2004 Business Forecast

The Tenth Annual Business Forecast was held on January 30, 2004. The luncheon attracted 980 business professionals.

The video of the 2004 Business Forecast is available online for viewing. Choose your preferred video format below.
[ video presentation ]

The Panelists

Tom Schoewe is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. He was appointed Wal-Mart executive vice president and chief financial officer in January 2000. He is responsible for treasury; tax; accounting and control; business planning and analysis; internal auditing; insurance and benefits management; the information systems division; risk management and global security; aviation; and several other key areas of the company. Prior to joining Wal-Mart, Schoewe served as senior vice president and chief financial officer for Black and Decker Corporation. Schoewe graduated from Loyola University of Chicago with a B.B.A. in finance and attended the University of Chicago's executive M.B.A. program.

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Gary Wright is corporate demographer and CMK (Consumer and Market Knowledge) leader of the Global Trends Group, The Procter & Gamble Company. In this role, he provides advice and develops processes to ensure that company strategies build on the best possible thinking about the future of global consumers and markets. Prior to joining P&G in 1990, Wright was a senior manager for National Decision Systems, where he conducted segmentation studies for consumer packaged goods clients. He has also worked for Claritas Corporation and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. In 1999, he coauthored "American Consumers in 2025: Three Scenarios" in the Journal of Advertising Research. Wright holds a B.A. in sociology from Reed College and an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland.

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Liz Ann Sonders is chief investment strategist, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. Sonders joined U.S. Trust, a division of Charles Schwab, in June 1999 as a managing director and member of its Investment Policy Committee. She holds a range of investment strategy and policy responsibilities from market analysis to economic strategy focused on the individual investor as well as the corporate and institutional investment arena. Prior to joining U.S. Trust, she was at Avatar Associates. She is a regular panelist on "Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street" on CNBC and other CNBC programs as well as on CBS, CNN, "Fox News With Neil Cavuto," and Bloomberg TV and Radio. Recently, Sonders has been invited several times to meet with the administration to advise on the economy. She received a B.A. in economics and political science from the University of Delaware in 1986 and an M.B.A. in finance from Fordham University in 1990.

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Jeff Collins is director of the Walton College's Center for Business and Economic Research and an assistant professor of economics. Collins oversees applied economic research as part of the College's outreach mission. Recent studies have been conducted for Mercury Energy, Inc., Beverly Enterprises, Inc., and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This summer, Collins directed a study of projected population change across all 75 Arkansas counties, the state MSAs and economic development regions. This summer, the Center for Business and Economic Research initiated the Quarterly Business Analysis forecast breakfast. He has published in scholarly and applied journals and been interviewed by international, national and local media. He has testified before state legislative committees on aging and finance. Collins earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Tennessee.