Dr. Phil O’Connor is President of PROactive Strategies, a Chicago consulting firm providing advice in the energy and insurance industries. For three decades Phil has been recognized as a leading advocate of competitive market solutions in regulated industries. He has published and spoken widely on the subject.
As chairman of the, Illinois Commerce Commission in the early 1980s, he was the first utility regulator to present a plan for a transition to a wholesale and competitive electricity industry and was an early supporter of interstate gas pipeline open access and wellhead price deregulation.
In the private sector for three decades, Phil has headed two successful consulting businesses and for a decade led development in the Midwest of what is now the nation’s largest competitive retail electricity supply firm.
Phil also served as Director of the Illinois Department of Insurance and as a member of the Illinois State Board of Elections. Six consecutive Illinois Governors have appointed him to various boards, commissions or transition teams.
From March 2007 to March 2008, Phil served in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US State Department as an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity.
A magna cum laude graduate of Loyola University of Chicago, Phil received his Masters and Doctorate in Political Science from Northwestern University.