Tired of the job hunt? This episode changes everything!

Our expert guest, Swati Popuri, Data Privacy Architect breaks down what it takes to get hired.

In this episode, you'll uncover:

• Insider secrets to landing top-tier privacy jobs.
• Must-have skills to impress hiring managers
• Strategies for nailing challenging interview questions
• Tactics for making a strong early impact in a new privacy role

Ready to transform your privacy career? This episode is your roadmap!

Swati Popuri is a Data Privacy Architect working at the intersection of technology and society.

She has led technical privacy implementations at Fortune 500 companies and social media platforms.

If you're ready to transform your career and become the go-to GDPR expert, get your copy of 'The Easy Peasy Guide to GDPR' here: https://www.bestgdprbook.com/

Follow Jamal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmjahmed/

Follow Swati on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swatipopuri/

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Privacy Pros podcast. If you're a privacy professional and you're ready to take your career to the next level, then you're going to want to stick around for this amazing episode that we have today.

Because I'm joined by an incredible guest with experience working at some of the best companies in the world. And she's going to be revealing her insider secrets to help you land those highly sought after in-demand, highly competitive roles. We're going to uncover the essential skills that impress hiring managers, tackle those tricky interview questions, and learn how you can really make a strong impact in your first few weeks because you never get a second chance to make your first impression.

I'm your host, Jamal Ahmed, award-winning global privacy expert and founder of the Privacy Pros Academy where we're building a community of world-class privacy professionals who are coming together to empower businesses to adopt honest privacy practices.

And the reason we're doing that is because we have this vision but we're going to create a world where every woman, every man, and every child enjoys freedom over their personal information. So the guest today is Swati Popuri, a data privacy architect working at the intersection of technology and society. She's led privacy implementations at Fortune 500 companies and across social media platforms as well. Welcome to the podcast.

Hey Jamal. Thank you so much for having me. I am really excited to be here. It is a great honor to be able to come as your guest on this podcast.

It's an absolute privilege for me to have you here as a guest. And you've actually promised to play a game with me which no guest has ever done before. So I'm really interested. Let's see what this game is all about.

Yes. So this is just an icebreaker that I like to play when I am meeting somebody new just so I can tune into their frequency and their wavelength so I can come meet them at that level. My friend Katie, who is the founder of Lotus Way Flower Essences, has taught this game to me, and I will lead us through this experience. And as I have mentioned, I played this game multiple times. So for this game, what we have to do is first, we have to go back in time and think about a time when you were about five or six years old and think about a flower, your favorite flower that comes to your mind. And let's take like five seconds for you to be able to think about what your favorite flower was when you were a little kid, five-six years old. So for me, It was jasmines. I was very attracted to jasmines when I was a little kid. That's because in my grandfather's garden in the front yard, there was like these huge jasmine. It was almost like a tree. And I used to have a lot of fun playing under the tree. And now you have to think about the quality that evokes for you when you think of this flower. So when I think of jasmines, the quality that evokes for me is resilience. And the reason I say it's resilience is because the fragrance of jasmines is so persistent that even after you move the jasmines away from the room, you can still tell that somebody had jasmines here in this room.

Yeah. So when you asked me to go back in time to a memory when I was about five or six years old, for whatever reason, my subconscious mind took me to not such a happy memory. So when I was around five years old, I was actually hospitalized for about six months. And the reason was, I don't know whether I was very naughty or something went wrong, but something happened where I ended up electrocuted and I almost died. You can see the marks on my hands. That's what it looks like now, about 35 years later. So I was in hospital for six months, getting multiple operations done. And for whatever reason, I think someone brought some flowers to the ward and lilies came to my mind, and I remember lilies.

And when I think of lilies, what it reminds me of is a little bit, I think, hope, because there's something there that's so fragile that it can be crushed and it can really be horrible, but if taken care of, if nurtured, if given the right environment, then they can grow into something really beautiful and bring lots of light and joy to the people who get to witness and experience it.

No, that is beautiful. Let's come back to our present time where we are in this moment. And now let's think about what is a favourite flower that comes to your mind and a quality that evokes in you. So for me, a favourite flower that comes to my mind is roses. So I have these rose bushes right in my front yard. And every time I go into my house or come out of my house, I get to see these roses. The quality that evokes to me is that they bring so much of joy and spontaneity. And I feel like they're so happy and joyful.

Wow. So for me, right now, I would say orchids come to mind. I think the reason why orchids come to mind is because they're pretty low maintenance, they can survive indoors, outdoors in almost any environment. They don't ask for a lot. However, wherever you put them, they brighten up the room, they add value, they bring elegance, and they just make everything so much nicer in whichever environment you place them in. So that's what comes to mind. How did I do in your game?

