Serious Privacy

Wildly Successful: An Unexpected Career in Privacy

• Emerald de Leeuw • Season 1 • Episode 15

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 48:59

Send us Fan Mail

Describe your perfect privacy career. Do the words “vibrant,” “brilliant,” and “high energy” come to mind?  Back when we still had privacy conferences and trade shows, you could sometimes meet someone that was so vibrant, so enthusiastic and so interesting, they would make the whole event. Emerald de Leeuw, Privacy Lead in EMEA for Logitech is that kind of person. She is a fellow Dutchie to Paul and calls Ireland her home. She is an entrepreneur with a brilliant privacy mind, but allegedly also serves up a mean cocktail. We speak about building out a career in privacy, being underestimated and staying sane while working hard. 

Join us as we discuss a variety of topics, such as Emerald’s problem with Harry Potter movies - spoiler alert, it’s a fine difference between the books and the movies. But we also talk about the challenges that a woman in privacy and tech faces, whether at the beginning of a career, or even when she is established and successful. Being underestimated is just one of those challenges. Emerald also opens up about her career champions and the importance of being authentic as a professional. 

She has an upcoming webinar that is linked below for your convenience as well as a link to her TEDx Talk on online privacy. 

Resources

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.

SPEAKER_01

Please welcome our hosts.

Paul

Do you remember the time when we still had privacy conferences and trade shows, and you could sometimes meet somebody so vibrant, so enthusiastic, and so interesting, they can make your whole event? Today's guest is Dutch a person. She's a fellow Dutchie who calls Ireland her home, an entrepreneur with a brilliant privacy mind, but allegedly also serving up a mean cocktail. We speak about building out a career in privacy, being underestimated, and staying staying while working hard. My name is Paul Breitbart.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm Kay Royal, and welcome to Serious Privacy. So, Paul, I'll let you introduce our guest today since she is a fellow Dutchman, did you say?

Paul

Yes, she is.

SPEAKER_01

I like that.

Paul

Clear me that Emerald.

SPEAKER_01

And then I'll hit her with I'll hit her with the introductory question that she is braced for, and then we can dive right into the substantive information.

Paul

Absolutely. Emerald, shall we do this in Dutch?

SPEAKER_01

I've got all the value.

Paul

Well, let's not do that to our audience. But yes, thank you for being on the program today. We love having you as a guest. As I mentioned, we know each other from lots of privacy conferences. Um, and you always bring such a lot of energy uh to whatever conference we are at and always nice chats, uh good perspectives. So it's great to uh to have you on and also to hear a bit from you how to how you built that career in in privacy, but maybe you can tell us a bit of of your background before we uh before we really start.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Um so thank you so much for having me. Um and thank you so much for those kind comments. I'm always delighted to meet you at various conferences. I think last time we saw each other was in Brussels last year. It feels now it just feels really long ago. I don't know about you, it seems like so much has happened since. Um, regarding my background, um sure. Um so I grew up in the Netherlands. I'm I'm only half Dutch, mind you, but I still proudly carry a Dutch passport. But I must say I feel a little bit torn sometimes because I've been in Ireland for so long now, and my accent, I think, gives me away. Um, I did grow up with an Irish mother, but I did my um undergrad degrees in in law in Tilburg in the Netherlands, and then I received a full scholarship, but the um only stipulation was that I had to do it abroad, and the idea was that you do your master's abroad and then bring the knowledge back to the Netherlands, which is obviously not what I did. I went abroad and never came back. So um I ended up writing my um master thesis on the GDPR, at least on the first draft of it. In fact, I abbreviated it um DPR in my master thesis. It was that early. Um, I didn't even have a proper name yet. So um I ended up doing that, and as I was writing it, I kind of saw the GDPR for what it was a massive game changer in the world of privacy. And um, like I had this idea because I had spent so much time with this particular regulation, and part of me was kind of thinking, who has time to study this? You know, if you're not actually doing it full-time as a thesis. And I kind of saw the DPO's requirements, and uh I actually saw that those are um Kay's favorite articles of the GDPR. I was doing a bit of research prior to joining this call, um, and I was kind of like, who can do this job? Not realizing that there's a whole world of privacy professionals out there because me and my naive college mind kind of figured, hey, I'm the only person doing this.

SPEAKER_01

You're so kind, privacy specialist.

