A Career in Federal Competition Law and Policy: From Niche to Mainstream

Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Tara Koslov, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission and a member of the Federal Senior Executive Service. Tara will discuss her 27+ year career at the FTC, where she has served in a variety of enforcement, policy, and leadership roles. She will share her insights on career-track and political-appointment opportunities within the federal government, the best ways to grow one’s legal skillset at each stage of development, and the “joys” of management and executive leadership in a public interest setting. She will also discuss her passion for competition law, what makes it an intellectually stimulating discipline, how it has changed over the years, and why vigorous antitrust enforcement is so important to our economy. When Tara began the practice of law as a baby antitrust associate at a BigLaw firm, she found it challenging to explain her work to her extended family. But antitrust has now become so mainstream that she can even talk about it around the Thanksgiving table.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below! Open to the HLS community.

If you or an event participant requires disability-related accommodations, please contact HLS Accessibility Services at accessibility@law.harvard.edu two weeks in advance of the event.

Tara Isa Koslov is a Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition. In her 27+ years at the FTC, Tara has served as the agency’s Chief of Staff; Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Policy Planning; attorney advisor to three Commissioners; and staff attorney in BC’s Mergers II Division. Tara began her career as an antitrust associate in private practice. Tara was a 2017 recipient of the FTC Chairman’s Award, a 2013 recipient of the Commission’s Award for Excellence in Supervision, and a six-time recipient of the Commission’s Janet D. Steiger Outstanding Team Award. In 2020, she was honored with the inaugural ABA Antitrust Law Section Bar Service Award and was the 2021 recipient of the ABA’s prestigious Nelson Award recognizing outstanding contributions to the ABA by a government or public sector lawyer. In 2022 Tara was inducted into the Section’s Women Connected Hall of Fame-inism to honor her contributions as a role model for and promoter of women in antitrust. She recently completed the Federal Internal Coach Training Program and is working toward certification by the International Coaching Federation. Tara graduated from Brown University and Harvard Law School.