Are AI and Privacy Really At Odds? This Tech Visionary Says No!

In this episode, Leila Golchehreh, tech entrepreneur and Chief Strategy Officer of Relyance AI, reveals how AI can actually supercharge your privacy program.

Discover how AI is transforming privacy programs and making compliance easier than ever.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How cutting-edge AI can automate tasks like data mapping and contract analysis, freeing up your valuable time.
• Leila's journey from attorney to founder and her mission to solve privacy problems.
• Strategies for winning executive support, working across teams, and the must-have tech mindset for privacy experts.
• Why human expertise is still crucial, even in the world of AI.

Packed with visionary ideas, empowering strategies, and raw emotional honesty, this is one episode that will leave you motivated!

Leila Golchehreh is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Relyance AI.

As an entrepreneur, data protection expert, lawyer to SaaS companies including Workday and Adaptive Insights, and former DPO, Leila has more than fifteen years experience building global data protection programs and businesses in diverse sectors. She has advised clients in AI, healthcare, IoT, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles, including as GM Cruise’s first data protection counsel, as well as counseling clients across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and MENA at major law firms including Allen & Overy. With a global perspective, Leila also worked wit international organizations including the OECD and International Court of Arbitration. Her experience with the lack of good privacy technology drove her to co-found Relyance AI to help identify real privacy technology solutions and reimagine what data protection means in a globalized, technology-driven world.

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 Leila on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leilagolchehreh/

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There's simply no way the old way of doing things will ever work. AI is here. These large language models are here. data protection professionals can be a little technology averse we need to change that and

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And hear real stories and top tips from the people who've been where you want to get to. We've trained people in over 137 countries and countries. So whether you're thinking about starting a career in data privacy. Or you're an experienced professional. This is the podcast for you.

Welcome to another episode of the Privacy Pros podcast. Today, we'll be looking at artificial intelligence and its impact on privacy. Many people see them as two completely different things, almost like an oxymoron. But what if AI could actually be a powerful tool for privacy professionals? I'm excited to have an expert in this space who's going to talk about the potential, the pitfalls and where human expertise is still irreplaceable. Plus, the guest will also share her fascinating journey from leading privacy programs for multinational companies to building up her startup and the lessons learned along the way.

So if you're ready to explore the intersection of AI and privacy, you're going to want to stick around, get rid of all your distractions. This is an episode you're not going to want to miss.

Our inspiring guest today is Leila Golchehreh, Co founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Relyance AI. She's an entrepreneur and an attorney licensed in California and New York, and she's also SIP E and SIP US certified and served as a data protection expert and international lawyer to companies such as Workday, Adaptive Insights, GM Cruise and Komodo Health, as well as at the OECD and the U. S. Mission to the European Union. Wow. Leila has more than 15 years of experience building global data protection programs and businesses in AI, health care. Internet of things, cloud computing, and so much more. And she believes technology can be used to enhance privacy, which is the focus of the company she founded, Relyance AI.

Welcome to the Privacy Pros Podcast, Leila.

Thank you, Jamal. It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the kind introduction. And I've just been so impressed by everything you have built. It's truly an honour to have the conversation with you this morning.

Thank you. That's so kind of you. before we get into AI, if you could bring back any fashion trend, what would it be?

Oh, bell bottoms. Definitely. I think the seventies had some really great fashion

Now let's get into the privacy stuff. Lots of people, when we talk about AI, they see AI on one end of the spectrum and privacy on the other. So they're almost like conflicting or at odds. What's your perspective on this? And are there any common pain points that AI can alleviate for privacy pros?

Yeah, it's a great question. And naturally, because I'm founder at Relyance AI, I don't think that always needs to be true. Now, of course, when we talk about ai, if we are using AI with large language models, accessing tremendous amounts of data.

So I think just the reason behind that way of thinking, it's actually contrary to some of the data minimization principles, that we have in the area of data protection. Data minimization is all about, accessing the least amount of data, that you need in order to serve the purposes for which the data is collected.

