Women in Privacy

On 8 March, it was International Women’s Day, a good reason for us to dedicate an episode to the role women play in privacy. In this episode, K and Paul speak with TrustArc’s own Hilary Wandall and with Vivienne Artz, the CPO of Refinitiv and Chairwomen of Women in Banking and Finance. You will hear about women's initiatives, privacy being more tech and law focused, mentoring, and privacy heroines. And you get the background behind the quote: “Women don’t need fixing - we are just different”.

You can learn more about Vivienne at https://www.refinitiv.com/perspectives/authors/vivienne-artz/ 

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

Transcript

Paul 0:00

Hello, and welcome to Serious Privacy. My name is Paul Breifart.

K 0:04

And I am K Royal. Thank you so much for joining us once again.

Paul 0:08

Earlier this week on 8th March, it was International Women's Day. And for us, this is a good reason to dedicate an episode to the role of women in privacy with two guests: Frostar's own senior vice president, privacy intelligence and general counsel, Hilary Wendell, and Refinitive Chief Privacy Officer, Vivian Art.

K 0:27

Thank you for joining us, both of you. So Vivian is based out of London, where she's the leading Refinitive Global Privacy Officer, which means she oversees their global privacy strategy and practice. Previously, she was the managing director and global head of privacy for legal and the head of international for the intellectual property and technology law group at Citibank. Vivian, that is a mouthful, and you can probably describe it a lot better than me. But you are the best guest that we could wish for to have here, along with Hillary, because not only is Vivian a seasoned privacy pro, but she's also the president of Women in Banking and Finance. Now we asked Hillary to join us as well because Hillary and Vivian have known each other for a long time. And as we get into the podcast and start talking, we'll be talking about privacy heroes and women that we look up to. I happen to work for one of my privacy heroes and one of the women I look up for, and I'm about to hear her wonderful voice on our podcast.

Hilary 1:26

Well, K, thank you so much for inviting us. And it's a delight to be here today with Vivian too. And we have spent a lot of time together in the privacy space, seeing it evolve, and it's exciting to have a chance to talk together with you and Paul today.

Vivian 1:41

Thanks very much. I'm really looking forward to our discussion as well.

Paul 1:45

It's okay. Usually you have some out of not out of the box opening question for our guests. So what did you come up with today?

K 1:53

Yes. So, Vivian, are you, and Hillary, you have to answer this too. Are you a dog, cat, bird person?

Vivian 2:03

I am all three, and I can validate that because I have two dogs. Sadly, I don't have any cats at the moment, but I did have nine cats at one point, and I love birds because I have ducks and geese, and they're our favorite pets. So I'm going to I can't choose it has to be all three because I've had them all, I have them all, and I love them all. Oh, that's awesome. Hillary, what about you?

Hilary 2:30

Oh, well, I'm so impressed with Vivian. I definitely can't match that. But I will start with I'm probably more of a bird person primarily because I just truly love birds of all types. And I am one not necessarily to pick flowers on dresses, but I will always pick a dress with birds. I have recently, I've never had a cat, although they are very lovely. I have recently become the owner of two puppies, much uh as a result of my daughter's insistence. And I'm learning to live with dogs and the responsibilities that come along with them. So I still enjoy looking out at birds and feeling how wonderful it would be to fly, fly away free from some of the hassles of daily life.

Vivian 3:15

That is awesome, awesome. Thank you. So, Paul, with that, I'll let you lead in with the first questions.

Paul 3:22

Thanks, K. Yeah, Vivian, K already said it's a mouthful, uh, all your job titles and previous job titles. Could you just give us a bit of background on who you are and how you ended up into privacy? Oh, thanks very much, Paul.

