Economist

About the role

Nakupuna Companies is looking for an Economist to support the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN RD&A) at the Pentagon. This position is 100% on-site. The ideal candidate is detail oriented, excels at multi-tasking in a fast-paced environment, and is a top-notch communicator. The ideal candidate is a detail-oriented self-starter with significant DoW and economic analysis experience in support of high-level officials, to include in-depth familiarity with macroeconomic trends and microeconomic behaviors.

Responsibilities

The following reflects management's definition of essential functions for this job but does not restrict the tasks that may be assigned. Management may assign additional duties and responsibilities to this job at any time due to reasonable accommodation or other reasons.

• Serves as the team's lead subject matter expert on both macroeconomic trends and microeconomic behaviors. This individual is responsible for monitoring the global economic landscape, identifying over-the-horizon threats through quantitative analysis, and providing deep, data-driven context on everything from international policy down to firm-level incentives for senior leadership and the case-focused analysts.
• Monitors and analyzes global economic indicators, including Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) flows, to identify key trends by country of origin, industry sector, and strategic importance.
• Analyzes aggregated internal case data and open-source M&A research to produce the team's authoritative "Quarterly Economic Threat & Trend Report."
• Applies microeconomic principles to conduct "Sector Health Assessments," quantifying risks such as market concentration, anti-competitive behavior, and the specific incentives driving firm-level decisions.
• Develops firm-centric risk profiles, evaluating corporate structures, financial health, and potential for undue influence based on an understanding of their unique market position and business strategy.
• Quantify the health of key market sectors with DON equity, assessing risks like over-leveraging, lack of competition, or adversarial market manipulation.
• Each quarter, select one high-interest industrial sector (e.g., hypersonics, unmanned systems) and conduct a quantitative "Sector Health Assessment."
• Develops and maintains a "Watchlist" of at-risk technologies by modeling how both macro trends and micro-level competitive dynamics could create future vulnerabilities.
• Authors strategic "Economic Deep Dive" reports on complex topics that integrate both macro policy and micro behavioral analysis.
• Develop predictive models to forecast how emerging economic trends will impact the defense industrial base and future acquisition programs.