Ambassador Steven R. Mann is a foreign policy professional with long experience in international energy, foreign investment, and politico-military affairs. His areas of focus are Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, and South Asia.He served in the United States diplomatic service for more than thirty years. As Ambassador to Turkmenistan, he supported US upstream investment in natural gas and oil and brokered business disputes in areas as diverse as telecommunications, farm equipment and consumer products. Following that posting, he was the senior US official promoting Caspian energy issues, working with private sector lenders and development banks to arrange the environmental approval and multibillion-dollar financing needed for the launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and South Caucasus (SCP) pipelines. His extensive political-military experience includes service in the Pentagon and mediating Eurasian conflicts, notably the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the Georgia and Moldova separatist conflicts. Ambassador Mann is a Distinguished Graduate of the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, DC.In 2009, he joined Exxon Mobil Corporation as a senior executive, where he provided strategic advice and analysis to the Management Committee and assisted business units in resource acquisition and value defense. Specific roles included providing strategic counsel to Kashagan production sharing agreement negotiators and leading a six-company team on public affairs strategy for the talks; advising corporation lawyers and outside counsel on Russia sanctions issues; acquiring geoscientific data and laying the groundwork for new country entry in areas from Belarus to Bangladesh; and presenting country-specific political and economic analyses to the CEO and senior executives.He writes and speaks on foreign affairs in America, Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Georgetown, Dartmouth, and Harvard Universities, and the National and Army War Colleges. He holds an A.B. degree from Oberlin College and M.A. degrees from Cornell University and from Columbia University, where he was a Fellow of the Harriman Institute. He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy, Chatham House, and the Royal United Services Institute, and a former board member of the Eurasia Foundation. His languages are Russian and German.