Vivian 3:36

Um, yes, I started off as a technology lawyer in private practice in the UK. And as I was practicing technology law, so the Data Protection Act in the UK was already in place, but the European Data Protection Directive came into play. And as a young lawyer, one of the uh training opportunities I was given was to present us a seminar on the new EU Data Protection Directive. And I read it, and I have to say, I found it quite challenging and could barely make head nor tails of it. But I continued my career in private practice and I tried to stay as far away from privacy as possible, to be perfectly honest. It did seem all a little bit too complicated. And then I went into in-house into financial services. I was at Citibank for 17 years, and I was doing technology and commercial law, but nobody wanted to do privacy. I tried very hard. I hired two or three people actually to do privacy, um, and they all ran away, which was most disappointing. So it landed on my lap. And I tried very hard to convince everyone in my team that this was a terrific, horizontal, career-enhancing, evolving, pragmatic, fascinating area in which to become involved, and they just didn't buy it. So I ended up doing it. And um, so I had to I had to I had to literally live the words that I had spoken, and I had to come to grips with it, and I and I did, and so I decided I need to change my mindset, and I realized that that's actually how you really get to grips with privacy, is is you it's it is a lens through which you view the world, it is a mindset, it is a way of being, and actually, when you get to understand it and know it, you suddenly realize how important it is, how interesting it is, and I have to say I love privacy. Three years ago I I took on privacy full-time and became the chief privacy officer at Grafinative, which is a financial market infrastructure company, soon to be part of the London Stock Exchange Group, and it has been the ride of a lifetime being involved in the privacy sector, uh, particularly the international dimension. So that's my journey. I started off as a lawyer trying to shake it off in private practice. I moved into financial services and tried to convince everyone else to do it, but they'd have none of it. So I took it on myself, and here I am today as a chief privacy officer, and it's my be all end all. Absolutely.

Paul 6:05

Wonderful. And and that other title that you have, president of women in banking and finance, how did you end up being that president?

Vivian 6:14

Oh, I became president of women in banking and finance in 2017. I applied for the role. I wasn't convinced I was going to get it at all. And the reason I applied was I was obviously in financial services working at Citibank, and when I uh stepped up to lead the gender network because I really wanted to give something back to the women who were making their way through their careers, one of the organizations that we worked with externally was Women in Banking and Finance. And I was really taken with what they what they did because they were a nationwide, not-for-profit, volunteer-led organization focused on the financial services sector, but specifically their membership is constituted by both individuals as well as institutions, and it embraces women from the start of the career to their to the peak of their career. So so many of these networks are focused at specific slices or specific levels of seniority, etc. etc. And women in banking and finance was all-encompassing, and they I'll be honest, they also ran the best awards event ever. They've been running their own awards for 23 years, and I went a couple of times, and I was quite taken with the whole thing, I must say. So when the opportunity came up to lead women in banking and finance, I applied and was absolutely delighted to be invited to lead. And one of the things that we've done, and it's it's it's through Women in Banking and Finance under my leadership, is to really transform what we're doing in Women in Banking and Finance so that we're not just a network where we connect and talk and support our members, but we challenge our members, we inspire our members, and we're very action-oriented. So everything we do is about how can we make a difference to the gender balance, the equality of opportunity of women in the financial services sector. And we are really doing that through our job board, through our thought leadership, through recognizing and celebrating talent on the awards side, through the collaboration we do with other networks in order to amplify the message and bring a gender lens to everything that we do so that we can unlock the full potential of the financial services sector for everyone in it. So I'm I have to say it's probably the best job I've ever had, and I'm very lucky that I love being a chief privacy officer, but equally to have the opportunity to change the gender environment within the financial services sector for the whole of the UK, not just London, but for the whole of the UK, is just the most extraordinary opportunity. And I've had the most incredible opportunity to meet amazing people. In fact, last year our keynote speaker out at our awards was Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England. But to meet real role models and inspiring individuals who are really working toward delivering change, and we're seeing tremendous progress. And I think that's the most exciting thing is that our efforts are being rewarded, and we're seeing tremendous progress now being made in our sector.

K 9:25

Oh, I think that is absolutely fantastic. And I'm trying to jot down quick notes about several things that you said, but I think the one thing that really resonates with me, Vivian, is when you describe what you're doing with the group and from a practical, actionable level. And what that made me think of is everything that women bring to the workplace practical, action-oriented, truly working to help people move forward and to move outward. But I think it's interesting that you're the head of women in finance and banking because I would presume I've never been in finance and banking. You can check my checking account, I'm definitely not good there. But the fact that it's traditionally a male-dominated field, I believe. And we also have women in law, and we have areas where there's women in these traditionally male-dominated fields, which is something we truly need that assistance to help out. We won't go into the queen bee syndrome just yet, but that might come back up later. But I wanted to get to the oh, there's so many questions to ask. Okay, I'm just going to go with the first one. So when you look at women in finance and banking and you're looking at helping women advance there, if you turn that lens to women in privacy, why do you think that privacy is either a gender neutral or a women-forward field in and of itself, even if it's within a male-dominated field such as finance and banking or law?