That is amazing. You did very well. Now let me reveal what it actually means. The thing that came to your mind when you were six or seven and the quality that evoked for you was the innate quality that you were born with, which is that the realizing that it is so fragile and you bring like hope to wherever you are. And this is the innate quality that is always with you and it's never going to go away, no matter what. And the quality that you talked about which is orchids and the quality that evokes for you is that you want to bring value or that is a quality that you're working on right now currently. That is, you want to bring value to the world and you want to make your contribution and make an impact, which is what I heard from you. So for me similarly, the innate quality that I was born with is the resilience that the fragrance of the jasmines evokes for me. And the quality that I'm currently working on is about being more joyful and spontaneous. In the day to day routines of the house, the kids, the work, this, that, and all this.

Wow, that is fascinating.

Yes. So does it hold true for you, or no?

I recognize what you're saying. I mean, if we go back to the early days, what you see is I'm someone who's very optimistic. And some people say, very deliriously so sometimes, but I believe like I have the hope and I think the hope transforms into optimism but you can have optimism as long as you have the right strategy and you apply. I always believe everything, anything is possible. You just got to find the right person, have the right conversation, have the right skills. There is always a way. You just got to figure it out. So I recognize that. I didn't realize that it was actually an innate quality.

I found this really fascinating actually. I'm so glad we actually recorded this, you know, it's amazing.

Okay. So Swati, you're a data privacy architect. Could you just explain what a data privacy architect actually does?

Privacy sits at the core of data, and the way the businesses operate these days is there is no business which is not collecting the personal or the PII data from the customers in order to render their service back to the customers. And there is this privacy policy and privacy statement wherein we say we are going to do this, this, this certain things with your private or the personal data and that is the reason we are collecting because this is a contract between the customer and the company. And as a data privacy architect, what I do is I ensure that we are complying to what we have made our promises in those privacy policies and statements. And those have been technically implemented on the backend when we see we are using your data to only offer you this service and not for anything else. So I am holding us up and making sure that we align with what was promised to what is actually being done.

Okay. Fascinating. So for anyone who's new to data privacy or exploring a data privacy architecture career opportunity, what you've essentially explained, Swati, there is your job is to make sure that the technical environment, the way things are built, the back end, actually supports the promises that are made to the users or the individuals on the front end when we're collecting that information either through the privacy notice or some other way.

So you're responsible for making sure that all of that works in a way that is compliant but that's also meets the promises that have been made. But what I want to know is more about how you decided to become a data privacy architect. Is it something that you always wanted to do or is it something that you pivoted to or is it something that kind of fell into your lap?

What was the light bulb moment that really sparked your interest into data privacy architecture?

Yes, definitely. So this is not something I have started off wanting out of my career. Back in 2010, I started with American Airlines. I started in the data department and I worked my way through various roles, it used to be called an ETL developer. That's like the old way of saying things. Now it's called a data engineer because nobody uses the word ETL. It's so outdated, so ancient like what, what, ETL? No, we don't say ETL here. So we call it data engineer but although my title said ETL developer or senior ETL developer. So I was always working with the data and some form or shape to do with the management of the data. For example, collection, retention, deletion, and all these sorts of things. And I was slowly involved into the GDPR initiatives back in 2017 because the airline had a presence in the European countries. And I started understanding all these things like pseudonymization and anonymization and what a DSAR is and how do we respect the user's preference if they want us to forget about them. And how do we like do that to a soft delete or a hard delete and things like this. And then I started getting more and more involved into data sharing initiatives we were working in conjunction with our legal and other team counterparts about What is okay according to the contractual clauses, how should we share this data and how should we ensure it is adequate and protected when we end up sharing this data with the other airlines which was actually a joint business agreement between multiple airlines. Some airlines were present in Europe and some were in the United States. And that's when I got introduced into this whole world of data privacy although none of my titles had the word like privacy. It was just like a data architect. It was my title back then. And then In 2021 when it was a very difficult time during the pandemic for the airline, I got an amazing offer from Twitter and this time that I actually had privacy in it. So I was working on the privacy and data governance team and here I was introduced to a whole new world of privacy. So we had an FTC consent decree at Twitter which was a 10-year FTC consent decree for having misused a dataset which was promised for two-factor authentication. It was misused for marketing purposes so it's kind of not in compliance with what the purpose of processing was for when it was collected versus the purpose actually was used for and it was not intentional or I mean the regulators do not buy whether it's intentional or not intentional. So at Twitter, it was more I would say like a reactive approach to privacy. It's constantly like a hamster wheel I would say because there are some regulatory inquiry from somewhere about why is this there? Why is this not there? so in my previous role it was more of a proactive approach to privacy

