Events

Michael Apata is the Lead Economist with the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics, Department of Finance, Government of Manitoba. He leads the team responsible for the strategic planning and management of Manitoba’s macroeconomic statistics including economic information and forecasts, and related analytical services such as the Economic and Tax Revenue Impact Assessment of various government economic development initiatives.

Calista Cheung is Director of the Survey and Economic Intelligence Division in the Canadian Economic Analysis (CEA) Department. In this capacity, she oversees the economic analysis, research, and outreach activities of the Bank’s five regional offices. She leads the division in executing and publishing the Bank’s Business Outlook Survey, Business Leaders’ Pulse, and the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations, and supports the Bank’s communication strategy.

Calista Cheung has a Master’s degree in Economics from Boston University and a Bachelor of Commerce with Joint Honours in Economics and Finance from McGill University.

Josh is a Research Consultant with InterGroup Consultants. He is involved in the firm’s socio-economic research as well as utility ratemaking, which has included rate-setting with water, wastewater, and hydro utilities. Josh holds a Master’s of Economics from the University of Manitoba.

In university Josh focused on Econometrics, implementing a spatial regression model with a custom bootstrapping technique for his capstone project, and took many Computer Science electives learning languages like Python, R, and Java. Outside of university he has independently studied Data Science and has ongoing Data Science projects. Recently he completed Level 1 of the CFA® Program, CFA Institute (2021).

Chris is a Consultant with InterGroup Consultants. He has more than 20 years of professional experience as an economist in economic development, agribusiness, telecom, and education research industries. Including developing an agrifood industrial strategy for Portage la Prairie.

Previously he served as the Senior Economist at Winnipeg Economic Development & Tourism, where he reported on major factors which affect the Manitoba economy and developed an economic impact analysis framework to report on successes, and to evaluate prospective projects.

He has experience conducting research on multiple industries, explaining the impacts of government policies, and studying diverse industries and regions. This includes applications of supply chain analysis, project assessments, and developing market analysis frameworks. Chris has developed multiple automated data analysis and modeling processes using tools such as SQL databases, Excel, R, and other platforms. Chris holds a Master of Economics from the University of Manitoba.

Becky Cianflone is an economic development leader based in Northern Manitoba. She serves as Executive Director of Community Futures Greenstone and runs Northlight Solutions, a consultancy focused on community strategy, entrepreneurship programming, and place-based economic growth. Becky’s work centres on helping northern and rural communities build resilient local economies particularly through small business development, youth entrepreneurship, and resource-industry transition.

She is known for designing practical, context-driven programs that meet people where they are, including northern entrepreneurship bootcamps, leadership labs, and community planning processes. Becky regularly facilitates workshops, moderates panels, and speaks on rural innovation, community-industry relations, and building economic capacity in remote regions.

Christian is a Data Evaluation Manager at the Manitoba government. He specializes in Labour Market Intelligence. He serves as a board member at West Broadway Youth Outreach.

He holds a Bachelors degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Manitoba.