Vivian 10:58

Well, it is interesting, isn't it, that by pure numbers, the profession is fairly balanced within privacy as between men and women. And I think that probably has a lot to do with how that sector has evolved. And we can perhaps compare it to the fintech sector, for example. So the fintech sector is relatively new, the privacy sector is relatively new as well. But the fintech sector has grown up and basically reflected the environment in which it originated, and it has some terrible gender balance challenges that it faces. And for a new sector, that's deeply disappointing. You think if you start from a blank sheet of paper, you'd be able to do it right. And so, you know, they they they've effectively replicated the challenges of the organizations that they are challenging in their own makeup. Whereas on the privacy side, it's fascinating that we do have almost equal gender balance in terms of involvement as between men and women. And I think that's a lot to do with the fact that privacy has evolved from a number of different roles. Roles in information security, roles in legal, roles in risk, roles in compliance. And that those are the sorts of roles that have generally fed the privacy world in the past and very heavily on the on the lawyer side. And I think that privacy isn't necessarily a topic that has always resonated enormously, shall we say, with everyone in equal measure. And just in the way it was my own experience, you know, I couldn't get anybody to do privacy. So as a woman, it's like, well, if nobody else is going to do it, then I'm just going to do it because it needs to get done. I suspect that privacy has fallen into the lap of women over the over the years and they've done an incredibly good job of it. I think the other part of privacy is that I think it is attractive to women. You know, if you're thinking do you want to be a tax lawyer or do you want to be a privacy lawyer? I'm sure tax is deeply exciting, but the thing with privacy is that it impacts not only business and society, but also individuals personally. And I think that's what's so exciting about doing privacy is that it's not something that you can just leave at your desk and go home and get on with the rest of your life. It follows you, but in a very positive way, because actually it's something that applies to your kids at school, that applies to how how old age homes are being run and where your parents are, it applies to the loyalty cards of the supermarket, it applies to business, it applies to your life, it applies to society as a whole, you know, in terms of we've seen a a lot of issues coming up on the voter side and and voter influence and so on and so forth. So given the breadth of impact of privacy, I think it's something that just naturally appeals, or it is an area where women can really add an awful lot of value. And I suspect that's why we've had a very balanced community of practitioners, but particularly with the women. That that's my theory.

Paul 14:08

Hilary, what what's your point of view there? Do you do you agree? We heard before that you also ended up in in privacy as a bit of a coincidence at this at the start of your privacy career. For those who haven't heard, that's our episode one, our pilot episode. Is is is uh also your view that privacy is much more gender balanced than many other fields of law.

Hilary 14:31

I definitely would agree with that. And in fact, it was interesting back in 2015, the IAPP, some of the surveys that they do on an annual basis were were able to show that women and men are about equal balance, at least at that point in time was the first time it was shown that it was about equal balance between the genders and the profession. And I think that continues to evolve based on different levels and rules. But going back to what Vivian had said about what naturally attracted people into the profession, I think that's a big factor in why we've seen that gender parity in privacy in ways we don't necessarily see it in the more security space overall, which is the sister or brother, maybe I should say the brother, to privacy. Mostly in the information security sector, we see many more men than women, so not necessarily the same balance. But I think there's a few different things that have influenced it, and Vivian touched on many of them already. One is the fact that at the time, as she stated, and certainly was true for me, there was a lack of people that had any experience in privacy. Data protection law had been around in the EU for some time, but definitely wasn't the dominant area of the law, was newer. And then certainly in the US, um, taking more of a sectoral approach was one that certain people were looking at, but most people weren't. And it wasn't necessarily the area that everyone was eager to dive into. But it needed to be done, as Vivian stated. And there were people like myself who said, okay, well, I'll help figure that out. I was certainly in my case, as you referred back to episode one, I was asked to figure it out. Always thought I was going to somehow get out of it, and that's never happened. But now I'm delighted to be a part of how we we drive it forward. But I think that there are fundamental aspects to what privacy is about that appeal to women, and I think are appealing more and more to men. So if I think about the aspects that many of us care about as women, you know, there is an equal blend of science and the liberal arts. I think, you know, there are many disciplines, like if you're more science or mathematics focused, you'll go into, or if you're more into liberal arts, you'll go into. But at the time that people were being drawn into it, it was drawing people from different backgrounds. And I think that's how we've ended up with women who saw an opportunity to maybe expand upon a science background and get into something that had a little bit more touch in relation to everyday life and the things that they cared about either for themselves or their families or for their friends. And it's an interesting discipline now as it continues to evolve, as I see it within organizations today, it's become actually quite much more technical. Many aspects of what needs to be addressed day in and day out involves understanding how privacy interfaces with technology and how data is actually integrated into and used and processed by technologies. And so being able to understand the technical aspects while at the same time being able to understand what this means for the people that are impacted by this, whose data we're actually processing, that requires a nice blend and a critical blend between the arts and sciences. And that's something that I think is very appealing to women, will continue to draw women in, but I think also we'll draw a lot of people who like the more hardcore tech getting involved as well. I guess I'll stop there. I would generally say that I reinforce and concur with everything Vivian said. And I think it will be interesting to see how it evolves versus some of the other disciplines that are much more technical in nature. I think the fact that it has such a human component to it will always uh always lend to more of a balanced uh approach between the two genders.

