International Offices

Fabio Yukio Yamada
Fabio Yamada is the Managing Director of Georgia’s Brazil Office. Fabio’s responsibilities are to facilitate business in Brazil for Georgia companies (including the search for agents or distributors), to attract Brazilian companies interested in opening subsidiaries in Georgia, and to promote Georgia tourism amongst travel operators in Brazil. Since 2001, Fabio has been focusing on international trade.

Prior to his current position, Fabio worked for more than 20 years as an executive with international companies in positions of sales, marketing, logistics and finance. Chemical Bank, Johnson & Johnson, Du Pont, 3M and Assa Abloy are some of the companies Fabio has worked with. His last assignment was as Sales and Marketing Director for Latin America.

Fabio, a native of Brazil, holds an MBA in International Marketing from Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada), pursued post graduate work in finance and business (Brazil and Japan), and earned a degree in engineering. He is fluent in Portuguese and English, has command of Spanish and French, and a sound knowledge of Japanese and German.

Maria Arbulu
Maria A. Arbulu serves as the director of the state’s Canada office and has been with the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) since 1999. She has spent the last 20 years involved in assisting American and foreign companies find partners and buyers in the Canadian market. Prior to establishing her own consulting firm in Canada, Ms. Arbulu was affiliated with the State of Michigan working for both the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce as a Trade Specialist. In addition to working with the state entities developing their trade promotion programs, Ms. Arbulu spent four years in direct sales both in service and product sales.

Ms. Arbulu holds a BA from Oberlin College in Ohio and a Masters Business degree from the American Graduate School of International Management in Arizona. She speaks English and Spanish.

Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson is the Managing Director of Georgia’s Chile Office, one of the several International Offices that represent the Georgia Department of Economic Development in key markets worldwide. The Chile Office is responsible for looking for business opportunities for Georgia companies in Chile, providing them with export assistance, attracting Chilean investment into Georgia, and promoting tourism into the State.

Mr. Wilson joined the Chile Office in 2005. For over five years previous to this he served as trade representative in Chile for other U.S. states and U.S. trade organizations, and headed his company’s (GLS International) Consulting Division.

Throughout his career of more than 35 years Mr. Wilson has acquired extensive experience in business management, finance, international trade, and business consulting services. He has served as CEO of an IT services company and as CFO of several multinational companies, including Sodexho, the Chiquita Group and Frupac International Corporation. His career experience includes working in countries such as the Netherlands, the US and Chile. He is fluent in English and Spanish, and has a good command of German and French.

Wilson, a native of Chile, holds a Civil Engineering degree from the Catholic University of Chile and an MBA degree from Adolfo Ibañez University.

Lindsay Liu
Lindsay Liu joined the Georgia Department of Economic Development team in March 2008 as the Managing Director of Beijing Georgia Business Advisory Center Company Ltd. The center is the newest of the state's 10 international offices and will be formally opened by Governor Sonny Perdue on April 2, 2008.

Ms. Liu brings a wealth of business connections to her new position. In her prior position as account manager at Fleishman-Hillard, one of the world's leading PR firms, Ms. Liu assisted numerous clients develop business relationships with CEOs and their companies in China. Her practice focused on public affairs, public policies and regulations, government relationships and corporate communications. She also established strong relationships with China’s key business media as well as mass media.

Ms. Liu’s previous management experience includes seven years at a premium hotel chain, the Shangri-La group. Before joining Fleishman-Hillard, she led a team of fourteen employees in the Horizon Club at the Kerry Centre Hotel Beijing.

Ms. Liu holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Guangxi Normal University, where she majored in English. She is fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese.

Antje Abshoff
Antje Abshoff is the Managing Director of Georgia’s Europe Office located in Munich, Germany. Her responsibilities are to promote economic development within Georgia by attracting new European corporate investment to the state, to support existing European investors in their Georgia expansion plans, and to oversee trade and tourism initiatives between Georgia and Europe.

Prior to her current position, Antje served as Deputy Director of the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Brussels Office and, in 2001, opened Georgia’s second European office, in Munich. Antje has also worked as Assistant Marketing Director for the German-American Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, where she was responsible for consulting German companies in all aspects of entering or expanding in the U.S. market.

Antje regularly represents Georgia as guest speaker at prestigious U.S. investment conferences hosted by different German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Roedl & Partner in Germany, and other organizations. She also regularly speaks at and coordinates corporate investment events throughout Europe on behalf of the Council for American States in Europe, an organization comprised of nearly 20 official U.S. states’ representative offices in Europe, and offers guest lectures at a number of universities.

Antje developed an educational background in hotel and restaurant management in Germany. She then attended Cornell University in New York and the University of Georgia, from which she graduated summa cum laude with a BBA in International Business. She is a native of Hamm, Germany, and speaks German, English, and French.

Yumiko Nakazono
Ms. Nakazono joined the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) in 1989 as a project manager in its Tokyo office, responsible for investment recruitment and public relations. She was named to her present position of managing director in 1994, with oversight responsibilities for the Japan Office’s investment recruitment, trade, and tourism promotion activities. When she joined the department in 1989 there were, according to GDEcD statistics, 276 Japanese companies located in Georgia. By 2007 that number had increased to about 350, with more than 30,000 employees hired by those companies in Georgia.

