Examining the New Administration’s Impact on Business

Peter Roskam, a former six-term U.S. Representative from Illinois, provides strategic counsel and guidance to clients whose business needs involve law, government, media and public policy. He also serves on the firm’s COVID-19 Task Force. Peter held some of the most significant positions in the U.S. House of Representatives during his tenure (2007–2019). In addition to serving in the House Leadership as the Chief Deputy Whip, he chaired three major subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Tax Policy, he was a chief architect of the historic 2017 overhaul of the nation’s tax code. As Chairman of Subcommittee on Health, he began the “Medicare Red Tape Relief Project,” led a series of hearings addressing the opioid crisis and authored several bills to make opioid addiction treatment more accessible. In addition, as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, he spearheaded efforts to increase supervision of the Internal Revenue Service and championed efforts to overhaul the IRS’s civil asset forfeiture program.

Peter also served on the House Financial Services Committee, including the Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee and the Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology Subcommittee. He was a member of the Select Committee on Events surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya.

He chaired the U.S. House Democracy Partnership, a bipartisan commission supporting emerging democracies abroad and co-chaired the Korea Caucus, the India Caucus, the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism and the Republican Israel Caucus.

Before his work on Capitol Hill in Washington, Peter represented Chicago’s western suburbs for 13 years in the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois State Senate where he developed a close working relationship with then-state Sen. Barack Obama. During his tenure in the state legislature he also was in the private practice of law in Illinois.

Kathleen is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Trustmark Companies, a leading national employee benefits provider. She leads Trustmark’s legal, compliance and government affairs functions. Kathleen’s legal career of more than 25 years includes leadership roles at Maestro Health, where she served as Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary; at Aon, where she was Associate General Counsel, Health Solutions; and Tressler, LLP, a national insurance law firm, where she was a partner and built and served as co-chair of the firm’s ERISA/Life and Health Practice Group.
She is a member of the Board of Directors and serves on the Executive Committee for the Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services (CARPLS), a non-profit organization that is Chicago’s largest provider of legal services to low- and moderate-income residents.

Brenda Furlow is Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary for Bio-Techne Corporation, a leading global manufacturer of high quality purified proteins, protein analysis instrumentation and other products used in life science research and diagnostics. In that role, she is the senior executive responsible for all of the legal, corporate governance and compliance matters for the corporation globally. With thousands of products in its portfolio, Bio-Techne is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has operations throughout the United States, Europa and Asia, and approximately 1,800 employees worldwide.

Prior to Bio-Techne, Ms. Furlow had similar roles and responsibilities at several other companies, both private and public, including TomoTherapy, a publicly-traded medical device manufacturer, Shine Medical Technologies, a small private medical device company, and Promega Corporation, a mid-sized private life sciences company.

Ms. Furlow earned a law degree with honors from the University of Chicago Law School and has a Bachelors degree from Calvin College.