K 18:19

I totally agree. And I think you and I are on the same wavelength, Hillary. I usually couch it in terms that privacy is a helping profession. So, and I use that terminology coming from the background as a registered nurse, and but it's it's the same thing you're saying that privacy is here to help people and has different appealing levels. But I want to pick up on something that both you and Vivian touched on. And um, and I don't know why I keep coming back to this point, but I'm going to ask it. Privacy is getting more and more technical, privacy is getting more and more legal. Both of those fields are dominated by men. Do you think that we're going to start seeing men outpace women in privacy in the coming years? Because when you look at job descriptions now, almost every single one of them for privacy says prefers a law degree because of the complexity of the laws. Is that an omen that we're going to stop being a women Ford or a gender neutral field? Or do you think that probably isn't going to have a long-term impact? And that goes to either one of you first. Whichever one of you jumps in will go with it.

Vivian 19:27

Oh, I have to leap in there on the lawyer question. Do you mind, Henry? I don't mind at all. Thank you. I can I just say that, Sydney, as far as lawyers are concerned, it is not dominated by men. The legal profession may be dominated at the top by men, i.e., there are far too few female partners in the legal profession and in senior legal roles. But I know certainly in the UK, we have more women qualifying as lawyers and have done for many years than men. And the real challenge, as in financial services as well, is it's it's it's not so much the entry level, it's the progress through the sector, and those who are getting to the top are just too few in number. And we need to identify what are the barriers and challenges to women achieving their full career potential in those careers. Uh, because they want to and they're perfectly capable of it. But the I mean, my belief is that the structure of the of the system is one whereby there's there are a lot of barriers and obstacles that disincentivize and actually put off and in in put in place challenges where where women are unable to progress their career to the top in the way in which they would like. Um and I think it's interesting to see that job descriptions, you know, because privacy is becoming, I wouldn't say so much it is technical, it is complicated, and it is legalistic, but really it shouldn't be. Right. Um, and I think it's a fallacy when we start putting in requirements like, oh, preferred that you are going to be a lawyer. I have made a deliberate decision in my team to make sure that I have a balance of both lawyers and non-lawyers in my team because it was something I always admired the UK ICO, the UK Information Commissioner's Office, for was that they were they didn't actually have a legal team for the the first part of their existence. Not not for not for a couple of decades did they have a lawyer. And as a result, their advice was always very practical and pragmatic and easily understandable and not legalistic. And so, you know, it was it was it was very digestible, which was which was terrific, and they've been well known for that. And I've I've certainly have been very conscious and deliberate when pulling together my team here at Refinitive to include both law. Lawyers and non-lawyers, because the diversity um contributes so much to what we can do together. There's absolutely a role for lawyers. We need lawyers for legal advice and for privileged matters, and lawyers are great at the legal side of things, but we have to remember that privacy is much more than the law. Privacy is about living it. It's the operationalization of it. It's taking those requirements and turning them into practice. And it's those non-lawyers I find who are really, really good at that, operationalizing privacy, bringing it to life. Our tagline at Refinitive is privacy is the new normal. How do you make privacy normal? And I don't think you can make privacy normal by giving people legal advice. You can make privacy normal by showing them how to do it. What does this practically mean in your job as opposed to here's a requirement? It's like, oh, I'm really pleased about your requirement. You say that I must treat uh you know data uh confidentially, so on, but like, well, so what does that mean? What do I what do I have to do? Does that do I have to password it, or do I have to lock it in a drawer, or do I have to just not tell people about it? Am I allowed to put it on the intranet? You know, what does it mean in practice? So I think as a sector, we should be very careful about not narrowing ourselves and creating an ivory tower of expertise, whereas what we actually need is our experts plus our essential practitioners to bring it to life. Otherwise, we end up risking creating a sector of experts and then complete non-compliance on the other side because nobody can understand what they what they want. So I hope that wasn't too provocative. But I'm I'm as a lawyer, I've learned that the importance of working with non-lawyers and what they can bring to the privacy environment and how absolutely critical that is.