whereas it turned into a more reactive thing at Twitter. And I was laid off during the acquisition of Twitter. So that's when I am in this current role as a data privacy architect for religious group. I wanted to continue to stay where what I was doing and what I love doing in my career. And I wanted to build my career around that. And when it comes to like one light bulb moment about what gets me excited about doing what I'm doing. So the one thing that I realized very early when it comes to the role that I'm doing is there is innovation that happens in the company and there are so many teams and departments that we are all trying to innovate and we are all trying to Build the revenue and make an impact in the customer's life at the end of the day. But Me being in this role often I see that I get to get a heads up or a head start on these innovations that are going on across the various departments because often the innovation has something to do with always collecting personal data and it's about We want to use this somewhat differently and we want to improve the service. Maybe it's like a delivery service which takes three days. For example if it's like an Amazon Prime it takes three days to deliver and now we want to do the same day delivery. So now we are collecting different data points on how to make that happen to move this delivery. So in my role I often get to see the innovation firsthand and I also stay up to date on what are the new and the innovative things that the organization is making. So I really like being in this role because and I hope that when new processes or features are being released and implemented that they come firsthand and early on to the team to make sure that they are doing this right.

Well, that sounds fascinating. So what you're saying is the kind of fulfilling aspect of this is being on the cutting edge of technology and coming up with those innovative ideas of making sure that you get to deliver what the business wants whilst at the same time making sure that you're taking care of the The customer's data and that can only be used in a way that is compliant with the way that's being promised in the privacy statements and meets all of the different legal requirements. And early on you have the opportunity to say okay let's build this thing up from the ground This is what we wanted to do. This is how we wanted to look like but at Twitter it was more reactive problem Okay what do we need to fix the problem? Another problem what do we need to react to do that? So it sounds like you had lots of fun in the different types of roles which has really helped you to excel because you had to deal with pressure but you've also had to deal with things from the thinking about things of how do we actually go about creating this from the ground up too.

What are the top three skills that you would say has helped you or that would help anyone really excel in a data privacy architecture role?

Good program management skills. As I said, privacy sits at the core of data and the privacy programs are very cross-functional and cross-collaborative efforts amongst the various teams. And having a good sense of execution sort of capabilities as a good program manager getting the timeline and understanding who needs what, what is the deliverable that is expected, where does a handoff need to happen between these teams, what is the upstream dependency, what is the downstream dependency. So having these good program management skills would be helpful. The second skill I would say is being deliberate about relationship building because often we work not just with our team members in our little engineering or the IT team but we work with product, we work with legal, compliance, and marketing. So I would say just Learn how to make really good friends with the lawyers, the privacy attorneys, and the legal department team members in your organisation. And the reason I bring that up is working with a technical audience and explaining a concept to a technical audience is important. quite different from working with a non-technical audience like the legal team members and explaining the same technical concept to them. It really takes effort and that's because our brains are wired differently when it comes to problem-solving. As an engineer, I would say, What is the most efficient way for me to solve this, to go from point A to point B? But if I was working in solving the same problem in collaboration with the legal team member I would also consider what is the risk that I'm taking in solving this problem from moving from point A to point B. And is there a different way to move Which is also efficient and also not such a high-risk solution. So being deliberate about relationship building. Being good friends and like I said understanding how things work because the other team members may not be used to how we are used to doing things. So the third skill I would actually call out which kind of ties in to being deliberate about relationship building is actually empathy. And the empathy is again about trying to Put yourself in the shoes of the other team members to understand. So we often complaining that Oh we are getting so much of pushback from this team because our feature is like deprioritized because they don't have a bandwidth and being able to have empathy and to understand and then meet them there at that point is also going to be very helpful in making the privacy programs a success in the long run.