SPEAKER_02

There you go. And uh I ended up, you know, um going, you know what, I think I'll start a software company, and everybody thought I was insane. Um, they were probably right. Um, and I ended up um thinking to myself, you know, I have all of this legal background, but I don't really know that much about tech or data or software development. So I ended up doing another master's in business information systems with the idea of bridging the gap between um law, technology, and business and feeling more equipped to be a CEO of a company. Naturally, I was not at all equipped to be a CEO of a company at 26 just out of college, but you know, it made me feel better. And I ended up having um ended up building a SaaS solution and going on the whole startup journey for a couple of years. Um, but I was a bit too early and not and really underfunded because that can be very challenging raising capital, um, especially in Ireland, there's not really a lot of venture capital. I could have gone to the US, but I didn't really want to leave my whole life behind again because I'd just done that. So my business ended up turning a bit more into a consultancy practice, which I did for a long time and very happily. Um I became a lecturer and did a lot of these side projects. But um, after a while, you know, startup life can get quite lonely, and you're a very different person at 32 than you are at 24, 25 years old. So I figured about a year ago that it was time for something new, and now I head up the European privacy team at Logitech, and I'm very happy I made that change. So um, I think that's kind of my background very briefly summed up.

SPEAKER_01

That is utterly fascinating. There are so many things that you said that I'd love to pick up on and explore further, but I'm not gonna get away from tradition. I am going to hit you with the personal question, and today's question comes from a book called Burn After Writing by Sharon Jones. And it's basically just this or that, and I'm just gonna pick one of them out. And I love watch the movie or read the book.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, read the book. Read the book. Absolutely read the book. There is no hesitation there. No, there's no hesitation there. Um, like I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd, so um my life is consumed by watching the Harry Potter movies, which I absolutely do love, and I'll watch them over and over again, but I still haven't quite recovered from the fact that Daniel Radcliffe's eyes are green because he's allergic to contact, uh, or they're blue, but they're supposed to be green. And like I just can't deal with like lack of detail like that.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, were you like me in movie three? I almost walked out of the theater because it was nothing like the book they left out so much with Dobby, and I was like, I hate this.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and like I can totally relate to that. I also felt the same about the Goblet of Fire. I just felt like the tournament was like five minutes. I was like, what is happening? Right? I'm with you. Okay, Paul.

Paul

But isn't that the case with every book turned into a film?

SPEAKER_02

It is, but they butchered a lot of the stuff in Harry Potter, like because there's this, like, I know this is not a Harry Potter podcast, though I'm fine if it is going to turn out that way.

Paul

Um, but Privacy in the World of Harry Potter, a thesis.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, can I go back to college and write about that instead? Um, well, I would, you know, you know I would. So um, no, like stuff like that bothers me, but I like I love books and I was always very bookish. I'm not sure if you guys experience the same that I do, but ever since we've all kind of gone more digital and more glued to our phones, I'm finding that my reading skills have gone down the drain a little bit. I I can't concentrate the way I used to. I still read, obviously, but not the same way I used to. Like I was the type of kid that would go to the library, take out six books on a Saturday, and then bring them back all red the next Saturday.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah. I I used to read three or four novels at a time a week, and now it's only one or two.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, it's still pretty good, to be fair.

SPEAKER_01

I'm complete, I'm completely with you. So, okay, Paul, are you with us on then on the the book or the movie?

Paul

Oh, fully. I'm completely, completely, completely in favor of the book.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, uh on the last point of this, I will say there is one book that when they turned it into a movie, I thought they did a fantastic job. And I think it may be because they worked on the screenplay for so very, very long, and they involved the author in the screenplay that even though there are key differences in the movie, when you think about it, and it hits you instantly, you'd be like, Oh, well, how else could they have done that for someone who only watches movies? And that's Ender's Game by Orson Scott Wells. And I thought that was incredibly well done. Paul is shaking his head.

Paul

I I haven't read it and I haven't seen it, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01

It was a favorite book of me and extended family and my husband, and so funny how none of us ever knew it, but we all loved it. Okay, let's get into substantive matters then. And Paul, I will let you take it away.

Paul

Thanks, Kate.

SPEAKER_01

Um or we can turn it into a podcast about books and movies. Hey. I think we'd all be cool with that, right? I I think we our listeners would probably be cool with that.

Paul

I guess most of them actually would be, yes. Uh, but maybe then we also need to adjust all the hashtags and the setup that we have for the podcast so that we also find the broader audience that that would be interested in that conversation.

SPEAKER_01

So maybe I'm gonna totally hashtag it books, not movies.

