2025 San Gabriel Valley Economic Forecast Summit: "The Road to the Future San Gabriel Valley"
March 20, 2025
8:30 am - 11:30 am(Breakfast & Networking at 8:00 am)
Business leaders from across Los Angeles County will come together for an up-to-the-minute discussion of where the economy is headed.

Location
This year's forecast will be generously hosted by City of Industry at the elegant Industry Hills Expo Center. Industry Hills Expo Center, Pavilion Banquet Hall, 16200 Temple Ave, City of Industry CA 91744
Schedule
- 8:00-8:30 am: Breakfast and Networking
- 8:30-11:30 am: Program
Sponsorships Available- Title Sponsor (SOLD OUT!): $7,500
- Gold Sponsor: $3,500
- Silver Sponsor: $2,000
- Individual Ticket, Members: $100
- Individual Ticket, Non-Members: $175
- City Managers/Mayors: Complimentary. Please contact us.
- Full-Page Ad in Economic Forecast Report: $500
For more information on sponsorships, click here or contact Paul Thomas at pthomas@sgvpartnership.org or (909) 576-5441. SponsorsWe thank our sponsors for their generous support! Title SponsorLeadership Sponsors
- City of Industry
- LA County Sanitation Districts
- San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority
- Upper Water
Gold Sponsors- Citrus Valley Association of Realtors
Silver Sponsors- Foothill Gold Line
- Kaiser Permanente
- Southern California Edison
Registration
Speakers
Keynote
Ricardo Lara, California State Insurance Commissioner
Ricardo Lara serves as California’s Insurance Commissioner. Following his eight years of elected service in California’s Assembly and Senate, he made history in 2018 as the first openly gay person to ever be elected to statewide office in California history. Raised by a factory worker and a seamstress — Venustiano and Dolores — Ricardo’s humble beginnings guide his work as he leads the state’s largest consumer protection agency.
As your Insurance Commissioner, Ricardo has taken on tough fights and won for working families — holding the insurance industry accountable while fighting for health care for all, helping California consumers during the unprecedented devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and assisting California wildfire victims in rebuilding their lives.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ricardo has directed insurance companies to return health care and auto insurance premiums. His actions resulted in cost savings of over $1.75 billion for California drivers so far.
In response to the climate crisis, Ricardo continues to lead efforts to protect Californians from the impacts of climate change — including wildfires, floods and heatwaves — by pushing the insurance industry to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Ricardo wrote the nation’s first climate insurance law, SB 30, and following unprecedented wildfire disasters, he used his authority to protect more than 2 million policyholders from non-renewal when insurers tried to flee the marketplace. He created the nation’s first Climate and Sustainability Branch within the Department of Insurance, and also sponsored legislation to allow wildfire survivors to better access their benefits.
As a State Senator, Ricardo authored legislation that would create a single-payer health care system for California and he wrote the Health4All Kids Act — which now covers all California children with full-scope Medi-Cal regardless of immigration status. As your Insurance Commissioner, he continues to lead efforts to help reduce the number of uninsured Californians, strengthen our clinics and public health system, and lower costs for all. Ricardo also serves as Co-chair of the Special Committee on Race and Insurance within the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, where he works with his peers to find solutions to address widespread health disparities.
Ricardo is ready to continue the fight for stronger consumer rights and wants all Californians to know: He’ll always be on your side.
Insurance Commissioner Lara was born in Los Angeles County, California and earned a BA in Journalism and Spanish with a minor in Chicano Studies from San Diego State University. He also currently serves as the President of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).
Economic Forecast
Dr. Anthony Orlando, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Anthony W. Orlando is an Associate Professor of Finance, Real Estate, & Law at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he holds the title of Singelyn Fellow of Analytics in the College of Business Administration. He serves on the Public Finance Authority Board for the La Verne Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society of Los Angeles.
Dr. Orlando teaches and conducts research at the intersection of finance, real estate, and public policy. He has published over a dozen peer-reviewed articles in top economics and finance journals, including the Cambridge Journal of Economics, Energy Economics, Real Estate Economics, and the Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics.
Dr. Orlando received a Bachelor’s in economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s in economic history from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD in public policy and management from the University of Southern California.
Dr. Gerd Welke, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Gerd Welke is Professor of Real Estate Analytics in the College of Business at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. His academic research interests cover the real estate capital markets, housing market efficiency, and housing policy, and he teaches classes in real estate, finance, and business analytics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. As executive director of the Real Estate Research Council, he is responsible for the long-running SoCal and NorCal Real Estate Research Council quarterly housing and construction reports. Gerd is a member of the board of directors of the National Housing Law Project and the advisory board of the Real Estate and Land Use Institute. He has consulted extensively in industry and for startups on a wide range of topics such as derivatives valuation, as a real estate capital markets expert witness, on Merton default models for real estate assets, and general insurance pricing.