That's really insightful. So what I took away from that and I really resonate with all three of these and you know what I love most about your answer is you gave me three soft skills and this is the thing I think a lot of privacy professionals don't understand is if you really want to perform at the highest levels of your career or the highest levels of performance in any role it's not the technical stuff. The technical stuff is easy to acquire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What you can't really teach people or what's more difficult to develop because people don't pay enough attention to it is the soft skills. And the three soft skills that you identify to really excel and thrive as a data privacy architect number one is program management. That's all about being organised. Too many privacy professionals are great at starting lots of things but nobody's great at actually finishing projects and getting things done. Also, you need to understand what's dependent on something else and how do we make sure we're those relationships and moving things along. You can't complete that until that's done but then you need to be aware of that. So you understand how you can actually execute properly to make sure that you achieve the program on time you achieve the deliverables on time and actually on budget as well. So program management was the first thing that you called out. So I definitely love that. And it's very important to us as consultants on the operational side as well that we have those great program management skills. Number two Relationship building. I think that is one of the most important skills for any person in any career. If you have great people skills if you have great relationship management skills then when I was going at it back and saying anything's possible trust me like through the power of relationships I managed to achieve some great things that I wouldn't otherwise and I shouldn't have otherwise been able to achieve. So I really buy into that. And when you talk about relationship building skills what you mentioned We have to understand that we have to communicate with different audiences in different ways. We can't just take one approach. And so many professionals be like well this is me. This is how I am. But you know what? It's not about you. It's never about you. It's always about the audience. It's always about showing up and delivering value and having the tools and having that versatility to actually go and talk to different people and engage with them in a way that makes sense to them. And one of the things that you said is actually harder to break things down. When you're talking to other technical people it's fine. You speak the same language but then when you're going and talking to customer services when you're talking to marketing when you're talking to legal and they're all speaking their own lingo and you're trying to figure out what they're talking about but at the same time you want to explain What you need to achieve or how all of this comes together with them you need to break it down in a way that they can understand too. And that's where that relationship building the communication skills come from. And that's why one of the things I focus on on the Privacy Pros Accelerator program is the art of communication. How can we really go about breaking things down and make them very simple. And that's also how I actually accidentally became an international bestseller is because I wrote this easy peasy guide. Initially It was a google document that I used to give to my clients to share So that they had a better idea of what the GDPR meant in a way that anyone could understand And some of the interns that I was working with at the time they started printing them off and keep them at the desk because they found it helpful And then they started sharing some of those with my mentees and then people were like yeah I've got this on my desk. We printed it off and I was like well this is amazing So I shared On LinkedIn I think we shared about 4 000 copies of it on LinkedIn and the feedback coming back was so great. So then I decided you know what let's really focus on this and get it into more people's hands. And so that's how the easy peasy guide to the GDPR came about is just by accident really. It was just about building those relationships. So when I'm speaking to them or when we're having those conversations it's in a way that they can actually understand too. And the third skill that you called out was all about empathy. Being able to understand Other people and how they're feeling what their goals are what their interests are what their fears and phobias might be. When you understand those things it actually helps you to work together. And one of the things that you hear me saying over and over and over again is you have to go and meet people where they are. And I believe another way of saying that is having empathy. If you have empathy you would always be able to go and meet people where they are. And unless you're willing to go and meet people where they are you're going to find you face a lot of resistance you're going to find you face a lot of challenge and it's always going to be much more effort and a lot more taxing and less enjoyable for you to do the things that you need to do. But the moment you make somebody feel understood The moment you show them that you're aligned with what they're trying to do and why what you're doing is also important and how it's in line with the overall organisational vision and goals then you're on the same team. You're working together looking in the same direction. And unless you can empathise and meet people where they are it's going to be really tough. So. I love you for sharing those top three skills program management and organisation relationship building and communication and empathy and meeting people where they are. And I believe you know what those three skills are actually some of the top skills that anyone if they acquire them regardless of how much technical experience they have or not it will help them to stand out it will help them to thrive. Which now brings us into the next question that I'm going to ask you. So you just explained how you were at American Airlines, Twitter and all of these amazing roles. And so we're in a climate now where lots of companies are actually downsizing. They're having to save 20 percent by shredding stuff and it's impacting a lot of people. But at the same time it's a great opportunity for people to upskill and maybe think about a career in privacy or transition and add some privacy skills and actually be even more valuable and get greater reward greater fulfillment from some of their roles. Can you tell me what Are the skills that you need to Excel at in interviews to be able to advance your career? How do you get those offers? What do we need to do during the interview?

