Annual Breakfast Learning Event & Annual General Meeting (AGM)

Oriana Vaccarino is a Social Psychologist and Methodology Lead for KPMG’s Equity & Belonging Group and a Senior Manager in the People and Change Advisory Practice. She has over 12 years of experience focused on embedding equity, belonging, and human-centered design across processes and decisions. Her experience includes a focus on talent, psychological safety, leadership, mental health and wellbeing, stakeholder engagement, culture shifting, and impact measurement. 

Oriana has worked with clients in multiple languages, including English, French, and Spanish. Prior to joining KPMG, Oriana completed her Ph.D. in Applied Social Psychology and her Masters in Science in Mental Health. 

Over the course of her time in professional services, Oriana has worked with many organizations across various sectors and globally. Both her research and consulting work focuses on incorporating community voices into decision-making processes (e.g., policies, practices, strategies, programs), people with lived experience whose lives are impacted by these very decision-making processes such as newcomers and those experiencing mental health issues.

Michael Apata is a Senior Economist with the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics, Department of Finance, Government of Manitoba. He is responsible for the strategic planning

 and management of the Manitoba macroeconomic statistics including economic information development and related analytical consulting programs such as the Economic and Tax Revenue Impact Assessment services of government economic development initiatives. Finally, Michael plays a lead role as the liaison with the federal and provincial governments to deal with data quality issues that directly affect the provincial and territorial economic information.

Tyler Kroeker is a senior economist within the Chief Administrative Office at the City of Winnipeg. Tyler conducts Economic Impacts Analysis, Financial Modeling and Forecasting, Casual Inference, Policy Analysis, and Geospatial Analysis. He communicates these results in papers and presentations on behalf of the City of Winnipeg. He holds a Masters in Economic Policy from McMaster University and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Manitoba.

Kate Fenske is the CEO of Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, where she leads the organization’s activities to promote, care and advocate for a vibrant and inclusive downtown where business thrives and people are drawn to work, live, shop and explore.
In 2021, Kate led the development of the Downtown Recovery Strategy, bringing together nearly a dozen organizations to work collaboratively on an innovative and intensive coordinated action and investment plan to kick-start recovery post-pandemic, securing $50 Million in funding.Kate currently serves on the Boards of the International Downtown Association (IDA) and the Downtown Community Safety Partnership (DCSP).