Paul

So maybe that's for uh for a side project or so. Um yes, Emerald, to to to get to privacy. Whereas I mean for most people that read the GDPR, they uh would be running away from it and running away from it very, very fast because it is lengthy, it's complex, it's legal Eurospeak that the average person would not want to read. And you somehow became enthralled by it. How how can that be?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I always really loved the law. I know that sounds like a really dorky thing to say, but there's something really nice about being good at something. And um before I went to law school, because I went to law school quite late, I was 21, which I know is not super late for American um ways of studying, but in the middle of oh well, you know, but for me, I didn't have a I didn't do anything prior to that. Like I was a fitness instructor and I was trying to figure out my life, and I took I didn't want to go and waste um money on studying something I wasn't really committed to. So when I was 21, I decided on law school, and I think particularly when it comes to law, it either clicks or it doesn't. It's it's not really rocket science, which is why I always encourage people to actually just read the GDPR and not necessarily just take my word for it. But you know, particularly if you just look at let's say article five, it it is quite simply written, it's not super complicated, and if you have a decent understanding of that, you you'd probably make reasonable decisions. I think that's a fair thing to say. And I think that because I decided to specialize in intellectual property and e-law, which was my master's, and having this um GDPR, the reason I had the GDPR was I'm not sure if you guys remember the website Europe versus Facebook. Yeah, so this was before Shrems was like super famous for taking um taking Facebook on. Um, but that was kind of like in its early days, and the concept of that was just super interesting to me, right? Because there is part of me that always kind of felt that we were heading towards surveillance, and I just felt like the GDPR was kind of coming in to save us all. Now, clearly that didn't quite happen, but um, I I just really loved what I was reading, and I also didn't want to go work for somebody else, which sounds terrible. But I think um part of me was like, I have a really good idea, and it wasn't a bad idea because I mean now we have the trust arch, which has obviously does kind of the same thing, but I didn't even know Trust Arc existed back then because I I was just like a person with a GDPR in my hands writing a thesis on it, um, and not really tuned into the whole business world at all. Um, but I think the concept of being able to do something on my own and to start building a company, which just seemed to click with me so much more than stuff I'd done before that, and to do it on a topic I actually deeply cared about, which was you know something that would combat the world we were going into, which is this world where we feel like we're always being watched and that our data is always being sold, to kind of be on the side of the good guys, I guess on a moral level, that really resonated with me. And I think it's really important for something that you do for the hours a week for that to actually align with your own values, and I think that's one of the reasons I ended up in this space.

SPEAKER_01

Have you run across a situation where you've tested that then? Um, tested what exactly working in a field that tests your values?

SPEAKER_02

No, not really. So um, I suppose I tried a couple of different things because in the Netherlands um it's quite common for you to do an internship while you're studying. So I worked for the Dutch government for a while, and I was doing an environmental law of all things, um, and that was my bachelor's thesis subject, and I cared about that too, but while I was there at the internship, like my um my tutor or kind of mentor within the government there, he was like a juke and he was quite a fancy, quite grand person. And I would always, but he was very entertaining, and I was sitting in like three of us were in an office together, so we'd have great chats or banter, as we would say here, and he would always say to me, Emerald, whatever you do, you do not need to work in a not-for-profit. So I was always very commercially inclined. So I would always work for a for-profit business, but then I didn't really want to be on the side where you know data was being used for profit. Um, and I think that part of me would still not want to work in a in a company like that, not naming anyone in particular, but I'm sure some come to mind. Um, I couldn't do it, and I don't think I ever will do it. Um, people always say that everyone has a price, but I like to be able to look myself in the eye in the morning and feel okay with what I'm about to do. So I think kind of being on the side of the good guys, that's very much how it felt for me. Now that has obviously changed a little bit. I still think that we're the good guys, but um, you know, now there's a little bit more, you know, mundane stuff that you do and a lot of operational work. But I think that having it aligned with something you actually deeply care about is is a luxury, and if you can do that, you you definitely should.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and then picking up on something you just said and um and thinking about the theme, so you're clearly a big picture person with strong ideals, strong uh mores when it comes to how data is used or bought or sold or profited by. How do you reconcile that with the day-to-day operations of running a privacy program? Is there a trick such as make sure you've got good staff that can handle the mundane day-to-day things? Or is it a case of that's just interwoven into the piece of being a privacy professional?

