erik brand

Advisor, External Affairs + Stakeholder Relations

Erik’s professional experience spans international business, strategic communications, public affairs, and civil society.

Erik joined the firm in 2024 and served in a full-time business development role for two years. In May 2026, he stepped into an advisory role with the firm to support building out the Stewardverse Leadership Institute.

Before joining the firm, he was the founding director of the Corporate Program at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, DC, a nonprofit working alongside 18 former heads of state. The 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 Apple, BMW, Citigroup, Fitch, Merck, Mitsubishi, Roche, and Walmart, to name several.

Erik also published the highly regarded Latin America Advisor, a daily publication that he and his team grew into a respected brand reaching international business leaders, government officials, and scholars. In addition to corporations, the publication’s subscribers included the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. 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, IBM, Xerox, Columbia University, the Markle Foundation, the Lasker Foundation and other clients.

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

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 is working to complete a certification in Ecological Restoration at the University of Minnesota, with a focus on native prairies and pollinator habitats.