NOLHGA’s 2025 Legal Seminar

Nathan Houdek has served as Commissioner of Insurance for the State of Wisconsin since his appointment by Governor Tony Evers in January 2022. He previously served as Deputy Commissioner of Insurance for three years under former Commissioner Mark Afable.

Commissioner Houdek serves as the state’s chief regulator of insurance and oversees the operations of the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. He is also Vice Chair of the state Group Insurance Board and a Board member of the Wisconsin Insurance Security Fund, the state’s guaranty fund.

As a member of the NAIC, Commissioner Houdek currently serves as Chair of the Financial Condition (E) Committee and as a member of the Life Insurance and Annuities (A) Committee, the International Insurance Relations (G) Committee, and various task forces and working groups. He is also Vice Chair of the Governance Committee of the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission.

Having spent over 20 years working in state legislative and regulatory affairs, Commissioner Houdek has extensive experience finding solutions to complex public policy and regulatory challenges across all lines of insurance. He has held several senior-level roles in the public and private sectors, including serving as a principal at one of Wisconsin’s largest public affairs and business consulting firms and as Chief of Staff to a former minority leader in the Wisconsin State Senate.

Commissioner Houdek grew up in northern Wisconsin and earned his BA and MBA degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Doug Ommen was appointed by Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as Insurance Commissioner in January 2017, after serving as Interim Commissioner since December 2016. Ommen has a strong and varied public service background. His dedication and desire to serve the public began in seeking justice for victims of fraud in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, where as an Assistant Attorney General and then as Chief Counsel, he led the fight to protect consumers over the course of three decades.

Ommen served as Deputy Insurance Commissioner at the Iowa Insurance Division from August 2013 to December 2016. He also served in the Missouri Department of Insurance during 2005–2008, and as Missouri’s Insurance Director, he was instrumental for several key regulatory reforms.

Ommen obtained his law degree in 1985 from the Saint Louis University School of Law, and he is licensed to practice law in both Iowa and Missouri. Ommen and his wife, Sharon, have two married children and seven grandchildren.

In 2023, a reorganization of Iowa’s state agencies led to the creation of the Department of Insurance & Financial Services. Ommen has served as Director since the department's inception, managing the successful transition into a reorganized department. He oversees the coordination of the department’s regulatory efforts and also prioritizes the department’s educational outreach efforts to the public on insurance and financial issues.

Karen Petrou is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Federal Financial Analytics, Inc., a privately held company that since 1985 has provided analytical and advisory services on legislative, regulatory, and public-policy issues affecting financial services companies doing business in the U.S. and abroad.

Petrou is a frequent speaker on topics affecting the financial services industry. In addition to testifying before the U.S. Congress, she has spoken before the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Chicago; the European Central Bank; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; the International Monetary Fund; the Clearing House; the Bank Policy Institute; the Institute of International Bankers; the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association; the Japanese Diet; and many other governmental, industry, and academic groups.

Petrou is the author of Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America. She has also authored numerous articles in publications such as the American Banker and the Financial Times, and she is frequently quoted as a bank policy expert in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Politico, the Hill, and other media outlets.

Prior to founding her own firm in 1985, Petrou worked in Washington as an officer at Bank of America, where she began her career in 1977. She is an honors graduate in Political Science from Wellesley College and also was a special student in an honors program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned an M.A. in that subject from the University of California at Berkeley and was a doctoral candidate there.

She has served on the Boards of banking organizations and now sits as a Director on the Board of the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, and she is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Foundation Fighting Blindness. In 2019, she and her late husband Basil were named “visionaries” by the Foundation Fighting Blindness and received the Berman award in 2022. These reflect the Petrous’ work not only for vision research, but also development of a new financial instrument that would provide billions for biomedical research in all diseases, disabilities, and disorders.