SPEAKER_02

I think it's a little bit of both. I think that with every job, there's a certain amount of ops and admin stuff, and you just have to kind of accept that. And you can't be arrogant about that. I think it's really important that you bring humility to your job. Like I know with my own team, you know, there's there's tasks that nobody really wants to do, but no matter where you sit in the hierarchy, everybody has a couple of those tasks. This is just how it is, and um, we like the structure to be really flat, so nobody is like, hey, you down there, or and I know hierarchy, you know, it has a purpose, it has a purpose in society, it often has a purpose in companies, but personally, I really like a very Dutch attitude. I'd I'd love to say to Paul Du March Wonde genug, which means in Dutch, act normal. That's crazy enough, and that's very much a Dutch attitude. Very recognizable. So don't get it, yeah, don't get any ideas about yourself. That's kind of how I but I apply that to myself as well. And I think that you have to be so careful about that because um, especially if you are in the startup world and you start getting a little bit of success, it can go to your head really quickly. So you have to check yourself. I think that's really important. Um, and I think absolutely you need really good staff, but you also need staff that will disagree with you. And I try to have people on my team who are who have that humility, but are also happy enough to tell me that I'm wrong. I really appreciate that in people because otherwise you you stop improving. But I really think it's a little bit of both. It's it's part part of the job to a degree, unless you always delegate it, which I personally don't think you should do for the reasons I just outlined.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. And I'm sure you've gotten this question before. And if you tell me you haven't gotten it, it's probably because people just respect you too much to ask. They're probably thinking it. As a woman in a very technological field, and you're not just a woman, you're a gorgeous woman. Uh, you're also blonde. And I have quite a few friends who are blonde and they face this issue. I don't. I don't face the issue because I'm beautiful or because I'm blonde. Um, how do you find that that's a challenge for you in the field? Do people underestimate you?

SPEAKER_02

I need to think about how I'm going to answer this question because I have a couple of things to say about it. I'm just trying to align them in my in my long weekend head. So, absolutely, people used to underestimate me. And I'm going to tell you a small anecdote just because it's fun, and this is the stuff you actually have to deal with if you're a woman. So, um, when I started off with my startup, I had a couple of mentors, and and they really had the best intentions. And because I'm quite a you know, I wear makeup, I've got long blonde hair, and I'm quite girly in in the way I present myself. Um and they told me, you know, Emerald, in order to be successful, you know what you should do? You should wear a pinstripe suit, and that's all you should wear. You should put your hair up and you should wear and this is me at 26, right? And like I was very like young, bubbly 26-year-old person.

SPEAKER_01

So in other words, act like you're a man.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I think there was a bit of that, or at least act like you're a lot less interesting than you might actually be.

Paul

Act like you're not yourself, and I tried it for a long time.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So, and I tried it because when you're in the startup world and everybody around you, I was in an incubator at the time with my company. So everybody around you is in the startup mode, and you're all kind of seeing the same people, and every day there's a new workshop on whether it's financial projections or pitching your business or whatever it is, it's always something. So you get very sucked into that world because it's all you see. So I tried that for a long time, and this was probably 20, 2014, 2015, and I was getting nowhere. And I was like, I'm telling everybody about the GDPR because lots of people hadn't really heard of it back then, and um, people were just not listening, and then after a while, and I was always really uncomfortable, right? Because I'm sure that you'll recognize this. If you're doing something in a professional setting, your clothes can kind of be your your suit of armor, is what you wear to present yourself to the world, and and that's the mode you're in, you know, it's not your it's not sweatpants emerald that's arriving, it's but it's another person. Um, and it I just decided one day, you know what? I'm going to rock my bright blue trousers with an orange blouse, and my shoes will match, and it'll be great. And I started doing that more consistently, and I was already getting little opportunities here and there, but I was trying to get my name out there because I wanted my company to be a success. And um, when I started doing that, things started going a lot better for me. So the more I became myself, the better things became for me. And I think that now um it's also because I'm a I suppose once people start talking to me, they recognize that I'm maybe not an idiot. Um, and it can surprise some people, particularly because I do have the long blonde hair, and people sometimes do think because I'm really high energy that I'm a bit ditzy. Um, which maybe I can be sometimes. I mean, I did open this conversation by talking about Harry Potter, but um that's okay.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of what you say really, really resonates because um I'm also very high energy, and I get underestimated because I'm from the South. And uh so I talked about it off your accent.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, exactly. I wasn't sure whether that was appropriate or not, but it sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_01

And I thank you. And I'm very, very girly. I like my pinks and my bright colors. You can't tell, but I tried dyeing my hair purple. And it came out more of a burgundy because I'm a brownette, not a blonde. But I find it's interesting because it took me until later in my life. I'm very jealous about how early you came to terms with this for yourself because obviously it leads into making you very successful in what you've chosen to do. It took me a longer time to do it, but I live by the mantra now. It comes from the lupus society. I have lupus, um, but I've expanded it to live out loud. It means to be uniquely and unapologetically yourself.

