Louis Houwen has been affiliated with TIAS since 2009, where he was appointed as an endowed professor private-public corporate law in 2011. He conducts research and regularly publishes scientific as well as practice-oriented articles on the design of management and supervision of semi-public companies, new business and partnership forms, the design, organization and governance of (cross-sector) network organizations in healthcare, welfare and education, as well as on legal structures in the semi-public domain, and on governance and liability issues that semi-public companies and organizations in the non-profit sector are confronted with. In this field he also is a speaker at conferences and symposia, and he regularly gives lectures in courses and masterclasses for administrators and supervisors, and courses for master’s students.
Louis Houwen obtained his degree in Dutch Law with distinction from Radboud University Nijmegen in 1986. He then worked as an academic researcher at the Van der Heijden Institute, the study center for company law at Radboud University Nijmegen. During this time, in addition to his teaching activities, he carried out national and comparative law research in the field of company law and employee participation law. In 1993, he obtained a PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen on the subject of ‘Liability in groups of companies’, a comparative law study on the position of creditors of affiliated companies in Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands.
Since 1993, Louis Houwen is a lawyer at Dirkzwager, Advocaten & Notarissen, where he became a partner in 1999. He began in the business law section, concentrating on advice and litigation in company law for businesses in the private sector. From the mid-1990s, his practice and academic interest have shifted almost completely to the public and semi-public sector: government institutions, healthcare and educational organizations, welfare establishments and housing corporations. Since that time, he has also been part of the health law section at Dirkzwager, of which he is now in joint charge. During the past decade, he has specialized in governance and managerial issues involving organizations and enterprises in the non (for) profit sector. His practice is focused primarily on governance issues, developing private initiatives and collaborative partnerships, and on setting up, or shaping the governance structures for, healthcare, welfare and educational institutions and housing corporations. In this capacity, he is also part of the GCV (the Joint Committee for Corporate Law), which, on behalf of the NOvA (the Netherlands Bar) and the KNB (the Royal Dutch Association of Civil-law Notaries), provides advice on new legislation and regulations in the field of corporate and securities law to the Ministries of Security and Justice, of Finance and to Dutch parliament.
Louis Houwen is the permanent legal advisor in the field of governance and liability issues and the managerial structure of social enterprises to the Dutch branch organizations in the healthcare sector (BoZ), the NVZD (Dutch association of hospital directors), and the NVTZ (Dutch association of health care supervisor). In this context, he is involved as an author and advisor in the preparation of the Zorgbrede Governancecode (healthcare governance code) of 2006 and 2010, the revised Zorgbrede Governancecode 2017 and 2022, as well as the establishment and implementation of the Governance Committee of Scheidsgerecht Gezondheidszorg (the healthcare arbitral tribunal). Louis Houwen is also chairman of the Nederlandse Commissie Governance Code Cultuur (Dutch culture governance code committee), which developed a completely revised Governance Code Culture in 2019.