Material Named a 2026 North America ESOMAR Award Finalist for Qualitative Excellence - Company among top leaders for a behavioral segmentation framework that redefined donor engagement for a leading health care brand - New York, NY - September 17, 2026 - Material, an intelligent growth company providing AI-driven consumer data and insights, brand and product innovation, is pleased to announce it was named a finalist in the 2026 North America ESOMAR Awards for Qualitative Excellence. The ESOMAR Awards celebrate market research innovators and visionaries whose outstanding work is redefining the role of insights in business, culture and society. Qualitative Excellence Award Material was a finalist for the Qualitative Excellence Award for developing a behavioral segmentation framework for a leading health care brand that moved beyond traditional demographics to uncover qualitative and emotional drivers behind philanthropic giving. The resulting insights are now guiding the organization's fundraising and donor engagement. "Today's donors aren't one audience, and generosity isn't driven by one universal motivation," said Holly Galpin, vice president of Insights at Material. "What makes someone give, and what makes that giving feel meaningful, can be deeply personal. This work helped us move beyond identifying who donors are to understand the different relationships they want to have with the organizations they support, and how to meet them there." This marks Material's second consecutive year receiving ESOMAR recognition following two awards in 2025 for Excellence in AI and Automation in Market Research and Best Customer Experience Insight. About Material Material is an intelligent growth company that is part of the Blackstone portfolio. Material has a 50 year history of helping clients build customer intelligence into brands, experiences and digital platforms that compete and win. Material works with world-class companies to drive demand-centric growth through integrated capabilities including insights-driven strategy, product design and innovation, customer engagement and digital platform engineering. In addition to serving the corporate market, through its subsidiary, Aruliden, Material has helped some of the world's most celebrated cultural icons extend their personal brands into new product lines. Learn more at www.materialgrowth.com.

Material Welcomes Ranjan Kalia as Chief Financial Officer - New CFO brings strong global finance leadership to support clients in the company's future growth - New York, NY - May 19, 2026 - Material Plus Holdings, LLC (Material), an intelligent growth company providing AI-driven consumer insights, growth strategy, product design and digital platform engineering, is pleased to welcome Ranjan Kalia as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Kalia's appointment comes as Material continues to scale its global capabilities, helping clients harness the power of data and AI to deliver demand-centric growth. A three-time CFO with more than 30 years of experience, Kalia brings incisive financial perspectives and operational command shaped by senior leadership roles across both public companies and private-equity owned enterprises. Laila Worrell, Material's CEO, stated, "Ranjan's leadership as CFO will play a pivotal role in our next phase of growth, as we invest to deliver even greater innovation and value for our clients. He brings a global, results-oriented mindset and a strong track record scaling tech-enabled services businesses. He will be a tremendous partner in executing Material's strategy and creating exceptional outcomes for our clients." Kalia will partner with Material's executive team to advance the company's continued global expansion and investment in AI and data capabilities. Kalia commented, "Material sits at a powerful intersection of customer data, behavioral and decision science, product design and platform engineering. Material is in a category-of-one in bringing these differentiated capabilities together to drive growth for clients. I am energized by the company's momentum, the caliber of its people and its longstanding client relationships with the world's most influential companies. The opportunity ahead is significant, and I look forward to helping Material continue to capture it." About Ranjan Kalia, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ranjan Kalia joins Material with more than 30 years of experience leading finance organizations across global businesses. Most recently, Kalia was CFO at Brillio, and before that at Orion Innovation and Virtusa Corporation, where he was a central figure in scaling Virtusa's business from roughly $100 million to $1.2 billion in revenue. Earlier in his career, Kalia held senior finance and operational leadership roles at EMC Corporation, General Electric Company, PepsiCo, Inc., and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, building a foundation in global finance, audit and operations. About Material