Then on the other hand, we have these large language models, AI, ML engineers that tell us we need all the data. And that was always a conversation throughout my career. And as it turns out, the more precise your data is, the better your AI models actually can be.

So I don't always view AI and privacy as contrary to one another. I see opportunities for privacy professionals to help AI engineers in a variety of ways by honing in on, let's try to narrow the data that we are collecting in order to ensure that we are actually getting exactly what we need for that purpose.

So I think that's one way of thinking about it as a privacy professional, because I know that it can feel really overwhelming to legal teams these days, just because it feels like AI has just kind of suddenly come up. But large language models have been around for a long time. Relyance AI started using large language models four and a half years ago.

So this is not so new, even though with the explosion of chat GPT and all the rage around that, it feels like suddenly we've just got in this kind of whiplash of what is generative AI? But really these are sort of new names for terms that have kind of. been there. And technology that's been there for a variety of years.

So I think that also I can be used in a variety of ways that really enhance privacy and enhance data protection. Certainly that's the way that we've constructed our company Relyance. We've, been using LLMs in a variety of ways. one way is that Relyance is really focused on understanding source code, and scanning and using a technique called call graph analysis, to make mathematical predictions around The likelihood that data is going to be processed, and what kind of data is going to be processed and who is accessing that data. So that's one way in which you can really use LLMs and other techniques that are, in the ML and AI space like static code analysis in order to really ensure that we're enhancing privacy. Because for the first time you're getting visibility in a way that we never could before.

And Jamal, I'd like to hear your experience, but lawyers tend to be a little bit of laggards and adopting new technology but there are so many ways in which we can use AI for good. So that's just one example is using it in code. We also use LLMs with respect to privacy statements and document analysis.

And this is another way that AI can be used to just summarize large text whether that's just a tremendous amount of documents that could be in your contracts, it could be in your privacy statements, and to synthesize that. So I'll give you an example, Jamal, since you're a very talented data privacy and protection professional yourself.

Leila 6:50

When safe harbour was invalidated I was at an organization that didn't have something like Relyance. And so I was actually the lucky lawyer to get assigned to, Hey, go through these contracts and figure out which ones we need to renegotiate. I mean, I had a team helping me, but it was such a headache.

The only thing constant about privacy is that it. It's constantly changing. And the SECs, and the EU, and now the UK, we always have to update these documents. It does not make sense for a lawyer, who should be using analytical reasoning to do a task that is so administrative. It just doesn't make sense.

And so what we've done is say, let's summarize and understand what does the contract say? And then where are those areas of the contract that just don't fall in line with some of the latest privacy and data protection requirements?

Then we'll send you a notification when we detect that there's an issue using our large language models and AI predictions. So that's another real use case of where AI can be helpful.

Let me just summarize in my own mind, what you're saying so I can make sure that I'm on the same page. So the first thing we looked at is why do people have this conception or this notion or this kind of limiting belief that AI and privacy are odds and you believe it's Probably comes down to the conflict of the principle of where we talk about data minimization.

So from a privacy point of view, or even from a regulatory point of view, we're saying you should only use the amount of information necessary for the purpose that you're trying to fulfil. And what most people translate that to is use as little data as possible. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, you have your engineers, you have the people that are trying to build this algorithm or better develop this AI in charge of feeding as much information they can in to the large language models, because the more data they put in, the better it can read the patterns, the more accurate it's going to be, and the more useful the tool's And I think the challenge here is people are forgetting that the GDPR and other legislations that take the principle based approach haven't specified or been granular about what that means.