Dr Welke graduated from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Real estate finance. In a prior incarnation, he was a physicist, using BBGKY hierarchies to study transport properties of nuclear matter and deconfined hadronic plasmas.
Q&A with Commissioner Ricardo Lara
Dr. Salvatrice Cummo, Pasadena City College (Moderator)
Dr. Salvatrice Cummo is Vice President, Economic and Workforce Development, at Pasadena City College. Her creativity and innovative spirit informed her rise at PCC. She began in 2013 when she inaugurated the school’s ‘workforce development’ department, then followed that accomplishment by building out its verticals, including the Small Business Development Center, the Robert G. Freeman for Career and Completion, the Workforce Training Center, PCC Extension, and programming related to federal Perkins Grants and California’s Strong Workforce Program.
Her work has also entailed building strong associations between PCC and the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership, and the Foothill Workforce Development Board (FWDB), three influential regional economic practice and policy think tanks. As of January 2022, she built another strong vertical of the division, the Los Angeles Regional Consortium (LARC), a collective of Los Angeles County’s 19 community colleges that is dedicated to developing the highly trained workforce needed by the region’s many industries and businesses.
Through all these efforts, Dr. Cummo has remained attentive to assessing regional workforce and economic demands while expanding educational opportunities to explore new learning options, such as internships, apprenticeships, work-based learning, and more. In 2019, Dr. Cummo launched PCC’s “Future of Work” initiative, an architecture of today’s various media channels that disseminate ideas and gather community inputs regarding work, employment, career, and economic success. She spearheads conversations that explore the multifaceted aspects of “workforce development”, from labor demands to emerging technologies to how to measure business, worker, and personal success by accessing the cultural and experiential resources of industry, education, and business leaders.
Panel Steven Cheung, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation
Stephen Cheung is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) and its subsidiary, the World Trade Center Los Angeles (WTCLA). As CEO of the LAEDC, Mr. Cheung brings together the capabilities of LAEDC’s mission-delivery department areas, including the Institute for Applied Economics (Research), Business Assistance, Industry Cluster Development, Workforce Development, World Trade Center Los Angeles (International), Strategic Relations, Communications & Marketing, and Public Policy, into a single team that delivers the LAEDC’s critically important, public-benefit mission - Reinventing our economy to collaboratively advance growth and prosperity for all.
In 2023, Cheung was elevated to President and CEO after serving as Chief Operating Office and Executive Vice President of LAEDC, and continues in his concurrent role as President of World Trade Center Los Angeles, a title he has held since coming to the organization in 2014. Prior to that, Cheung was the Secretary General and Managing Director of International Trade and Foreign Affairs for Los Angeles Mayors Eric Garcetti and Antonio Villaraigosa, and was responsible for managing policies and programs related to the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles World Airports, International Affairs, Global Trade and Clean Technology. In these roles, he was the lead organizer for the Mayors’ previous international trade missions to Mexico, China, Korea, Japan, Colombia, Chile and Brazil. Furthermore, Cheung implemented the city’s strategic plan to make Los Angeles a global capital of clean technology by building the infrastructure to support research, development and manufacturing with key partners.
Concurrently, Cheung was the Director of International Trade for the Port of Los Angeles – the busiest container port in North America, and was responsible for developing programs to increase trade through the Port of Los Angeles, and facilitate goods movement through the Southern California region.
Cheung currently sits on the Board of Advisors of UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA Extension, Coro Southern California and Sister Cities of Los Angeles, while also serving on the Los Angeles County Workforce Development Board. Cheung received his Bachelor’s degree in Psychobiology and his Master’s degree in Social Welfare from UCLA.
Jennifer Ferrara, Avanade
Jenn Ferrara is a leader in AI, responsible for Avanade’s global GTM strategy and activation, serving clients worldwide. She joined Avanade in 2012, starting in our Mergers & Acquisitions team. Over the past 13 years, Jenn has led the launch of our Advisory and Design Thinking practices, led our global automation business and most recently held the role of global Enterprise Strategy lead for Avanade from 2020-2023.
Jenn has worked closely with Avanade’s Chief AI Officer to help activate AI internally via the Center for AI. She works closely with Avanade C-suite, Accenture and Microsoft leadership, and our top clients to support the activation of an AI-first era.
Jenn has a bachelors degree from the University of Southern California (studying abroad in New Zealand) and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Washington. She lives in Gig Harbor (near Seattle) with her husband and 3 children.
More Speakers to be Announced Soon!
SGV Economic Forecast Report & Slide Deck
Follow this link for last year's SGV Economic Forecast Report.
Follow this link to download the Powerpoint slides from the event on March 27, 2024.
Photos
Here are a few photos from last year's event. (The slideshow may take a moment to load.)
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