Hilary 24:07

I think I'll pick up on the whole concept. I don't think it was too provocative. I think it actually, Vivian, was exactly what we need to be thinking about right now in this space because while there will always be legal drivers and regulatory drivers to doing privacy and managing privacy obligations, not every organization would be likely to just do the right thing in the absence of some form of legal obligation to do so. I think there's so much more to managing privacy effectively, and that does require that we have both legal and non-legal professionals bringing a perspective to bear on how best to handle the everyday implementation of privacy within organizations. I think notably those who have had time working in business and actually have thought through how to make things practical, or those who are able to translate very effectively the complex legal requirements that are worded differently in every single law and regulation and find those commonalities and make it not too hard or part of the normal, the new normal, as you were saying, of how organizations just think about their responsibilities with respect to data. And I think if privacy, in my point, in my perspective, if privacy were to be done very, very well by companies, it would involve thinking about it way beyond the notion of a legal or regulatory compliance obligation and much more so about what data do we need to run our business effectively? How do we get access to that data in appropriate and responsible ways? How do we teach all the people who need to be handling it to be as responsible as possible? How do we make sure the products that we're delivering have taken all of that into consideration are actually being pushed out into the market in ways that actually ensure good data protection and good respect for individuals' rights? And that is something that has to go far beyond the legal obligations in and of themselves. I do think one last point I want to make about the question K, you posed to us in initially here is do we think that the it's going the gender balance is going to change? And I think it's possible, but I think that we as women leaders and other leaders in the profession have a responsibility and duty to preserve what is making privacy work very well right now. And that is the balance in these different perspectives that Vivian called out. So thinking about it through a legal lens, thinking about it through an operational lens, and I'll add thinking about it through that more technology-driven or scientific lens, we need to balance those things on an ongoing basis. And it's incumbent upon the leaders of the teams and the leaders of organizations who are establishing the teams to think about how best do you bring to bear those different perspectives in the design of the team and how the team operates. And as long as we do so and we're recognizing how to bring people forward to promote the right people that are going to maintain that balance, we will preserve it and we will hopefully actually enhance it as we go forward over time and give people opportunities that they otherwise don't have today through the way in which we help the develop the talent that's coming into the profession.

Paul 27:36

So if we if we look about uh if we look to the leadership of organizations and getting to the top, do you see that there is a difference in dealing with a largely millboard or leadership compared to a more gender-balanced one from a woman in privacy perspective or more in general as a privacy professional? Vivian, maybe you first?

Vivian 27:58

I'm happy to take that one. Yes. Um I don't know that there's necessarily a difference whether you're coming to the board as a privacy professional or as any other leader, and you're having to interact with a board, board that is heavily dominated by the male gender. It that is a challenge in itself. It's really difficult when you are having to engage with a board that isn't often not used to uh engaging engaging with women from a from a woman's perspective, it can be really intimidating as well to be faced with uh this whole uh array of men. And it's been something that's that's been identified as part of really getting to the core of the culture of an organization is the need to achieve better balance at the board level. And that balance at the board level isn't about having one or two amazing women on the board, it's really about achieving critical mass, and critical mass starts at 30%. And when you have 30% of women on a board, then they start making an impact. They make an impact on thinking of the board, the behavior of the board, and the strategy of the board as well. And the studies now demonstrate that uh more diverse boards are more effective, and more diverse boards uh are great role models for the rest of the firm, and the impact on the business and the employees is very significant. It's a bit of a waterfall effect. So I think when you're dealing with a board that is not gender balanced, it is always a challenge because it means that there is very often a very specific culture, and it is challenging to adjust how your message is delivered in order to land in the right place with that particular board. But if it is more balanced, then it's just so much easier to engage as the case may be. So I that that would be my response to that question. I think it is it is just so much broader and and and beyond um privacy uh in order to deal with it. Hilary, what are your thoughts?

