. We challenge the accepted. We aim higher. We live inclusion.

Our Jacobs culture is a competitive advantage that will help us be agile, flexible, innovative, open, collaborative, global and transparent — today and into tomorrow. While it will always be a work in progress, I am very proud of how far we have come.

Targeted growth and accelerated value creation

Early in FY21, we acquired The Buffalo Group and continued our portfolio transformation with our 65% majority stake in PA Consulting, a key driver in changing our Global Industry Classifications Standard (GICS®) code to Research & Consulting Services earlier this year. And we recently acquired BlackLynx, enhancing our critical competencies in cyber, cloud computing and intelligence. These investments further strengthened our high value solutions strategy.

This year, we also launched Focus 2023, an initiative to simplify and digitize how we work and serve our clients. Building on our momentum and success over the past three years, we will introduce our next 3-year strategy in early 2022, to boldly accelerate our growth.

Driving positive impact for our environment

The climate emergency is one of the greatest challenges and opportunities of our generation and Jacobs is leading in this global charge. Our capabilities in resilient infrastructure, clean water, green energy and creating social value provide opportunity to play a pivotal role in benefitting people and the planet.

With PlanBeyond 2.0, we set out even more ambitious goals, including a target for 100% of our solutions to contribute to progress against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2025. We amplified our voices this year engaging at global events such as COP26, the World Climate Forum, the World Economic Forum and Expo 2020 Dubai — an event where we were partners in managing program delivery. Our newly launched Office of Global Climate Response and Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) will serve as a focal point for our go-to-market solutions in energy transition, decarbonization, adaptation and mitigation, and natural resource stewardship — and fuel our ESG actions as companies around the globe rise to the climate challenge and address urgent social issues.

Focused on educating and inspiring future science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) innovators, we debuted the Butterfly Effect, a new Climate Response Education Program aimed at guiding young students to make smart, positive impacts on climate change and giving them the tools and understanding to consider sustainability in every decision they make.

Investing in our people

Our continued success depends on maintaining and growing our base of talented colleagues — and creating programs that are meaningful to them. Along those lines, we took several steps to broaden how we care for our employees.

We are introducing a new global wellbeing strategy for Jacobs employees and their families, and launched the free mental health tool One Million Lives to enhance users’ understanding of their current mental health and provide proactive strategies for good mental health development.

We also now offer Maven, a resource that helps employees navigate different pathways to parenthood — like adoption, infertility and pregnancy — and provides support with postpartum and pediatrics. And we actively support our new parents in returning to work with continued programming and resources.

Developing careers is a high priority. Across the board, we ensure our employees can engage with others, excel in their role and elevate their career at Jacobs through expanded career resources and learning opportunities on our e3 platform — which also allows colleagues to recognize each other for collaboration and performance through online feedback engagements.

In addition, more than 200 of our Jacobs leaders received guidance and programming in partnership with Duke Corporate Education to strengthen inspirational leadership and development of inclusive, innovative teams to enhance strategy engagement and execution across our global organization.

And to encourage, support and retain our newest employees, a cohort of nearly 800 graduates from across the company participated in our successful Graduate Development Program. During the first two years of their Jacobs career, these graduates receive on-the-job learning, coaching and mentoring, as well as formal training.

Culture driving change

Embracing feedback from our Culture Survey in FY20, we rethought and redefined how our technologies, tools, work processes and physical space work together to create an environment with improved efficiencies and enhanced collaboration and creativity for our employees.

As we reopen offices, our hybrid work model allows people the flexibility to work from home, the office, or a mix of both — reducing our real estate footprint as part of our carbon neutrality commitment — and, we believe, unleashing the full capability of our teams. We proactively adopted a vaccination policy for U.S. employees choosing to return to offices or participating in business-essential travel, a move that also aligns with government recommendations.

Since launching our TogetherBeyond℠ global Action Plan for Advancing Justice and Equality last year, we have invested over $500,000 in contributions benefitting the Black community through targeted STEAM programs, have spent more than $1.3 billion in FY21 with diverse suppliers, and have strengthened our commitment to developing and hiring the best diverse talent through partnerships with the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Building Equality, the U.K. construction industry’s leading LGBTQ+ alliance. Many of our executive leadership team — which is now 55% female — have become executive sponsors for Historically Black Colleges and Universities around the U.S., and our Board of nine continuing independent directors now includes three women and four people of color.

As we think about the future of talent, our aspirational goal is to create a 40-40-20 gender-balanced workforce globally over the next five years: 40% women, 40% men, and 20% open to any gender. Currently at approximately 30% women, Jacobs’ senior leaders are committed and accountable to quickly achieve the next 10% and beyond — and I look forward to partnering across our company to drive this positive change.

Focused leadership and transformation

Our transformational journey would not have been possible without our accomplished and highly engaged Board of Directors. I want to honor two members who are retiring from our Board:

Linda Fayne Levinson, our longest-serving director since 1996, was our first Lead Independent Director and has provided instrumental strategic guidance to me during our most significant transformational activities. In his 20 years of service, Bob Davidson has also provided strong leadership and guidance, particularly in the areas of corporate governance and Inclusion & Diversity. And we welcome our newest member of the Board, Priya Abani, who brings a strong executive background in the areas of technology and innovation, further enhancing the breadth of skills, experiences and backgrounds represented on our Board.

Over the past five years, our significant value creation and the growth and transformation of our company has been remarkable for our business and our culture, resulting in confidently meeting our financial targets since 2016 — increasing our total shareholder return during this same period by 292% — significantly outperforming the S&P 500.

And we aren’t stopping!

Boldly moving forward to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges

Current mega-trends present Jacobs with a unique opportunity across high-growth end markets, combined with key cross-cutting capabilities, that will drive our vision and growth around climate response, secure data-driven solutions, and consulting and advisory services.

With the now passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the U.S. — the largest long-term investment in America in nearly a century — and other stimulus around the world, we have a truly generational opportunity to modernize and strengthen social infrastructure in our countries and communities, which will further accelerate growth in the markets and geographies we serve.

Through this new lens — one crafted from the incredible pace of change in the world, the opportunities presented in our markets, and the passion from within each of us — we are excited to unveil our new Jacobs Strategy to investors in March 2022. A strategy that is forward-facing and reflective of our vision and tenacity to continue to set the pace and mark of a company like no other. Jacobs has an opportunity to think and act boldly while staying true to our mission, purpose and values. The time for #OurJacobs is now.