They're saying, do what is necessary to fulfil the purpose. And even if you look at the privacy by design principles, and Kavoukian talks about a positive sum, not a zero sum. So you have to help the business to get to where it needs to get to. And for me as a privacy consultant, the kind of questions I ask. The people I'm working with is, I know you want all the information in the world, but clearly you're not going to get that. Now, what is it that you actually need? What is it that you must have? And then what is it that you would like to have? And then what is it that would be a bonus to have? So I try to ask them questions in different ways to limit them. And what I'm really trying to do is follow Pareto's principle, the 80, 20. What is the 20 percent of the data that actually matters and how can I help you? Or how can we access that 20%? Okay. And then see what else would be useful to have, but there is going to be a certain amount or a certain type of data that's actually going to be the thing that moves the needle and makes the difference here. It's not just feed as much of it in as you can.

So I think if you take that pragmatic view and you reconcile that too, and you really understand what the business is trying to achieve, and from a legal point of view, what is the spirit of the law, then. Then we can do away with that conflict. And then you gave us lots of great examples of how AI can actually be useful all the way from looking at source code to actually analysing, documents and saving countless hours. And imagine how much money that's going to save, especially if you're using external legal counsel for that. So for me, the way I like to look at it is AI is just another tool. And it's up to us to identify the risks that using this tool would pose, just like any other tool. But the challenge is, it's new, so we have to get familiar with it, we have to understand it, and because it's innovative, that means it's going to be novel, we're always going to be learning. But that's what privacy pros like me love to do.

We always love to be challenged. We always love to learn and we always love to see how we can leverage technology and anything else we can leverage to help businesses that we work with to have a greater impact. So I'm all for using tools that create an impact. Now, there are some people that say, you know, AI is bad. It's evil. It's going to ruin lives. It's going to ruin this. It's ruining people's jobs. I think they're just limiting decisions and limiting beliefs and you can either look at things and see everything's negative or you can do Look at things and see what's positive for me A tool is amplified based on the person the human behind it and the energy they feed to that tool So for example, you can take a hammer and you can build a house with it Or you can go and smash up somebody's car with it.

It's a tool. It's up to you how you amplify that. Guns, you can use it to commit genocide or you can use it to liberate people, right? There is no good or bad, all things are tools. It's up to the human to put the vitality into it to either give it positive or negative energy. The AI tool, the AI algorithm, Whatever the thing has been created, it's just functional.

That's all it does. And what we want to do is make sure that when it is functioning, that it does function as intended, and make sure that it does the best job possible with the resources available to it, whilst balancing that with protecting individuals right to privacy, their right to control the information that they have about them, and how that's used, and where that's used.

I love that framing, Jamal. I think that you're right on point. And, to come back to what you said around, the Pareto principle. It's really about solving problems. I completely agree. What is the problem that we're trying to solve here? Framing in that perspective can help. Also telling and having the dialogue that actually having less data is better for your models is effective. And then I agree with you around the tool. I also recognize the risks that are involved in AI, particularly to your point. It depends on really the individuals responsible for the organization that is implementing AI and whether there are ethics really at the highest levels of the executive team at the board level, and we're able to really ensure that we're embedding ethics into the way that I can be used.

And to your other point, Jamal around whether or not AI is going to take jobs. I have a lot of opinions on this. I do think AI will take certain jobs, but in some ways I think it's going to make us better. Because it's going to allow us to focus from the administrative to the strategic. I don't think that anyone really enjoys building a data map. Having gone through this exercise at a number of companies, it's just very painful. You're getting inaccurate data. You're not really spending your time in the ways that I think a data protection professional should. Our time should be spent solving real problems as opposed to chasing down answers for information that most of the time is going to be wrong because data is moving, shifting, and flowing all the time. So to think that we as humans should be spending our time there, it's not a good use.

I completely appreciate that perspective. Now, just to run to the defence of some of my mentees, some of them do actually love going and piecing the data maps together, they feel like they're on a treasure hunt, so let's not take that away from them, but look, you're right, if I could have an AI assistant that could be the eyes and ears for me on the ground with the organization. And when those changes are made, it picked them up and it updated the record of processing activities for me and alerted me about anything else that I need to be aware of. I would love that. I would absolutely love that.