Yes. And thank you Jamal for asking me this question because this is a lesson that I learned the hard way. As often as I can I overemphasise the importance of building your credibility and presence on LinkedIn which is like the number one privacy professionals platform. And the reason I say I learned that this the hard way is because throughout my career until the point of or the day of my layoff I did not care about a damn single teeny bit about what my profile looked like on LinkedIn. But then suddenly I was in a situation where All of my previous managers they knew the excellent work ethic I had and how superb and amazing and technical I was when it came to executing things or solving problems technically. But then I was suddenly in a situation where I had to have more people know about the fact that I know a lot and I kind of abandoned the whole LinkedIn presence and my profile up until that point. And suddenly it was a wake up call because personally also I have seen when a very large number of members from my team they themselves were laid off but they were kind of better off in that economic downturn which was a very difficult time because at the time there were a lot of layoffs from large big tech companies and the market was super saturated with very talented people who could do the same thing that I could do. And there was nothing like differentiating me from them. And they were actually better off at the time because they had taken all this time and effort throughout the years to build their network and to tend to their network and they were able to position themselves in a place where Even before the opportunities were opening up they were able to get their hand on those opportunities and they were able to get those interviews whereas the situation even right now I wouldn't say it's that great because if there is a job opening and there are Like 200 applicants in the first one hour it goes live on LinkedIn. And then if you come back in a day there are like 800 applicants and then they take the job posting down because they have received so many applications to sort through. So what I would say is that no matter where you are in your career whether you're in the early stage mid career or you are like at the expert level in your career and you have achieved whatever You wanted to accomplish out of your career I would say. state that it is very important to build your credibility and show your authentic voice on LinkedIn. And I know it can be daunting because I had the same fears myself when I was trying to rebuild and Re piece the things back together and trying to make sense out of what is it that I want to do or how is it that I want to position myself because only few people knew how excellent I was and I wanted more people to know that I know a lot and how I can solve their problems.

Thank you. That a super honest and a very important and valuable lesson because one of the things that really frustrates me is I get messages from people on LinkedIn every single day asking for help asking for guidance asking for pointing them in the right direction. And here's the thing like people ask me for advice and I'm very happy to help people but they already have their minds made up and they believe that the way to accelerate their career the way to break into privacy is to go and get an empty certification. And I really hate the word. Clear the certification because it's not something that you clear. If you're going to go and get certified and actually apply yourself go and learn with the mentor so you leave with some practical skills that you can actually take to the table and a certification isn't going to help you to show that you're credible more than anyone else because guess what? There's thousands of people out there with those certifications right? That's not going to help you to show that you are credible to show that you're capable. What that's going to do is put you and make you the same as everyone else. And it's not going to help you stand out. What is going to help you to stand out though is your reputation. And how do we actually let people know about our reputation? How do we build that reputation? That's where personal branding comes in. And LinkedIn is such a powerful platform for that. And what you've identified there is because you hadn't actually up until that point worked on your personal branding You hadn't worked on your reputation. You hadn't worked on showing the things that you're capable of You was disadvantaged The only people that knew how great you were were the people that just let you go and they weren't hiring at the time but the moment you started working on your personal branding Everything became easier right? You didn't even have to apply for jobs anymore because people are approaching you saying Swati are you available? We've got this project coming up. Or recruiters are saying hey what's going on right now? Someone's asked us to speak to you. You're getting headhunted. And that's the difference that makes a difference when you work on LinkedIn or when you focus on building a personal brand and you don't. The reason a lot of people don't actually focus on it is because they're scared. Right. And I get that. I completely get it. A lot of people are worried about what people might say. Some people might make fun of you your colleagues your manager might think you're looking for another job. Your friends might see you your family might see you and they might come up with all of these things. And look there's all of these things that can hold you back but you're asking yourself the wrong question. You're asking what would happen if this goes wrong. What you need to ask yourself is wouldn't it be great if Wouldn't it be great if my next hiring manager showed this? Wouldn't it be great if a recruiter saw this and made me the offer of my dreams? Wouldn't it be great if people saw this and someone was able to learn from it and benefit from it or I helped somebody in almost a distance mentorship capacity. So I think the questions that we ask ourselves often limit Or dictate how far we can go with something or how we hold ourselves back and often it's those limiting decisions it's the confidence issues. The other thing is when you're actually posting on LinkedIn and you create some great content by the way I think that's how I first came across you. I remember actually you'd posted some great videos and one of them was about cookies and you was talking about how you had to come up with a kettle of cookies. And I was like well that's not very pragmatic is it? Why can't we just use the same cookie? And then you asked me a question I was saying well. I hear what you're saying but from a technical point of view how would we go about achieving that? And I was like that's a good question. And I haven't solved it yet. So I'll come back and answer that once I solved it. And I was like Swati you know what you'd be great to come on the podcast and have a conversation. That's how we started our conversations isn't it? And this podcast is going to go out to 137 different countries. Lots of recruiters and hiring managers. We'll see that lots of your potential future employers and colleagues might actually hear that. But if you hadn't put yourself out there on LinkedIn to begin with we would never would have met this conversation would not have happened. And that video that I saw. I know there's probably tens of thousands of other people that saw that too. There's probably somebody trying to solve that specific problem right now. And they're going to come across your video and then be like swati We need your help. Can you come and help us solve this problem? Or can you come and give us a little bit of guidance kind of thing? Can you do a little bit of consultancy for us? Whatever it might be but that's how opportunities come up And you can hear how much I want to talk about this but i'm going to stop now. But Working on your personal brand is the single most important thing that anyone can do for their career Hands down and I really want to thank you for actually focusing on that above everything else because you're right That is the difference that makes a difference Silence.

