2026 Manufacturing Outlook

Marc S. Robinson, Ph.D., managing partner, Arbalète LLC, is an economist and strategist with more than 30 years of experience advising leaders in multi-national companies, governments, and non-profit organizations. He spent most of his career as an internal consultant for General Motors. He also served in the White House on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and taught at UCLA and Stanford University. He and his colleague John Jullens publish the applied business strategy newsletter C-Suite.

Dan Cankora is a pricing economist and business consultant with Vendavo, a SaaS market leader in B2B pricing, selling and rebate solutions. Dan has worked in various aspects of pricing for over 15 years. He started his career as a field economist, responsible for helping to measure inflation for the federal government. Before joining the Vendavo team, Dan was a customer at a large, international B2B distributor. He has led pricing teams, developed pricing and sales enablement products, and has a passion for data visualization. Dan has an MBA from DePaul University and a BS in economics from Purdue University.

With more than 15 years of progressive international experience, Israel has worked in the B2B enterprise software industry, pharmaceutical and logistics verticals focusing on SaaS Sales, Business Development Corporate Finance and Supply Chain Management for Top Fortune 500 corporations. His key strengths are a global and multidisciplinary business background where he has succeeded driving business transformation initiatives. I’m able to effectively balance overall strategic objectives while being very detail oriented, pragmatic and solution focused. Israel has driven tangible success throughout his career by developing and innovating business optimization strategies and by designing and executing processes and tools that truly drive bottom line growth. Consistently recognized as a creative, dependable and supporting team player. Israel is a very approachable leader enabling him to be a trusted, reliable and loyal partner supporting and unblocking cross-functional organization efforts

Ahmed Abdelmeguid is a Senior Economist in Oxford Economics, Global Industry Service, working in conjunction with US based industry and macro economists to produce US Industry Forecasts. Before working at Oxford Economics, Ahmed worked for 6 years as an Economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Current Employment Statistics State & Area division. He holds a degree in Economics and International Relations from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Economics and Finance from American University.