College of Business and Economic Development
Economic Outlook Forum
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The Economic Outlook Forum is an annual event where experts in areas of banking, finance, and academia discuss economic trends and forecasts for the upcoming year. The event is hosted by the The University of Southern Mississippi, College of Business and Economic Development and sponsored by The First.
This year, the event will be held on Thursday, February 27, 2025, from 11:00-1:00pm in the Trent Lott National Center on the USM Hattiesburg campus.
If you have any questions, please call 601.266.4659.
2025 Speakers
Matt Orton, CFA
Senior Vice President, Head of Advisory Solutions and Market Strategy, Raymond James
Investment Management
Matt Orton serves as Senior Vice President, Head of Advisory Solutions and Market Strategy, overseeing Raymond James Investment Management’s client portfolio managers, portfolio specialists, RFP group, and Strategic Accounts channel. In this capacity, he helps align firm resources to best serve the firm’s most sophisticated clients. Orton is also responsible for developing and delivering market commentary, strategy, and analysis, appearing on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Yahoo! Finance, among others. He has been quoted in Barron’s, Bloomberg News, Investments & Pensions Europe, and other financial news publications.
Orton has 14 years of investment experience and joined Raymond James Investment Management from BNP Paribas in New York where he was a Vice President in the Global Equity & Commodity Derivatives group, focusing on hedge fund and asset manager structuring and sales. Prior to that, Orton worked for Goldman Sachs Asset Management within the Quantitative Investment Strategies team where he focused on volatility research.
He earned a Master’s of Business Administration with a concentration in Capital Markets and Asset Management from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University. He is a CFA charterholder.
Bill Cork
Executive Director and Chief Economic Development Officer, Mississippi Development
Authority
Bill Cork has been a leader in economic development and urban planning for more than 30 years and boasts extensive experience in the areas of industrial park development; port, airport and short line railroad leadership; regional planning; distressed asset redevelopment; energy; and workforce development.
In his current role, he leads a cabinet-level agency of the State of Mississippi with an annual budget of approximately $400 million and more than 150 professionals supporting international trade and development, domestic and international recruitment, tourism, energy, small and minority business, community development incentives, disaster recovery, film and television, welcome home programs for retirees and expatriates, marketing and research and more. Since 2020, in both his current and previous role as MDA deputy director, Bill has been responsible for leading the strategy and negotiations for more than $21 billion in new capital investments and approximately 19,000 jobs, including three of the largest projects in the state’s history: Amazon Web Services, Amplify Cell Technologies and Aluminum Dynamics.
Before arriving at MDA, Bill led the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where he drove economic development success at Stennis International Airport, Port Bienville Industrial Park’s maritime port and the Port Bienville Railroad. Additionally, he founded Cork Consulting Group, a real estate, urban planning, and public finance consulting firm, and he was CEO of the Tex Americas Center near Texarkana, Texas – a 13,000-acre mixed-use and industrial park development. Bill is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and earned a Master of Urban and Regional Planning Degree from the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign. He is married to his wife of 39 years, Nina Cork. They have four children and six grandchildren.
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