Growing up with a deep passion for sharks that left her wanting to “spend all day everyday with them,” Melanie Ensign pursued a college degree in marine biology. About halfway through the program, Ensign realized she was not particularly excited by jobs in the field, so she changed course, a decision that ultimately led her to cybersecurity and privacy. “If you were to ask me, was it a waste of time for me to study marine biology if this is where I was going to end up? Absolutely not,” said Ens... Read More

When Anna Zeiter, CIPP/E, CIPM, started her law career 12 years ago, she knew three things for certain. “I never wanted to work in privacy, I never wanted to work in-house and I never wanted to work in Switzerland,” she said, adding, “You have plans and life has other plans.” Zeiter has a Ph.D. in free speech and, after graduating wanted a career in media law, started out on that path as an associate with DLA Piper in Hamburg, Germany. There was a privacy component to the role, which accounted... Read More

Privacy professionals must answer mission-critical questions daily. Is it OK to share data with this strategic third party? Can we deploy this new marketing feature? Can we place this function in the cloud? Can we deploy this new monitoring tool into our workforce environment? Are we required to delete this data, and if so, what does this mean? Do we need to notify regulators and individuals of this event? Over the years, I've observed that highly successful privacy professionals focus on apply... Read More