Samantha Kappagoda was honored by the Girl Scouts of Greater New York (GSGNY) at their 21st Annual Women of Distinction Awards on October 29, 2013 at Cipriani in New York City. The Women of Distinction honorees were selected for outstanding achievement and leadership, serving as role models for young women and girls, and advancing the Girl Scouts’ mission of building girls with courage, confidence and character. Samantha Kappagoda was selected for her activities in the areas of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) during the course of her career.
Samantha Kappagoda is Chief Economist and Co-Founder of Risk Economics, a New York City based advisory firm that provides advisory services and research and development of rigorous analytics applied to large-scale, real-world modeling and surveillance for geopolitics and socioeconomics involving population, demographics and macroeconomics. Samantha Kappagoda’s areas of expertise include econometric time-series and longitudinal analyses of consumer behavior, labor supply, wealth and income distribution, housing, population and immigration, political risk and international trade, resource allocation, environment, health, aging and retirement, as well as currency, commodity and capital markets activity. She also co-advises research activities at RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics @ Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and is Visiting Scholar at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University (NYU).
Previously, Samantha Kappagoda was Senior Economist at Caxton Associates LP, a hedge fund established in 1983, investing in global fixed income, currencies, commodities and equities. She was a key member of Caxton Global, the firm’s flagship global macro fund, which, at its peak, had approximately $15 billion of assets under management. Samantha Kappagoda’s macroeconomic and demographic analytics and development of proprietary econometric models of markets and the global economy guided the firm’s senior decision makers during her 13 year tenure.