Hilary 30:16

I agree very much that it is it it's beyond privacy. A few thoughts I have regarding the gender balance in boards. I mean, we've seen, as you mentioned already, a number of studies, as well as the particularly a push in California to make sure that there is more gender balance. And I just think that that's good for the broader decision making of boards as a whole and taking into consideration different uh ways of thinking, both short-term-term and long-term thinking. I think women uh can at times bring to bear considerations related to factors that might not otherwise be considered as part of the culture of the way that the board would operate, more longer-term decisions, um, sometimes uh decisions that have bearing on social dynamics and things that might not otherwise come up. And so I think having a broader and more diverse board, whether it's from a women's perspective or more broadly in representing other factors of society, helps to ensure that the decisions of any board are reflective of the broader constituencies that they serve. With respect to the ability for a woman who's presenting to the board to be able to be heard effectively by that board, I do think that it is helpful for the woman to be prepared to think beyond and be able to be influential far beyond the short-term business needs. I think oftentimes in coming to present to a board, the board uh may be asking specifically for reporting around a particular law, uh, one like a CCPA that has just recently become effective, or as we know over the last couple of years, the preparation for GDPR and how prepared is the organization and addressing various facets of the law and coming in, focusing strictly on here's our readiness, this is the project, here's now we're done, I think is something that, while it may be asked of in many cases, is really not the best lens through which a board with responsible for ongoing oversight of a corporation or other organization should be thinking. Um, having and helping a women uh as a leader of privacy and organization to come in and be thinking about it through the lens of how can I ensure that the company and the board who's overseeing the company is thinking about privacy and data protection as a more strategic obligation of the organization? How is our preparedness for a particular law enabling us to move beyond privacy as a project to comply with that law to privacy as an imperative within an organization? The new normal, Vivian, to go back to what you were saying earlier, and how are we looking at the risks associated with privacy, not just through a compliance lens, but through a broader operational lens, through a more strategic lens. And I think preparing women leaders to be able to have those conversations confidently with the board that may be asking for insights in a more narrower fashion to be able to expand that conversation into a much longer-term approach to privacy that actually helps to get the right resources and support and oversight on an ongoing basis is really what we need to be encouraging our female leaders and other leaders of privacy to be doing with their boards, regardless of how balanced they are at this point in time.

K 33:58

Oh, I love that. I mean, I love everything y'all say, but I think Paul and I had pretty much gotten on the same idea and asking about boards because I was looking at the information about, and you touched on this, Hillary, when you talked about California's drive for women on boards, but there was also a Goldman Sachs announcement that they would no longer assist companies in their IPOs unless they had women on boards. And we know the Netherlands has a quota push as well. And with Vivian, with what you said, you need that gender balance. But I mean, frankly, I think right now we'd love it if we just saw a token woman on every board, uh, whether it's privacy or not. But let's also go ahead and have privacy.

Paul 34:39

Let's make it just a bit more than just a token woman, right?

K 34:42

It's we we we can start somewhere, right? We can start somewhere. But um, if that woman happens to be the privacy representative on the board as well, I think we're even getting further. Hillary, you said something that made me think about it when you talk about women and how they present to boards and they need to go beyond the the tactics to the strategy. And a lot of that knowledge comes from mentoring. And there have been studies about how men mentor women differently than they mentor other men. There's also studies about women mentoring men and what men benefit. And I think one of the points that stood out to me most was that when men mentor other men, they teach them the business skills they need, that strategy perspective, the how to manage up and out. And when they mentor women, it's usually more on the job specific elements. So I don't know that there's a question in there about that, but let's bring it to women in privacy. Do you see, and we have one other question after this that we'll finish with that Paul will answer because we could just literally go two days, it seems like. Where do you see the challenges or the opportunities in women being mentored in privacy and perhaps gaining those larger positions as general counsel, as CEOs? We've seen some of that lately, and as board members.

