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 United States and abroad. She is a frequent speaker on topics affecting the financial services industry. In addition to testifying before the U.S. Congress, she has spoken before numerous organizations, including Federal Reserve Banks, European Central Bank, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, International Monetary Fund, The Clearing House, Bank Policy Institute, Institute of International Bankers, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, and the Japanese Diet. 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 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 the Bank of America, where she began her career in 1977. She has served on the boards of banking organizations and now sits as a director on the board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation. In 2019, she and her late husband Basil were named “visionaries” by the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Petrou is an honors graduate in political science from Wellesley College and also was a special student in an honors program at MIT. She earned an MA in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, and was a doctoral candidate there.
