William E. Kovacic, Chairman
William E. Kovacic was designated to serve as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission on March 30, 2008, by President George W. Bush. Kovacic was previously sworn in as a Commissioner in January 2006, following his nomination by the President and confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
Prior to his appointment as FTC Commissioner, Kovacic was the E.K. Gubin Professor of Government Contracts Law at George Washington University Law School, where he began to teach in 1999. He was the FTC’s General Counsel from 2001 through the end of 2004. Kovacic earlier worked at the Commission from 1979 to 1983, first with the Bureau of Competition’s Planning Office and later as an attorney advisor to former Commissioner George W. Douglas. After leaving the FTC in 1983, Kovacic was an associate with the Washington, DC, office of Bryan Cave, where he practiced in the firm’s antitrust and government contracts departments, until joining the George Mason University School of Law in 1986. Earlier in his career, he spent one year on the majority staff of the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which was chaired by Senator Philip A. Hart.
Since 1992, Kovacic has served as an adviser on antitrust and consumer protection issues to the governments of Armenia, Benin, Egypt, El Salvador, Georgia, Guyana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Panama, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
Kovacic graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1974, and received his J.D. from Columbia University in 1978. He lives in Virginia, with his wife, Kathryn Fenton.