SPEAKER_02

But doesn't it take so much less energy as well? Um, like I suppose the main thing that I have found over time, and and I I got the trick pretty quickly, I'm not going to lie. What ended up happening to me was I was this young CEO of a privacy tech company in a time where privacy was becoming a thing and I was winning all of these awards, and I know that's all vanity metrics, but it does help when you're getting your name out there. And and then women would approach me because they were like, Yeah, I want to have a company too. How did you do it? And I got so much energy from that, and I love supporting female entrepreneurs, even now that I'm no longer actively running my own company. And I just thought, you know, this whole girl boss idea, I just love seeing other women do well, but I couldn't do that if I was trying to be somebody that I'm not. Right. So I think that just being authentic is really, really important, and things go better for you when you are authentic. You get way more success because people see it, people see it if you're being a fake.

SPEAKER_01

People are smart. Oh, absolutely. It it you can't fake it for too long. The the whole thing, fake it till you make it, you better make it quick.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. And also, like most of the people in my industry were all men, and I have nothing against men. Like, men are great, but women are also great. Um, and I was like this young person in privacy who didn't look like everybody else. So I'd get opportunities, no doubt, because I was the token woman on a panel. But I wasn't being resentful about that. I was like, okay, you want me to be the token woman on your panel? Fine, I need to be on another panel because people need to hear about my company. Exactly. So I just went with it. Oh yeah, use every tool that comes to you.

Paul

So yeah, when you were the token woman on on some of these panels early on, um did you did people were people actually surprised by the quality of content that you could also deliver? Were they in fact underestimating what you could bring to the table than just um excuse the words the pretty picture?

SPEAKER_02

Um I'm not sure if they were surprised. Um, like I heard from a few people that my reputation preceded me. I'm not sure what that meant. That could mean anything. Um, but I I don't think because I'm like I still use the titles in my LinkedIn, for example, and I get criticized for that a lot, mostly by men. Not ever has a woman criticized me for this. But I think people always knew that I had a proper education behind me because I had to advertise the titles because otherwise people would often think, you know, why is this person talking about this? What does she know? You know. Um, I think what did happen quite a lot, and I think that we we really need to talk about this more, at least women in privacy. I'm sure the women who are listening will have experienced this as well. I had non-privacy people who were paying to be on a panel with me try and throw me under the bus. And they were always men, every single time. And it was always men who actually shouldn't be there, so they weren't actual people with privacy knowledge, they were people who were sponsoring an event uh because it sort of related to their agenda, or it was a generic tech conference with a privacy session, and this person would end up on the panel, and they would like just try and correct me with basic nonsense. I had one guy, and if you still want to go check it out, it is on YouTube, um just try and correct me on the implementation date of the GDPR, and this person had absolutely no privacy background. And I was just kind of going, what is going on? And I just know that that would not happen had I been living in another body.

Paul

Yeah, probably. And would you would you say that that that was one of the bigger challenges you encountered when starting up in privacy, making sure that people would take you seriously and would respect you for who you were?

SPEAKER_02

Um, no, I wouldn't say in privacy. I had some amazing people prompt me up, like the likes of Jules Polonetsky. He was always so great to me, particularly when I was like just a person with a startup trying to get it out there, and um, you know, people would ask me on panels, and there were a lot of really good people in the privacy industry. They were actually the absolute best. I haven't had a lot of bad experiences with privacy people at all. It was more being taken seriously in the tech industry, which is much more difficult. I think because privacy has a lot of legal people in it and a lot of women study law, it becomes less strange to see lots of women. And we've got loads of female regulators now, right?

Paul

And great ones for that matter.

SPEAKER_02

No, the privacy community has exactly. And I think the privacy community has been nothing but really great to me. Um, I can't really say that I've had many bad experiences with privacy people. And I'm not just saying this because it's a privacy podcast. You know, I I tell you the truth.

Paul

Oh, I'm well aware. That's also one of the things we Dutchies do, right? Be blunt whenever we can.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, exactly. But I mean, people are listening to this because they want to hear somebody's legitimate experience. I think the privacy community is really welcoming, but something I am seeing a bit more these days is that there's a bit of snobbery coming in, right? Because lots of people are getting into privacy, right? And the newer people, you know, the old guard is kind of going, Why are you here? That seems to be a thing that I'm seeing. Um, and I guess I'm sort of a little bit old guard, but not the oldest of the other.