Yeah, that, that is not the value that I add doing the administrative or what you might even get a very junior to BA to do really is to go and pull that information together. What we want to do is solve and identify the risks and the challenges that come along as a result of how things are changing, but also make sure that when a request comes in from a data subject access to request, for example, that we know what the accurate information is to give to them. We know where to find that. We know what's there and what isn't and who that's been shared with. So we can empower them with the information that they've asked for. So it makes complete sense to me. Now, my next question is where do you see the most significant potential for AI to enhance privacy programs?

I know you've touched on a couple of areas, but where do you think the real game changer is and where do you believe human expertise would still remain essential?

Yes. So I'm so glad this was part of your next question, Jamal, because I also wanted to respond to what you just said, too. As an AI company, folks get worried. Are you going to replace our jobs? We are not. We are actually creating more work and I'll explain why. For the first time we have accurate information about how data is actually processed and to your point, it's not a takeover. It's a co-pilot. We have a privacy and AI governance co-pilot that sits in a seat next to you. And will alert you to a variety of issues that you could have not otherwise seen. And those issues that the AI can detect are exactly the issues where privacy and data governance professionals need to be spending their time.

AI is not going to be problem solving for us in the way that I think is going to be needed in order to really build holistic privacy and data protection programs that are fostered around trust, especially with the new developments of AI at many organizations. So I'll give you one example to answer your question really directly, Jemal.

One of the other things that Relyance AI does is, using our large language model and generative AI capabilities, we can create answers to data protection assessments. But there are certain questions that are asked in assessment that for ethical purposes, we have chosen as a company and been really conscious and because we built, AI governance and privacy and ethics by design and to the way we build our product lifecycle here, we have said we will not answer these questions.

Sure, we could can a response, but that's not the purpose of an assessment. The purpose of a data protection or AI governance assessment is to say, okay, what's actually going on in reality. And often because lawyers are not necessarily proficient in Python, or Ruby on Rails, you can have a co-pilot, the Relyance co pilot, really embed within that technology stack and and explain to you in terms that we as data protection and AI governance professionals understand. So that you can action on correct information. This is the help that AI can truly offer. And of course to your point, There are still lots of folks that are going to be working on constructing data maps together. So the co-pilot really will showcase information But it's up to the lawyers, data protection professionals, AI governance professionals to synthesize that information, to understand what is being presented. And with our technology, we have generated jobs. Why?

And there's no contract associated. And now you have the shadow IT or shadow vendor that you had no idea about. We're bringing that to light. That's the problem that data protection and AI governance professionals need to solve. I would say similarly in the data protection or AI governance assessments, there are certain questions that need to be answered by humans.

So one example, Jamal is, are there any alternative methods of processing where you wouldn't need the personal data? We, as a company said, listen from an ethical perspective, sure. We could generate a response and just say, no, there are not, and just kind of fill that in. No, we absolutely need this data and we could use generative AI to respond, but we have chosen that. That is a question that we will not answer because this is the analytical thinking of the data protection professional or, AI governance professional that they need to go in and think, do we actually need this information or not? And I think that's what is going to be critical for professionals in the space that are really responsible for ethics, governance, privacy and AI.

To consider are there alternative means where we don't need to access as much data as we currently have.

It sounds like a lot of our lives could be made a lot easier with some of these tools. Leila, who is this tool most suitable for? What kind of organizations do you think this really serves?

If you are processing personal data, you should be using Relyance AI. It would have changed my career. I've been working in privacy and data protection and tech, for 15 years. And for me, the data mapping exercise was so painful because it felt like I was just interrupting teams from their normal workflows, to ask them questions that they often were very uncomfortable being asked because they didn't know the right answers to them.

Even though I would say the vast majority of my colleagues were very well intentioned with how they were working and the data that they were accessing. When you ask them for, hey, could you tell me all third parties that you're sending data to? They just didn't know.