domain. Then why can we not use the same cookie? And I also want to point out the optimistic way of you looking at things which brings us back to your innate quality which is when it comes to looking at oh I'm fearful about what others might think or what my boss or my previous boss or what people might think when I post these things versus Even though 100 people might think like 101 different ways even if it's going to help one person make progress in what they are trying to accomplish it is still worth the effort. And that is the reason why I want to continue on this journey of what I got started with the personal branding on LinkedIn.

So the other thing is people do actually have a good reason to be fearful and be resistant to actually focus on themselves. Because I don't know if you've ever heard the analogy of crabs in the bucket but that's exactly what happens. The people you're surrounding yourself right now they're either going to want for you or they're going to want from you. If they're wanting from you then you're probably going to want to find a new circle. But the people who want from you are like crabs. The moment they see you trying to escape the bucket they bring you back down. And what happens is when you're in your friend circle let's just say for example a few years ago when I was in my friend circle and you start focusing on something that's different you start working on yourself is you start bringing up the insecurities that other people are feeling. Because you're working towards something and the people around you are not going They start feeling threatened that you're making them question that they're not doing something about their own lives which they should be doing. And as a result instead of focusing on themselves and saying Hey I should use that to inspire me. They will start attacking you. And it starts by making jokes to begin with Oh look at Jamal. He's going gym these days. He thinks he's going to run a marathon or something. But it starts off with those things. They don't like the fact that I actually started getting discipline and started doing something and working towards my fitness goals because it made them feel bad about their own fitness goals. The fact that they weren't actually doing anything after work the fact that there was eating bad food and all of these things. And when someone starts doing something that makes someone feel uncomfortable They are either going to lash out in a way that's positive and support you. Those are the people that you need in your life or they're going to try and stop you from doing it by making you feel bad. And they'll start off by doing as friendly jokes but you should eliminate all of those things where you are. You need to surround yourself with people who actually want for you and You will be the average of the five people that you spend most of your time with. So have a look at the people around you. And if you bring the average up then it's time to find yourself a group where you actually bring the average down. And if you are bringing the average down then it's great because those are your mentors. Those are the people that you're going to learn with. Those are the people that are going to help you to get to the next step until you have to move circles. You don't always have to stay in the same circle for the rest of your life. We have different seasons in our life and we have different seasons in our career. Change is inevitable. So we can either embrace it and really benefit from it or we can avoid it and stay mediocre but being mediocre sucks right Swati?

Yes and that's a really excellent act about taking the average of the five people we spend our time with in our life and trying to understand gauge where things are moving and also the different seasons and the different reasons. That reminds me that we need to have a mentor for a reason a mentor for a season and a mentor for life. And these mentors They keep changing. They keep moving because it's not like a static thing. It's a moving dynamic process as we are moving through life. What is the purpose? What is it that we need? For example maybe my next step is for me at this time is to be less fearful about posting often on LinkedIn then I will choose a mentor and and there is a reason why I'm choosing this mentor. And once I overcome that fear now I have a different reason. I'll keep looking for another mentor. And similarly a mentor for a season is about in this point in time like in my career in this mid career. So I will choose for a mentor who is like maybe five years ahead of me and how did they reach here? And what were the difficulties or challenges they faced on their journey? So that brings us also about choosing and having like these mentors mentor for a reason mentor for a season and a mentor for a life.