Paul

I guess I guess we're about third generation privacy professionals, and um, we're about the same age, we have about the same length of experience in the in the field, and um I think there is a whole generation after us. I mean, you did already GDPR in in university, but now it's actually possible to also study privacy law at university, um, which certainly in in my days didn't exist, and I don't think as explicitly in in your days either. Um, so that that's a whole new generation coming after us, um, who should also enjoy the same passion for the field, I think, as as we do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and we should be more welcoming to them. And I'm not saying that I'm not welcoming to them. I'm just saying I'm seeing a little bit of hostility from from some other privacy people. You pick it up on places like Twitter sometimes. Um, and I think we need to be more open because we need more of the good guys, right? We need more privacy people.

Paul

Absolutely. So, do you consider it one of your goals or missions to also educate people, to mentor them, to coach them, to indeed bring them into the fold of the of the larger privacy community?

SPEAKER_02

Wherever I can, absolutely. Um, I think it's not what like lots of people approach me about how do I get into privacy. That happens quite a lot, and obviously, um, with people on my team, I would do my absolute best. Like one of the girls on my team actually, I gave a talk at my university for the um master's degree in uh business information systems, and this girl was doing a master's in risk management, and she actually went into privacy because I came in and spoke about a career in privacy to them. So that kind of stuff is amazing when that happens. But I think a lot of the mentoring that I do now is um a lot with women, um, because I know what it's like to start a company yourself by yourself as a sole founder, as a female entrepreneur, um, and the challenges that come with that. So wherever I can, absolutely, but I get more questions about you know, how do you become a 10 speaker? Because apparently this is what people really care about, right? It's it's this kind of how do you become like famous for something, or if like famous is the wrong word, but you know what I mean. How do you get more attention online? That seems to be a recurring theme, which I feel a little bit disappointed about sometimes.

Paul

Because then it's more about the picture and less of about the content.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's about the speaking. How do you get on a panel? And you know, and I'm kind of going, that tends to follow when you're doing something else.

Paul

True.

SPEAKER_02

You get invited to panels because you're doing something else, not because you were on the panel.

Paul

No, I fully agree with that. That's uh that's certainly true. But at the same time, you also did a TEDx talk in which you um were very passionate about the advertising industry, about tracking and what we can do and then to to raise awareness, but you were also very open about your personal history. Was that well, it must have been a deliberate choice, but have you always been that open?

SPEAKER_02

No, absolutely not. Um, well, I've always been a very open person, but certainly not about that part of my past. Um, because I think there's a lot of shame in it. Um, like just for the people listening, um, in my early 20s, I had a pretty bad eating disorder, and I kind of speak about the effects of media, not social media, but regular media, on you know, young, I think young women predominantly, but also men. Um and what it does to people now when they can't really get away from all of these fake images because they're being bombarded with and on Instagram and the likes of that. And I think, you know, an eating disorder in particular, it's a mental health issue, and it's it's not about being thin, it's about controlling a certain aspect of your life, and it's kind of a coping mechanism, and people often don't think about it that way because there's again so much stigma around it, because it's always yeah, you know, one of the reasons like I had to think so hard about whether or not to share it. Um, and loads of people told me not to, including my mother, um, because it was one of those things, you know, emeralds are now really quite successful over here. If you like say something like that, then you won't be successful anymore. And part of me went, and I and I umed an ad about it for a long time. And the reason I shared it was, you know, it's it it's part of my past now, it's not a current problem anymore. And I think it's easy to talk about stuff like that when it's no longer in your present because you can't be judged as harshly for it anymore. But I also think it's super important to show that you can be a lot of things at the same time, you know, you can be a successful person or a really good professional, but also have had your demons in the past, you know, things can coexist. I think something that we see a lot these days is that we see this image of a person and we assume that everything in their life is perfect and has always been perfect. And I think that it's not right because there is enough of that fakeness already. We need more people who are successful sharing the difficult parts of their lives.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, Emerald, I'm so sorry, but I couldn't agree with you more. I have tended to share personal things about my life, including on this podcast. I think everybody who listens knows I have lupus and passed it down to both my girls. And it is very personal, but you're right. We need to share our challenges and our triumphs.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I tried to practice what I preached, but I'm not gonna lie, I was really scared to share it, but I did it anyway. So here we are, it's out there now.

