Economic Systems Foresight Lead

Research & Policy Center

CFA Institute's Research & Policy Center has established a Macro Systems & Foresight function to help the investment profession navigate a future shaped by disruption and uncertainty.

Foresight is not forecasting. Rather than predicting a single outcome, the team examines material structural changes already reshaping finance while developing multiple plausible futures across 5-, 10-, and 20-plus-year horizons. It maps the mechanisms through which change may propagate and considers what alternative trajectories could mean for finance. That work helps frame RPC’s research, standards, advocacy, and thought leadership priorities and supports continued readiness as external conditions evolve.

As the team's senior economic specialist, you'll translate major structural disruptions such as artificial intelligence, private markets, geopolitical fragmentation, changing capital formation, regulatory shifts and institutional redesign into coherent economic and macro-financial interpretations of how global finance, markets and investment practice may evolve.

This is not a forecasting or market-commentary role. It focuses on structural change: the pathways, regime shifts, transmission mechanisms, and second- and third-order effects that could reshape finance and investment practice over time. A core purpose of the role is internal enablement, helping RPC teams challenge assumptions, stress-test scenarios and positions, and assess whether existing work remains relevant as structural conditions change.

The role contributes specialist economic expertise while ownership of broader strategy and substantive work remains with the relevant functional leaders.

This is a senior individual-contributor role reporting to the Head, Macro Systems & Foresight and working as part of a small, multidisciplinary team of specialists.

What you'll do

• Analyze the economic and macro-financial implications of major structural disruptions, prioritizing material changes already reshaping finance while maintaining disciplined awareness of longer-horizon developments.

• Map the transmission mechanisms through which structural forces affect capital flows, growth, labor markets, inflation, financial conditions, market structure, institutions, and investment practice.

• Translate structural change into clear economic questions, hypotheses, critical uncertainties, regime logics, and conditional pathways that inform shared foresight priorities and subsequent RPC investigation.

• Contribute economic expertise to scenario development and stress-testing, defining relevant drivers, constraints, second- and third-order effects, thresholds, and conditions under which alternative economic trajectories may emerge.

• Use macroeconomic, financial, capital-flow, policy, and cross-country evidence to substantiate, challenge, and update structural assumptions

• Partner with RPC’s research, standards, advocacy, and other functional teams to stress-test existing work, including economic assumptions embedded in investment theory and practice, where structural change may affect its continued relevance or fitness for purpose.

• Support RPC’s living-readiness discipline by identifying material economic developments or evidence that should trigger reassessment of existing assumptions, positions, or assets.

• Produce timely economic landscape assessments, executive briefings, contributions to broader foresight outputs, and deeper structural analysis, and develop external thought leadership that translates economic change into accessible, decision-relevant implications for finance and investment practice.

• Engage economists, market practitioners, policymakers, academics, and other relevant experts to challenge assumptions, incorporate diverse evidence, and strengthen the team’s economic analysis.

• Respond to priority questions from the Head, Macro Systems & Foresight and RPC functional leaders where economic expertise is needed to assess structural developments, challenge assumptions, or inform time-sensitive decisions.

What you'll bring

• Deep expertise in macroeconomics, political economy, economic systems analysis or a closely related field.

• A track record of analysing structural economic change, rather than relying primarily on cyclical or short-term forecasting.

• A strong understanding of how economic systems interact with financial markets, institutions, capital allocation, and investment practice.

• A strong understanding of economic transmission mechanisms and the ability to construct coherent pathways, regime logics, and conditional interpretations under uncertainty.

• Quantitative fluency and the ability to work critically with macroeconomic, financial, capital-flow and cross-country data.

• Strong systems thinking, with the ability to trace how economic change interacts with and transmits through technological, geopolitical, regulatory, market, and institutional systems, investment practice, and the profession, while maintaining a system-level perspective.

• The ability to explain complex economic dynamics clearly to non-specialist and senior audiences.

• Comfort operating across long time horizons and with incomplete evidence, together with sound empirical judgment about what the available evidence supports and what remains hypothesis or uncertainty.

• A strong, grounded understanding of how the financial system and investment industry operate as a whole, not just one segment of them.

• Exceptional writing and communication skills, with a track record of substantive analysis or thought leadership for sophisticated audiences.

• A collaborative style, strong stakeholder-management skills, and the ability to influence without authority, engage constructively with senior internal and external stakeholders, contribute specialist expertise to a multidisciplinary team, and publish in an institutional voice.

• Intellectual independence, curiosity, and disciplined judgment, including comfort challenging prevailing economic assumptions where the evidence warrants it. Strategic foresight experience is a plus but not required.

This position may be based in eligible jurisdictions in the United States or United Kingdom.

At CFA Institute, we are committed to transparency and equity in our hiring process. In compliance with wage transparency laws in many of the jurisdictions in which we recruit, we provide the following information regarding compensation for this position: Expected salary range: $126,000 - $170,000 / £90,000 - £111,000 per year. All salary ranges are subject to adjustment based on experience, education, and other factors relevant to the position including location. Additional benefits include eligibility for an annual incentive bonus, a 12% employer contribution to a 401(k) or pension plan, and a comprehensive medical benefits package.

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We offer a comprehensive benefits package to support our employees, including health coverage, generous time off, competitive retirement plans, flexible work options, and wellbeing and development programs. You can learn more on our careers site: Working at CFA Institute | Comprehensive Benefits

About CFA Institute

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