Kara M. Stein

/My focus

Drawing on over 30 years of experience in the government, private, and nonprofit sectors, I advise executives and boards of public and private companies, accounting firms, institutional investors, investment companies, investment advisers, broker-dealers, banks, insurers, and others on a wide range of matters related to securities, disclosure, deal risk, and regulatory compliance, among other complex regulatory, litigation, and crisis-management matters. I also utilize my SEC background to assist clients with testimony, incident response, and investigations, including internal reviews to assess False Claims Act allegations by whistleblowers and any potential operational, billing, compliance, or reputational implications. With my extensive experience on Capitol Hill, I also can help clients navigate any issues involving the US Senate or House of Representatives. My areas of particular focus include securities regulation, audit and accounting oversight, corporate governance, financial services, AI governance, crisis response, and global public policy.

Prior Experience

Prior to joining Nixon Peabody, Kara was appointed as a Board Member of the PCAOB by the SEC. In addition to approving audit standards and overseeing the work of auditors who review the financial statements of public companies and broker-dealers, Kara was also the Chair of the Global Audit Quality Working Group of the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR). In that role, she worked with audit regulators from some of the world’s largest capital markets and assurance leaders from the six biggest global audit networks on opportunities for enhancing audit quality.

Before her time at the PCAOB, Kara served as a Distinguished Policy Fellow and Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and was Director of the AI, Data, and Capital Markets Initiative at the Center on Innovation of the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (Hastings). Some of her academic work focused on issues around AI governance in the financial industry, resulting in an article published in the Stanford Journal of Law, Business, and Finance. This work builds on her multi-decade focus on updating financial regulatory design to match the rapidly evolving technological landscape.

From 2013 to 2019, Kara was one of five presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed SEC commissioners. As a SEC Commissioner, she oversaw and negotiated rulemaking, enforcement, and other policy actions to shape the direction of Commission actions and to guide enforcement of the federal securities laws. At the SEC, Kara focused on Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and JOBS Act implementation; equity market structure reforms; and modernization of mutual fund rules. She also advocated for updating the Commission’s rules and practices for the digital age. This included enhancing clearing agency standards, furthering the adoption of machine-readable disclosures, and shortening the settlement cycle for equities and fixed income trading.

Earlier in her career, Board Member Stein was Senior Policy Advisor for securities and banking matters for US Senator Jack Reed, Majority Staff Director of the Securities, Insurance, and Investment Subcommittee of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and a litigation associate at a major international law firm.

/Looking ahead

I am following numerous trends and developments that clients are contending with, including the transition to tokenization, the growing use of artificial intelligence tools and their governance, and changes in SEC rules and regulations.