Paul

And I think the response was positive overall, right? I mean, you uh at least from when I looked at it, it's it's a very personal story. Um, that at the same time you are able to link to something that you are very passionate about now. Um uh privacy, data protection, uh the surveillance society, and and making sure that we all are a bit more careful, whether that is um by how we present ourselves but also how we approach others. That's that's probably what I what I most retained from it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thank you. And and what I had in mind for the talk was very much privacy for the masses, right? So it's probably not this audience because they already know all of this stuff, but lots of people don't really know the extent of the tracking online, particularly not the heavy social media users. And because I'm I think we're still kind of young enough because to talk about it without, you know, saying people thinking that you're not relatable. Um, I think I'm still a little bit relatable to the people that I hope are listening. Um so I think that's why I did it. Um, but it's it was a very hard topic to talk about. But you know, it's one of those things that I went through, I've recovered from, and and here we are. But I think it's a very current problem that is still very much happening. So the more we talk about it, the less stigmatized it's going to be.

Paul

Oh, absolutely. And in that light, I I read probably somewhere on your social media that um you're actually going to pay some more attention to May being the mental health awareness month as well, um, with an upcoming webinar.

SPEAKER_02

Correct. Yeah, and I appreciate you bringing that up. So um so I recently got a fellowship from um the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and this is um kind of like a think tank, and what they do is they focus on bridge making sure that there's a proper transatlantic relationship between you know Europe and the US and strengthening those bonds. And I ended up getting their Memorial Fund fellowship, and as part of the journey of getting that fellowship, I went to Brussels um for the final round of interviews, and I met this amazing lady called uh Nadja L. Fratasi, who was also Dutch, mind you, and she was one of the judges. And she was this very senior person in NATO, and she was like super successful, um, but she burnt out completely. She suffered a terrible burnout and was completely out of action for a while. So she quit her job in NATO, which it was probably a very difficult thing to do if you've made it that far. And she set up her own business, which focuses very much on you know, emotional intelligence, mental health. And she asked me, you know, because I was very honest during my interview there um for the final round. I told them the whole story, everything I've been through, and just kind of said, right, this is who I am, this is why I think I deserve the fellowship, but I want to present my whole self, and that seemed to have worked, which again brings me back to this whole authenticity thing, which is important. Um, but she asked me after I got the fellowship what whether I'd be on her um webinar on the 27th of May. So it'd be this podcast will be out on time if you still want to go listen to that. Now we haven't advertised it yet, so if you're interested in this, then just go follow me online. I'll be shamelessly self-promoting it.

Paul

So we can put a link in the show notes once the link is available.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, perfect. So it's very much a not-for-profit thing. It's I'm trying to get better about being more transparent and and not being this exactly, yeah. You know, like from conversations I've had with I gave a commencement speech at my alma mater recently, and I had to, you know, tell people a couple of lessons of what I've learned. And afterwards, like loads of girls would come up to me and say, Oh, it's amazing, all that you've accomplished, and blah blah blah blah blah. And stuff like that just makes me realize that they only get this snapshot of the success. And and I think it's really important that people know all the other bits. So I'm trying to do more of the showing the more difficult bits that happen in your life and in careers, and stuff you have to go through while you're becoming successful.

Paul

I think that's uh that that's very important, and and indeed that authenticity is something that a lot of people, especially young people, could benefit from. Um I recently had a conversation with somebody who is in in high school here in the Netherlands and about to make a choice, uh a life-determining choice, what what kind of studies to pursue. Um, and um her mother and I know each other uh pretty well. And she said, can my daughter have a chat with you about the choices you made uh when when you were in in her position and how you came to the conclusion that LOL was the right studies for you and that Master University was the university for you? And we had a very nice chat, I think it was no more than 30 minutes, but just explaining what I did and and why I made certain choices and also how my career evolved from there, and that you don't need to have a fixed plan in five years I want to be this, and ten years I want to be that. No, life is also um bringing you opportunities that you that you need to grab with both hands. And sometimes the opportunities that you think are gonna work out fine are not so nice after all, and then you also have to readjust your plans accordingly.

SPEAKER_02

That is so true. Um, things tend to make sense when you look back, right? I find that. Oh, yes, they certainly do. Yeah, and like for me, not everything worked, you know, and and that's okay. Um, because you end up where you're supposed to be. At least I I tell myself that, because that's the only way to get any sense of happiness, right? When when things don't work out, that usually means you were supposed to be somewhere else.