Hilary 36:12

Well, I'll start by saying that I think it's critical for women to look for mentors of both genders. And it is sometimes a lot harder to get a senior level mentor who is a woman because they're just quite frankly, to Vivian's point earlier, there are fewer women in the high-level leadership roles, unfortunately. And oftentimes the challenges that you face in rising up in the development of your career, you face issues and problems and considerations that you've never before tackled in your life. And being able to talk to someone who's seen those same things and how they've worked through it can really, really be helpful. And so that's what I'd say having mentors of both genders can be really useful. If you can find a woman who's seen it, I mean, some of the most wonderful mentors I've had in my life are senior-level women, not in privacy jobs per se, but senior level women lawyers, senior level women in public relations, and who have dealt with the big, the big challenges that you always face when you're rising the corporate or organizational ladder. And how do you think through how best to navigate those challenges that you don't encounter earlier in your career? And so I think that will remain increasingly important to get mentors of both genders. And I think that it will be wonderful for more and more women who do achieve those higher-level roles, sometimes even moving out of privacy into roles as CEOs, in roles I'll speak of, for example, one person I admire very, very much who's risen to the level of chief data officer at MasterCard, Joanne Stonier. We served together on the IAPP board and I know Vivian knows her very well. I mean, she is an amazing example of someone who has seen a lot of different challenges and worked through the issues and has moved out of privacy and out of data or information governance, and now is the chief data officer for MasterCard. I think having more and more people like that who can mentor others who are looking to expand their level of influence in organizations is really, really helpful. Men can be absolutely amazing too. I have had some of the most amazing mentors in my career be men. One of the best mentors of my entire profession was someone who I worked for who was not just a boss but a coach and taught me to think beyond what I knew and experienced and was really, really mindful in how it was for me as a woman and really gave me some great coaching as well. So, but Vivian, what do you think about the topic?

Vivian 38:55

So I think mentoring is hugely important, and I'd echo the comments that Hillary made around uh both male and female mentors. But I'd also suggest that we all we need to move the discussion on to sponsorship as well, and that in order for people to make real progress in their career, what they need is is a sponsor, and particularly at the board level where there may be no women or just one or two women, it's really important to have those male sponsors who are able to speak up when there is no other voice in the room in order to speak up for you. So I think the sponsorship piece is really important. The other thing I'd like to say is that in terms of mentoring, I think we need to make sure that we understand what mentoring is supposed to achieve. I think too often women are mentored in a way whereby it's although well-intentioned, there's an underlying perception that what they're doing is that they're fixing women. You don't have enough confidence, so let me get you, let me let me help you to be more confident. You're not very good at you know articulating or navigating the scenario. Let let me let me help you fix that. And really, we're not here to fix the woman, we don't need any fixing, we're absolutely fine, we're just different. And and part of what we really need to do is through the mentoring and the sponsorship is to make certainly a lot of the mentoring reverse mentoring, but it needs to be mentoring to grow and to to develop as to who you are, not to fix you to make you more like somebody else or to fit into the current male-dominated structures in which we we currently operate. And I'd sort of give a bit of an example of that as well, which is when when people are looking at at individuals uh for their career progression, very often the discussion around male candidates is around their potential. You know, he would be really good at, I think he could really do great in that particular role because he has these skills. Whereas when we articulate or when we're considering a female candidate, it we're talking about um, yes, she's done that before, yes, she's got good experience at, hmm, excellent track record at doing. And so we're actually looking at different things when we're looking at men and women in terms of what they can contribute to a role, and those are the sorts of actions and awarenesses that we need to raise and be uh conscious of in order to really make a difference within relation to the gender balance, not only in privacy but across the board, and and that that's about recognizing what are our conscious and unconscious biases, how are they impacting our decisions, how can we be more objective, and that it's not about fixing the woman, it's about fixing the system, and that the gender balance is really how we're going to be better at business, how we're going to build a stronger organization, as opposed to I would be nice to have and something we need to do because it's the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do, but it's it's it's a lot more than that as well.

Paul 42:02

I fully agree, and also from from my own experience being mentored by lots of women uh throughout my privacy career, I recognize a lot from what you're saying. And I'm I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have been here at Trust Arc without a lot of amazing women who have helped me to understand the complexities of privacy and data protection and tech law and uh lots of former colleagues at the Dutch DPA who I consider to be heroines but also uh commissioners like Elizabeth Denham and Isabel Falke-Pirotin, who both played their roles in the Working Party 29 when I was there, who are great inspirations uh for me and will continue to be that for uh for years to come. And that is also the question where where I would like to end today's uh recording. Who is your privacy inspiration? Who's your privacy heroine? And I, okay, I would also like to hear that from you.