I love it. Couldn't agree with you more. And that's exactly why what we do at the Privacy Pros Academy is on our signature program we call it the Accelerator Program is we focus on five pillars. Number one is about getting the right mindset right? I believe that unless we have the right mindset Everything else is going to fall apart. Like you can't build where your foundation is weak. And the way to build a really strong foundation is to have the right mindset the growth mindset. Get rid of all of these limiting decisions and self limiting beliefs and really believe you can be all that you need to be and everything is possible. And start thinking in a way where you can actually Do the things that you need to do. You need to become the person or you need to adopt the identity of the person who has achieved the goals that you have and start showing up as that person. So that's the first thing we do is focus on the mindset. Then we focus on the subject matter expertise the actual knowledge right? Because we need knowledge and skills. Unless we have those knowledge and skills then We don't really bring much value to the table. So we focus on the subject matter expertise and then we focus on okay you have the knowledge but anyone can have the knowledge is knowledge is freely available in this day and age. So what do we need to do is we need to say okay how do we turn that knowledge into pragmatic and practical skills? Right. We need to actually implement that and operationalize that which is exactly what you do as data privacy architects. You take the technical requirements the legal requirements from your legal team and then you actually come up with a solution. You need the skill to come up with that solution. Just knowing what the law says reading the GDPR isn't going to help you to solve those data architecture challenges. You need the actual skills to be able to do that. So we focus on those two things and then we focus on actually helping them build their credibility building their brand. So you'll see my mentees they're going creating great videos like you on LinkedIn talking about what they're learning talking about how they're solving certain problems. So those are the three key pillars there. And then we make sure that we focus on four key areas which is data protection impact assessments. We focus on records of processing activities and the data mapping. We focus on writing those privacy notices and promises that you spoke about and also making sure that they're able to respond. And then we can actually respond to the different subject rights and actually create a framework of how that whole process would work regardless of where they are and how a data subject chooses to exercise whichever one of their rights. So that I believe is like the basic foundations of what everyone needs to be a great privacy professional. So we go on a 12 week journey and they go from where they are now all the way to transforming into a world class privacy professional and they get some amazing results but it's all because of the things that you've highlighted here is we work on their credibility and their personal branding. We work on their organisational skills. We work on them empathetic skills being able to go and meet people where they are experience. I'm not going to explain things in a way that makes sense. We work on the relationship building skills which is actually the art of communication and some other stuff that we work on as well. So all of that comes together to then cultivate the. Successes that people see and they're like Oh I don't understand how that's happened. How's that person gone from an Uber driver for example to becoming a data privacy manager in the space of six months. And then he's got promoted and now he's actually got another role and he's almost doubled his salary. So how does that work? It's all possible. Like there is no element of luck that goes into it. It's all hard work but if you have a strategy and you follow a mentor someone who's actually done that. Being there done that they can actually guide the way for you and that's what you need to do You just need to go and trust and find the right mentor and really apply yourself and follow the steps right? You can't sit here and look for excuses and reasons about why things won't work And I think it was Henry Ford that said whether you believe you can or you believe you can't you're gonna be right So I choose to believe that we can and anything's possible and the people that believe that and trust me with that We go and make things happen

That is very well said Jamal. I agree with you 100 percent on that.

Okay so my final question for you Swati is you've been really helpful in explaining the skills that we need to thrive with the data privacy architect you've explained how we can actually excel and stand out during the actual process of looking for roles. Now I want to understand let's say someone's got a role and it's the first couple of weeks or it's the first couple of days or the first 90 days you're still in your probation period so it's still too early to celebrate because anything could happen. What advice do you have for someone to really excel in the role make a great first impression in the first few weeks of starting?

Yes. So when you are going into a new role and on the first 90 days what I would recommend is you really take advantage and bring your curiosity to the forefront and ask like the dumbest questions possible because you won't be judged in the first 90 days. Like this is such a dumb question. Like how are you even a data privacy architect? How do you even have this many years of experience if you cannot figure this tiny thing out? Because even if it looks so dumb there is a reason why the things are done a certain way in an organization. Ways to accomplish a certain thing. There is this thing called culture and you just need to understand what is the culture and how do you fit into this culture? Because the technical thing that's solving for example this particular data share we need to do encryption and how do we do encryption? Just the technical skill of how do we do encryption? We have keys. We need some best practices around not share keys rotate the keys key management and things like this. So the technical part is easy but then when it comes to how often like who exactly which teams is it InfoSec who does this? Or Do we have a key vault or how do we do a key management like a rotation of the keys? so having an understanding and seeping into the culture of the organization is very important in the first 90 days and you have to take full advantage of this By being extremely curious like just start from a blank state. Don't think that just because it was done in a certain way in your previous organization or from your previous experience it doesn't have to be done in the same way in this current organization. So look as dumb as possible. Ask like the dumbest possible questions. Get to the root of it so you understand. And the second thing that I want to highlight is we really want to understand when it comes to privacy program implementations what are the real pain points? Who exactly is suffering from this pain point? for example if there is a data retention program or a data deletion program who are going to be my friends if I were to support this data retention or data deletion. And like I said the technical aspect of the data retention or deletion is very simple. Maybe you understand what are the scripts or you automate these scripts in a certain way you put a schedule on the script. So these retain or delete the data. And before deletion you just check that there are no legal holds. Because you don't want to delete the data which are placed on legal hold because they will be used as evidence later in some court case or something. So getting the technical aspect of it is easy. But then when it comes to actually pushing forward and building the momentum and getting the buy-in from the executive leaders on why it is important for our organization to start on this data retention or deletion program. So here my friends would be if I was doing some sort of a migration from an on-prem to cloud and imagine all the costs that We will be saving on the cloud by not migrating all the junk data which is not needed not used or which is like from 30 years ago. And we have already surpassed the retention schedules for these and there is no need for us to retain. So we can either anonymize or summarize these data in some format but then having these discussions and identifying your key players on who will support you. So maybe there is this team which is paying out of their budget for this new cloud provider. And now instead of putting 100 units of data into the cloud say we are successful and we are only putting 70 units of data into the cloud so they can actually show this to their senior leadership that we have saved on those 30 units of data cost by not migrating this data into the cloud. So in the first 90 days I would say understand who is having the similar pain points that you are experiencing and become friends with them. So later on you can either slide in your requirements onto their roadmaps or you can just be friends and later on when the time is right you all can unite forces and come collectively to do the right thing.