Paul

Yes, I agree. And I mean if you have to work 40, 50, 60 hours a week, uh well, the average contract always says 40, but it could be more in practice. Yeah, then you also want to do something that is fun and that you can be passionate about. And um, I think for for all of us here in in the podcast, but also the guests we had before, that passion is privacy and data protection and ensuring that the fundamental rights that we have um will live on also in the future. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I agree with you completely. Um, and also working with the people you like, but so important because there's a huge cultural part. And one of the reasons I love going to conferences is not necessarily because I'm speaking on the panel, even though that's always fun too. It's usually because I kind of get to hang out with my fellow privacy nerds and they don't think I'm a dork, which is amazing because they're the same. It's like um, I think that's that's really nice. Um, about I think the privacy community is actually really good that way. You know, you kind of rock up at a conference and there's loads of people you end up knowing, and you can catch up.

Paul

Yes, I agree, and that's also the thing I miss most about not having a conference season this spring.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, me too. Like I was looking forward to, and I didn't make it to CPDP this year, and I was gutted by it, and now I'm really regretting it. But anyway, we'll just have to hope for better days.

Paul

True, you can't win them all. That's uh that's for sure. So maybe to to conclude, what would be your best advice for people that are starting into privacy now and that that are looking to build out a career like you don't like you did, maybe not as uh the CEO of a privacy tech company in in their first year, but what kind of recommendation would you give them?

SPEAKER_02

Um, a couple of things. First of all, I think that you can only grow if you're doing more than your current role, as is. So do your absolute best where you are. I think that is really important advice. Um don't feel like you're too good for a certain job. Like everybody has to do the junior bits. Like, even though I was the CEO of my own business, I had I always used to joke I was the chief everything officer because I had to do everything for the business. Like all the boring stuff, all the stuff I didn't want to do. Um you just need to accept that, be humble about it, absolutely, and always kind of exceed your current job because once you start exceeding what your job description is, people will see that and they will promote you if they have any sense. If they don't, maybe stick it out for another couple of months and shop around. That would be the next piece of advice. Um, but generally people see it if you're really, really good, right? So do the best where you are. And then the next thing I would say, which might be counterintuitive, but have a voice. Start speaking about what you think because one of the great things about being just out of college is that your knowledge is still so fresh. Um, the thing that is your competitive advantage with other people in privacy is that a lot of privacy people are very, very busy with their full-time jobs. I know that I experience that. My job takes up so much of my time and so much of my energy that I don't really find as much time to read interesting papers and you know the luxury work you get to do when you're still studying. Um you can go out into the world and write things, you know, you can publish your articles on Medium or on LinkedIn and get involved in discussions even on Twitter and stuff like that. Like I know loads of people in privacy because I met them on Twitter first. Um, and I'm sure this is true for you as well, Paul. Oh, yes, absolutely.

Paul

It's a great source of information.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and you end up like you feel you know these people, um, even though you haven't even met in person, and then you meet in person and you're like, yeah, I feel like, you know, let's go for a drink. We've known each other for years. Right. Um, so I think the two things I would say is do you know, fulfill your current job description and do more than you need to, so go the extra mile. Um, because like you are starting out, so if you want to be noticed, you need to do something that is noticeable and worth taking and paying attention to. And then the next thing I would say is you you don't have to feel that you're too junior to have a voice. Um, I certainly never felt that way, which some people might think is arrogant, but I think there's something to be said for shameless self-promotion because who else is going to do it for you?

Paul

That's absolutely true. Well, thank you so much, Emerald. This was a a great pleasure talking to you, um, even though it's not at a conference reception. Um, but I still feel that this was a good catch-up. Uh, and I'm looking forward to uh uh to speak to you again at some other point. Um, and indeed for you and Kay to uh to meet at an event somewhere in the world once we are allowed to get back on the road again.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And definitely we need to have this privacy cook-off cocktail thing with Pat and the other CPDP people. It needs to happen. Well, if I Kay as well, I'm sure that um she'd enjoy that as well.

Paul

Absolutely. And if you are curious what that privacy cook-off cocktail thing is, just reach out to us via social media. Um, if you like our series, please do tell your friends and colleagues about it. Uh, follow us on your favorite podcast app so new episodes come automatically in your feed. And should you have any questions or suggestions if you want to be on the program as a guest, please reach out to us via seriousprivacy at prostock.com via Twitter at podcastprivacy. You will find Kay on Twitter at Heart of Privacy and myself at Europol B. Thank you for listening to this episode of Serious Privacy. Until our next episode. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_01

Bye yell.

Head Shot

Dr. K Royal

Host
Head Shot

Paul Breitbarth

Host
Head Shot

Ralph O'Brien

Host