K 42:55

Well, I'm gonna start it then because, as I said uh first, my one of my privacy heroines is on the phone with me. And I don't just say that to today up. I say that because that's one of the reasons why I went to work at Trust Ark. She actually was the one that's like, oh wow, you're not working full-time right now, come join us at Trust Ark. And I've never really had a mentor in my career at all. I'm quite an intimidating personality, I've been told. And when Vivian said something about we don't need fixing, we're just different, you were probably um referring to women. I'm quite different, Vivian. I show up for work in pink cowboy boots. Hillary has a big challenge on her hands. Let's just say that.

Vivian 43:37

Fantastic. I'm dying to see them.

K 43:41

And they're only one of about 15 pairs I have, so you know. So who's your heroine, Vivian?

Vivian 43:48

Well, you know, that was really difficult, really difficult. And I have so many different heroines, but um, my heroine is Bianna Bellamy. And the reason Bianna is my heroine. And is that I watched her for years as I was building my career in privacy, and she was a leader, and there really weren't many female role models out there. And I was so impressed when Bayana took the ball by the horns when she was accepted at Accenture and created her own binding corporate roles and then set about telling everyone about it and bringing the regulators to the table to convince them that it didn't have to come from them, it could come from industry. And actually, they needed to think more broadly about different ways in which you can achieve privacy compliance. She's now gone on and she's uh president of the uh Center for Information Policy Leadership, and now she is a thought leader and brings together all of us in the privacy world across different sectors to not just think about the new legislation and to respond to consultations and so on and so forth, but she brings us together as people as well and builds a really strong network, and she has engendered a tremendous amount of respect for the nature of the work that they're doing as well, uh, with regulators and legislators as well. And Bianna spends so much time mentoring people and being a leader within privacy, consciously and unconsciously. I don't think she realizes sometimes how much of a role model she is, but she's been a great friend and a great uh role model for me, and I think that she has done a terrific job in professionalizing the privacy sector and also driving new ideas uh within our sector and just being brave. She's fabulous.

Hilary 45:50

She really is, and I have to echo, Vivian, what you said about Boyana, truly one of the most amazing leaders, um, not just women leaders in our space. And I sincerely admire her and agree with all of the things you said. The other thing I want to say about Boyana, while we're mentioning her, is just truly one of the kindest, most giving people. And it is just a delight to see a leader who has such influence and be incredibly humble about all of it and really just be focused on how she can help others. Um, really, really remarkable. I want to answer a couple just I want to point out one person who has been a heroine to me, because there are so many in Boyana and Joanne and uh many, many others, Liz Denham, uh Jennifer Stoddard, I could name all the women who've been chairs of the IAPP board and all the other women like Vivian who've been on the board and are on the board, but I want to name somebody who might not come to mind for everyone because for me, when I got started early on in privacy in Pennsylvania, was working at Merck, going to law school in Philadelphia, wasn't even done yet. Um, there was a woman whose work um I was reading about uh as I was studying privacy law as part of what I was studying in law school, actually doing an independent study. And she was and still is actually at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a privacy law professor, has written a number of books, currently serving as the provost of the faculty there. But she really struck me, by the way, her name is Anita Allen, and she really struck me as being an amazing privacy leader because she not only looked at it through the lens of the law, but all the way back when I first got into privacy in the late 90s, she was looking at it through the lens of ethics. In fact, she was one of the professors also at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics that I studied at and getting my bioethics degree, who helped us understand the importance of ethics in the context of privacy and how that relates to privacy as well, and has had a significant influence on how I thought about privacy both from a bioethics perspective when I was back in healthcare and pharma, and now as we think about it through the lens of data ethics, is that's a topical area that's evolving. So I want to call her out specifically as a heroine, more on the academic side, but just an amazing, amazing privacy leader from my perspective and has influenced my thinking throughout my entire privacy career. So thank you for the opportunity to be able to share that perspective and to be on this podcast with you all today.

K 48:34

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Um I agree, there are so many people that are our privacy heroines. The list could go on and on, and hopefully we can pull a bunch of them into the podcast. So thank you both so much for joining us today. Anyone listening, if you have any comments, suggestions, ideas, want to join us, want to know, you know, where we're going to be next week, feel free to track Paul and I down. You can email us at seriousprivacy at trustart.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn or Twitter. We're very easy to find. And make sure to follow us, look for new episodes. And with that, I think we're going to sign off this time, right, Paul?

Paul 49:13

Yes, absolutely. This concludes another episode. And thank you again for listening to Serious Privacy. Until our next episode, goodbye. Goodbye.

Vivian 49:22

Bye, y'all.