Nela Richardson joined ADP as chief economist in 2020, where she leads economic research and is head of the ADP Research Institute. 

Nela regularly provides insight into the economy, real estate trends, and capital markets to policymakers and is a regular contributor to “Marketplace” on public radio. She has made appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business, and CNN, and is frequently quoted by Yahoo Finance, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The New York Times, and other national and local publications.

Nela serves on the foundation boards for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association for Business Economics.  She is a member of the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee and the Conference of Business Economists.

Prior to joining ADP, she was a principal and investment strategist at Edward Jones Investments. In that role, Nela analyzed and interpreted economic trends and financial market conditions and recommended investment strategies.  

She is the former chief economist at Redfin Corp., a real estate brokerage and technology company, where she led a team of data scientists, economists, and writers to track trends in the housing market. 

Nela also served as a senior economist for Bloomberg L.P., covering housing and financial markets, and has held research positions at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, and Freddie Mac. She was an adjunct finance professor at the Carey School of Business at John Hopkins University.

Nela earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Maryland-College Park with concentrations in financial economics, international finance, and economic development. She obtained a master’s degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in Bloomington, where she was a triple major in mathematics, economics, and philosophy.