Pros
I purposely waited a while so that I could submit a review with a cool head. Bottom line up front: Navanti, at its best, has the potential to be a young, creative company bringing a lot of value to government clients. 1) Unique local researcher model, which offers a chance to tell novel stories from denied areas. I don't think Navanti's strength is data analytics, like they're trying to brand themselves. I think their strength is in disseminating unheard and overlooked local knowledge from places like Syria, northeast Nigeria, Libya, Somalia, migrant communities in eastern Europe and more. 2) As other people have said here, talented employees. 3) Minimal bureaucracy. If you have a creative idea, you usually had at least some space to try it out in products. People were largely willing to share knowledge and collaborate with each other. 4) Familial atmosphere. This may have changed since I left but for the most part, Navanti felt like you belonged to a community. There were frequent social events - with both managers and employees - and I feel like I made lifelong friends during my time there. 5) Pretty decent pay. I got paid almost 70k + benefits, with a grad degree and some experience. If you're not a full-time employee, this could make a great part-time job as long as you're comfortable with losing your job if/when the time comes.
Cons
1) Minimal job security. Once they lost one of their two big contracts, stuff hit the fan. I'm still not clear what led to the contract loss - I have an inkling that the client relationship was mismanaged, but it could just be bad luck. Either way, it destabilized the company deeply, and Navanti has yet to recover. 2) A CEO who rewards sycophants. Some of the more obnoxious analysts have now managed to rise to middle management positions, fueling their power trips, solely by sucking up to the CEO. 3) An undercurrent of racist and sexist behavior. Female analysts were almost never given management roles, and may have systematically been paid less. Linguists, even when bright and talented, had no advancement potential. 4) Not enough care taken to manage the risk that local researchers take. To this day, I have no idea what Navanti's policies would be if a local researcher were to run into problems while performing work for Navanti.