Before joining GDEcD, Ms. Nakazono was an assistant to the managing director of Fuji Xerox Company's document system division. She graduated from Kagoshima University (one of the national universities in Japan) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and American literature and linguistics. She is fluent in English and Japanese.

Peter A. Underwood
Peter Underwood serves as the Managing Director of Georgia’s Korea Office. He is focused on attracting Korean investment and tourism into Georgia as well as promoting Georgia exports to Korea. Established in 1985, the Korea Office has assisted Korean investors such as Kia Motors, SKC, LG Chem, and a host of small and mid-sized companies to establish operations in Georgia.

Peter is a senior partner in IRC Limited, a business development consultancy that specializes in supporting Western companies to be successful in Korea. Prior to joining IRC, Peter implemented executive language development programs at major companies first in Korea and later in Japan.

Peter has traveled extensively, mostly in Asia, and enjoys sports. He is fluent in English and Korean.

Caroline Vérut
Ms. Vérut has actively supported the efforts of American companies wishing to enter the Mexican market for 20 years. After graduating with a degree in economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México she worked for the Mexican Ministry of Finance and Bank of America. She then joined the U.S. Commercial Service in Mexico as market research manager. She co-created Select, a prestigious IT consulting firm and later founded a consulting firm to support foreign firms in their efforts to obtain information on and to enter the Mexican market.

Ms. Vérut is ideally suited to provide the services required by Georgia firms wishing to explore the large diversity of Mexican markets. She has strong theoretical and practical skills in finance, economics, marketing, research and interviewing, an in-depth knowledge of government agencies, international organizations and private firms, diverse language capabilities, and vast experience in public relations. She also offers a solid trade development and promotion background, ample experience in the organization of trade missions and seminars, trade show participation, market research, business facilitation and counseling, and business partner development. Additionally, she has extensive knowledge of Mexican and U.S. business cultures and environments.

She is fluent in Spanish, English, French and German.

Sherwin Pomerantz
Sherwin Pomerantz is a former Vice-President of Luz Industries Israel Ltd., developers of 450mw of solar electric generating power in Southern California, with senior management responsibilities in policy development, public relations, administration, international relations and operations. Formerly President of Controls for Industry Inc. in Chicago, he graduated with engineering degrees from NYU (BS-Industrial Engineering) and the University of Illinois (MS-Mechanical Engineering) and received advanced MBA education at Northwestern University.

Mr. Pomerantz founded E.D.I. eighteen years ago along with three other partners and they have been involved in economic development work ever since. The company functions as consultants to Israel's Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor's Investment Promotion Center, and is responsible for the conception and preparation of much of their English language publicity material. E.D.I. also represents the trade interests, in the Middle East, of a number of U.S. states, including Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania and maintains offices in Amman (Jordan) and Istanbul (Turkey) as well. The company also operates as the Israeli Liaison Office of California’s Merage Foundation for US-Israel Trade and represents the Israeli interests of LARTA, the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance as well as operating as the “arranger” for Toronto Dominion Bank’s TD Security Division out of Singapore guaranteeing EX-IM loans for local purchasers of US made capital equipment.

A 24-year resident of Israel, Mr. Pomerantz has been both Jerusalem Regional Chairperson and National President of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel. He is a founding director and now Chairperson of the American State Offices Association, the umbrella group for the 12 US state offices in Israel. A member of the Board of Directors and Management Committees of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) in Tel Aviv, the Israel Life Sciences Industries Association, and the Committee for the Economic Growth of Israel, he has been involved in leadership positions in many other community activities in Israel. He also serves as President of Beit Knesset Ohel Nehama, a 180-family modern Orthodox congregation in Jerusalem’s Katamon-Talbieh neighborhood. His opinion pieces appear with some frequency in the Jerusalem Post.

During his 20 years in Chicago prior to moving to Israel, he served as President of the Board of Jewish Education of Metro Chicago, Regional President of the United Synagogue of America and in other community leadership positions.

Mr. Pomerantz is married to the former Rishona Itzkowitz, and, between them, they have three children: Debi, age 41, married with 4 children and living in Los Angeles; Aari, aged 33, a lawyer with the New York firm of Cleary Gottlieb et al; and Sarah, 31, married with 5 children and living in Beitar Illit, Israel.

Mike Harling
In July 2002 Mike Harling joined the Georgia Department of Economic Development team as Managing Director of the state’s United Kingdom and Ireland Office. He has over twenty-five years experience in international business and has lived and worked in a number of countries in Europe.

His background includes seventeen years of investment promotion experience and ten years in international sales, marketing and trade promotion roles within the automotive, aerospace, and plastics sectors.

This latter experience includes five years managing a German engineering business in the automotive sector.

Mr Harling also spent eight years at Locate in Kent, the investment promotion agency for the County of Kent, which at the time was the largest and most influential agency in its field in southern England. He was in charge of worldwide foreign direct investment at the agency, including the management of five international offices.

Mr. Harling has studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Tours in western France. He holds a BSc Joint Honours degree from the University of Salford, England. He speaks English, French and German. He has also founded a consulting firm that assists regional and national authorities and investment promotion agencies in developing their international investment promotion and trade programs, as well as advising companies on their international location strategies.