North Central Massachusetts Chamber Looks to the Future of the Economy at Annual Economic Forecast Program

(North Central, MA) – Community and business leaders will look to the future of the economy in North Central Massachusetts at the Annual Economic Forecast program scheduled for Friday, March 26, 2021 from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. This year’s program will be held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will include presentations intended to help business leaders make sense of the economic climate created from the COVID-19 pandemic and potential future trends in our local and global economies.

The Chamber is excited to announce that this year’s featured speakers are Dr. Bo Zhao, Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Simon Anderson, a nationally recognized futurist and author.

Bo Zhao is a senior economist at the New England Public Policy Center in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Research Department. He specializes in public finance and urban and regional economics. In 2013, he received the Boston Fed’s President’s Award. Zhao earned his PhD in economics and his MS in applied statistics from Syracuse University. He joined the Boston Fed in 2005 and served on the Municipal Aid Subcommittee of the Massachusetts Municipal Finance Task Force from 2006 to 2007. Zhao was selected by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as one of 20 young scholars nationwide to participate in the 2005 Entrepreneurship Research Boot Camp.

Simon J. Anderson is a strategic foresight speaker, author and consultant. He helps leaders and organizations be more future resilient and has shared his compelling message with thousands of senior executives and other leaders in a variety of industries from coast to coast in the United States, as well as internationally. In 2013, he founded Venture Foresight, a company dedicated to helping leaders recognize opportunities in emerging technologies and trends. Mr. Anderson is also co-author of the 2014 Bellwether Award winning book Foresight 20/20: A Futurist Ex-plores the Trends Transforming Tomorrow with fellow global futurist Jack Uldrich. As a key member of the international organization Communities of the Future, Mr. Anderson works to promote and facilitate “future’s thinking’ in communities around the world. His work as a futur-ist also informed his roles as an advisor to several technology startups and a multinational educa-tion non-profit organization.

The cost is just $20 for Chamber members/$30 for non-members. Pre-registration is required. For more information or to register, please contact the Chamber at 978.353.7600 ext. 235 or visit www.NorthCentralMass.com.