erik brand

Advisor, External Affairs + Stakeholder Relations

Erik works at the intersection of international business, strategic communications, public affairs, and civil society.

He was the founding director of the Corporate Program at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, an organization consistently ranked in the top 2 percent of U.S. think tanks during his tenure. His work engaged hundreds of the world’s best-known and most innovative companies in the organization’s mission, including Amgen, Apple, BMW, Citigroup, Fitch, Merck, Mitsubishi, Roche, and Walmart, to name several.

Erik was also the publisher of the highly regarded Latin America Advisor, a daily publication that he, alongside an exceptional team of editors and reporters, grew into a respected brand reaching high-level international business leaders, government officials, and scholars. In addition to corporations, its subscribers included the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Departments of Defense, Energy, and State, government agencies of Canada, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the libraries at Baylor, Berkeley, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Notre Dame and Villanova, among other universities.

Earlier in his career, Erik worked in New York City with the International Advisory Group, a boutique strategic communications and public affairs consulting firm, where he helped serve clients including AT&T, Gartner, IBM, Xerox, Columbia University, the Markle Foundation, Lasker Foundation and others.

He has been twice appointed to the Governor of the State of Minnesota’s Trade Policy Advisory Council and served as an officer and member of several nonprofit boards of directors at both the local and international levels.

Born and raised in rural Minnesota, Erik holds a B.A. degree with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors from Wheaton College in Massachusetts. He has completed courses toward master’s degrees at the University of Maryland in international management and the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

A lifelong learner, Erik recently started courses toward a professional certification in Ecological Restoration at the University of Minnesota, with a focus on native prairies and pollinator habitats. He and his wife maintain a small prairie restoration on their property that attracts a surprising array of wildlife. Together they raised twin daughters (one a Badger at the University of Wisconsin, the other a Gopher at the University of Minnesota). Their family enjoys traveling together whenever busy schedules allow.