Erik Martini arrived in Ecuador on August 17, 2023, to lead the U.S. Consulate General in Guayaquil. He previously served as the Deputy Director for Venezuelan Affairs in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in the Andean Affairs Office. Before this assignment, he was the Deputy Director in the Counterterrorism Bureau’s Office of South and Central Asia and the Near East, acting as Director from December to August 2019. Overseas, he served as the Arms Control Counselor in the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, Political and Economic Section Chief in Lahore, Pakistan, Deputy Chief of the Political and Economic Section in Yaounde, Cameroon, and Political Officer in Quito, Ecuador.

Prior to joining the U.S. Department of State, Martini was a commercial litigator for McGuire Woods LLP in its Baltimore, Maryland office. He obtained his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In between, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala and as a staff assistant to a Member of Congress in Washington, D.C. He is married to a U.S. Department of State civil servant and has two children.