Eric Paul Luhmann
Director of Market Development for CIS and Europe,
and Head of Representation in Ukraine, Amsted Rail Company, Inc.
Eric Luhmann has nearly thirty years of international finance, marketing and business development experience with specialized concentration on program management in Ukraine, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Europe.
Luhmann currently serves as Head of Representation in Ukraine on behalf of Amsted Rail Company, Inc., a leading U.S. supplier of railway products and technologies. On a global scale, Amsted Rail produces castings, wheels, axles, bearings, springs, brakes and end-of-car products.
In September 2012, Luhmann also assumed an additional management role for Europe for which he is now responsible for Amsted Rail’s strategic development of the market. While based in Moscow, Russia, from November 2004 to August 2007, he oversaw operational, financial and administrative activities for a U.S. consulting company (acquired by Amsted Rail in May 2006) specializing in the transportation and oil/gas sectors. He coordinated the integration of the companies after the acquisition and eventually moved to Kyiv in 2007 as Amsted Rail’s representative.
While working for Amsted Rail, Luhmann also supports the interests of The Greenbrier Companies, Inc., as it explores investment opportunities in the Eurasian market. A global partner to Amsted Rail, Greenbrier is a leading international supplier of equipment and services to freight rail transportation markets, including the production of freight rail cars in North America, South America and Europe.
From 1999-2004, Luhmann was the Program Manager for the Ukrainian Land and Resource Management Center (ULRMC) project in Kyiv, Ukraine. In addition to serving in this official capacity for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-sponsored initiative, Luhmann also served as Chief Financial Officer of the Ukrainian legal entity and as a member of the ULRMC Board of Directors.
ULRMC is still a Center of Excellence in Information Technologies focusing on the application of remote sensing, geographic information system (GIS) and internet technologies to agribusiness, ecological, emergency preparedness, health, natural resource and other issues. At the time, Luhmann was Director of International Programs for the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM), later renamed as Altarum Institute, which had Cooperative Agreements with USAID/Kyiv to implement the ULRMC project.
Prior to joining ERIM / ULRMC, Mr. Luhmann was the Senior Program Officer, Private Sector, for the Eurasia Foundation, a privately-managed grant making organization dedicated to funding programs that built democratic and free market institutions in the CIS. He worked out of Washington, D.C.
Luhmann lived and worked in Moscow, Russia, between April 1994 and September 1998. During this time, he served for two and one-half years as the official Representative to the CIS for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a U.S. government agency that provides financing and political risk insurance in some 140 nations. He worked out of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
Additionally, he provided representational, project development, market-entry strategy, financial counselling, and risk mitigation services to several western companies considering investments in the CIS and throughout Central Europe. Prior to moving to Moscow, Luhmann managed several marketing programs for OPIC out of its Washington, D.C., headquarters. Luhmann joined OPIC in 1988 after completing his undergraduate studies.
Luhmann holds a Master of Business Administration Degree from the University of Maryland, as well as a B.S. Degree in Business Administration – International, and a B.A. Degree in French from Minnesota State University, Mankato. He is fluent in Russian. Living in Kyiv, Ukraine, Luhmann is married with two sons.