About the IAPP

Elena Ames joined Medtronic, a $40B medical device company, in July of 2017 and responsible for all Privacy Risk Reviews. As a privacy engineer, she is helping her business partners of the company to design their solutions with privacy in mind from the concept stage generate value in a responsible way. Before Medtronic, she was leading privacy department at Land O’Lakes, and was responsible for the company’s global privacy program. Previously she led highly complex privacy projects at Deluxe Corporation, leading initiatives on International Privacy Compliance, GDPR, HIPAA, marketing, M&A and investigative demands. Prior to Deluxe she worked for Walmart in Bentonville Arkansas in various legal and compliance leadership positions during her 7-year tenure. She has expertise in global risk management, privacy and compliance, operations, corporate governance, M&A due-diligence, and growth strategy assessment for a Fortune 100 company with retail/distribution operations in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Born in Kazakhstan, Elena immigrated to the US in 2000. She is a US citizen (since 2006), and holds 3 higher degrees: BA in Linguistics, MS in Economics and J.D. (Russian license).