See my resume here.
I’m passionate about working collaboratively to understand challenges to equity and identify paths forward through the use of quantitative data, narrative, comparative analysis, and visualization.
My path to becoming a mixed-methods policy strategist started in Saint Paul, Minnesota. As a student in the Saint Paul Public Schools, I gained an initial understanding of how unevenly distributed opportunity is in this country and developed a passion for working towards goals that were bigger than myself.
At Middlebury College, I learned the value of studying social problems across space and time as a Geography and History major – and helped lead a campus movement, inspired by the work of scholar-in-residence Bill McKibben, to divest the college’s endowment from fossil fuels and reinvest it using environmental, social, and governance criteria.
After college, I gained hands-on experience with how local government works at the largest scale – first as a press officer for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and later as Communications Director for a progressive New York State Assemblyman in the Northwest Bronx.
As a research assistant (and later, policy analyst) at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program in Washington, DC, I learned to think systematically about the many pressing challenges cities and states face, from concentrated poverty and regional inequalities to fiscal pressures and race-to-the-bottom economic development strategies. Working with Brookings Vice President Amy Liu, I helped city and state leaders across the United States think about how to build more inclusive economies and close regional divides through more than 60 public presentations and dozens of essays.
I completed my Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning in May 2021. My graduate coursework included writing a master’s thesis on public safety spending in Minnesota in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, which can be seen here. Other projects I worked on include researching the workforce-related needs of immigrants in Northeast Iowa at the onset of Covid-19, proposing a worker cooperatives training agenda for the city of Saint Paul, and exploring the governance practices of an economic democracy collaborative in Boston.
In early 2021, after more than a decade on the east coast, my wife Raffie and I relocated to the Twin Cities.
Between 2021 and early 2024, I served as Director of Analytics at the Minnesota-based Center for Economic Inclusion, where I led the development and implementation of quantitative tools to support cross-sector efforts to build inclusive economies, including the Racial Equity Dividends Indices and the Indicators for an Inclusive Regional Economy. I was glad to share insights from these projects with public, private, and civic leaders at more than a dozen public events across Minnesota.
I now serve as Director, Research and Intelligence with Greater MSP, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region’s economic development partnership. In this role, I deliver insight to guide regional economic development strategies, including strengthening regional industries like medical device manufacturing and biotech, local and diverse procurement efforts by anchor institutions, and inclusive career pathways for early-career workers.
If you are interested in getting in touch, please do so! I can be reached at nathan (dot) arnosti (at) gmail.com or on LinkedIn or Twitter.
nathanarnosti.com 