Hey great. I love that. So what you're saying there to really excel in any role in the first 90 days the first thing you need to do is get curious. And the reason you want to get curious is because this is the best opportunity you have now to ask all of the questions. Cause no one's going to judge you for it because you're new. But it helps you to figure things out and helps you to lay those strong foundations because now you understand how things work why things are done a certain way how people think what the actual culture is and you get to actually appreciate that. So get really curious and get clarity so you can be confident about how your next moves and how you're going to progress in your career and how you're going to progress work in this company. The next thing you want to focus on is your community. Who are my friends? Who are my supporters? Who are going to be the potential blockers? Let's identify them so we can actually understand the challenges. And the way we do that is by looking to see okay where is the actual pain? Who's got the bleeding neck and how is that making them suffer? And what can I do to actually go and help them solve it? What can I do to actually nurse it better and see how we can actually move those things along. So I think those are some really great pieces of advice very insightful. And what I love about everything that you've shared so far is you haven't given us the typical textbook answers that you might hear that you might read about in blogs and webinars and all of that stuff. What you've actually told us is really meaningful insightful stuff from your own experiences. And the things that actually when you think about it that's the difference that makes a difference because otherwise everyone would do all of the things that you see everyone talking about on LinkedIn but get nowhere. But the moment you start implementing this you start getting some amazing results. Now Swathi before I let you go we always let the guest ask me a question. So I want to make sure that I extend that courtesy to you too. So do you have a question that you'd like to ask me?

Yes yes. I have been dying to ask this question to you Jamal don't worry. It will not be as hard as the flower game. So when we started off the podcast recording and then you did the clap because that's maybe for your sound editing or This is where the recording is starting. And you said welcome to another episode of the Privacy Pros podcast. So at this you have said about 105 times I believe because there are like about 105 episodes. So there will be certain days when Things are not going right things are not going the way you wanted them. But what is your motivation behind your endurance that you want to do this? So I want to hear from you on how do you keep going on this journey? Yes

That is excellent. Thank you so much Jamal. This was a great

Great question. Thank you. Thank you. You got me really passionate there.

Yes I really enjoyed the conversation with you. And I honestly think that in this episode I have not talked anything technical and I have only talked about. All things like not related to data privacy architects technical aspects or the technical privacy implementations. But I had a really good time having this um conversation with you.

Yes. Thank you so much Jamal

Okay so it's been absolutely amazing. We spoke about all the skills the top skills that you need to have to really thrive as a data privacy architect. We spoke about some of the challenges that you need to solve as a data privacy architect. We looked at how you can make yourself stand out if you're someone that's been laid off if you're thinking about progressing in your career. And we also looked at once you get that role What are the things that you need to focus on in the first 90 days to make sure that you hit the ground running? You make a great first impression But you also set yourself up for success to have a thriving career and we finished off by looking at some of the things that we both think are important when it comes to moving forward and actually paying back and Leaving a legacy and making a lasting impact. So until next time peace be with you.

If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe like and share so you're notified when a new episode is released. Remember to join the Privacy Pros Academy Facebook group where we answer your questions. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you're leaving with some great things that will add value on your journey as a world-class Privacy Pro. Please leave us a 4 or 5-star review. And if you'd like to appear on a future episode of our podcast Or have a suggestion for a topic you'd like to hear more about please send an email to team@kazient.co.Uk. Until next time peace be with you.