Our Team

William B. Brown is the principal of his small consulting firm, Northeast Asia Economics and Intelligence, Advisory LLC (NAEIA.com), and is a professor at the University of Maryland’s Global Campus, teaching a course on Contemporary China. He continues to do contracting work for the federal government from which he is retired and participates in professional panels on North Korea in the Washington area. He writes and speaks often on North Korean economic issues for Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.

His most recent government service was as Senior Advisor to the National Intelligence Manager for East Asia in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and for the North Korea Mission Manager. His career as an economist and East Asia specialist has included positions in the analytical arm of CIA, Commerce Department’s Chief Economist’s Office, and the National Intelligence Council where he served as Senior Research Fellow for East Asia and as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Economics. Much of his research has been focused on the North Korean and Chinese economies.

His career has included management work for Virginia’s Department of World Trade in Norfolk and he served as Senior Research Officer and North Korea Referent in the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.  He also teaches as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, George Washington University and for nearly twenty years taught in George Mason University’s Graduate School of Public Policy.

Mr. Brown is a recipient of the Republic of Korea’s Samil National Security medal for his work on North Korea.  He received an M.A. in Economics and Chinese studies, and most coursework for the Ph.D., from Washington University in St. Louis and his B.A. in International Studies from Rhodes College in Memphis. He was raised in Kwangju, Korea by Presbyterian missionary parents who themselves were born and raised in China and Korea, respectively. He and his wife live in Herndon, Virginia and have four grown children.