I mean, that's such a big question. Who can know that? I think that in 10 years time, Jamal, we're going to look back and just think, oh my gosh, those practices were so archaic. We're going to look at this like it was The VHS of data governance and data protection that we actually went to teams with a formal survey and ask them to fill it out.

Nobody likes to do that especially engineering teams that are all about automation efficiency. How do we go faster? Let alone, going to the HR team that's responsible for managing people.

So our whole philosophy is let the teams continue to build their departments, build their programs, but let our co-pilot be helping us to understand data processing as they continue to carry out their work and without really interrupting them.

Okay, so let's say I met with one of your teams tomorrow and I said, Hey, this sounds fascinating. I was speaking to Leila about it, just before the weekend. And I want to use this in all the work I do. How? Easy or difficult would it be to start integrating that? Do I need to go and speak to my IT team, my cyber security team? Do they have to give me a couple of hours or a person or two people? How difficult or how easy is it to actually integrate?

Yes, it's a great question, Jamal. And I will tell you, having implemented or been involved in the implementation team with a variety of other types of privacy or data protection technology, the biggest pain point I had was that I didn't always have access to engineering resources, right? And this is hugely problematic because privacy is it not just legal, it is also very much technology focused. And when privacy or AI governance teams are not given access to technology resources, it is really problematic with some of the traditional technology. But what I said is that I want Relyance AI to reflect the realities of how privacy and AI governance professionals operate and the resources they actually have.

So with our implementation for the data map and inventory, we do have to get some folks. So we can't just ignore in any way privacy and engineering need to be working very closely together but once we identify the right resources, implementation is four to five hours.

So it takes probably a couple of days to identify who the right resources are. But once you have that person and they have the keys to the kingdom, we're looking at four to five hours, not even a full day of actual implementation time. So what we did was rather than try to make this exceedingly complicated that I personally experienced as a chief privacy officer before and with my various teams, as we were implementing privacy technology and I'll put technology in air quotes because I think technology needs to do the job for you. We shouldn't have to have this painful implementation. And if you look at a lot of the privacy tech vendors that are out there.

Some of the major bills that you get are for professional services, and we said we don't even have a formal professional services arm because our implementation is that easy, and like I said, Jamal, it really would have changed my career to have our technology when I was trying to implement privacy programs in the past.

Well, I'm glad you didn't have it because you had to go and create it. So we can all benefit from that now. And I'm sure it'll only get better as it goes along, but I'm going to ask you about that switch in a second. And I think we're getting the answer to that already, but I'm going to give you an opportunity to really dive deep into that. The other thought I had as you was explaining how this works is one of the other objections I hear from different stakeholders, particularly RISK, maybe even sometimes compliance, is well, if they take all of the data that we have and suck it up into their LLM and we lose control over it and there's intellectual property and there's personal data in there? So what reassurances, do you have for anyone who's listening who's actually, got the credit card in the hand saying let's go we need this just to make sure that they can overcome those challenges or that those concerns are actually being met.

Excellent question. And so I'll just give a little bit of a quick story and background because I was an operator in the space before I became a founder. That struggle is real, Jamal. I know exactly what you mean and every tool that I looked at least the ones that were a little bit automated as opposed to just like here's a blank form and go fill out the form and it was basically moving the pain of my spreadsheet from my desktop to my browser.

So I just went, Okay, I don't want to use my limited privacy budget on this but for anything that was automated and was just doing kind of database scanning, it was way too much access to data.

And so With a few clients, I actually opted not to go in that direction, because we would have had to list them as a sub processor, because they were focused on data. Relyance doesn't focus on data. We focus on code. So as it is, we are not accessing your personal information that lives within the data that your customer submits.

And there's a variety of things that I would love to just chat through. And so maybe we'll put a pin and, you know, Code versus data and why starting in code is so important. But with our code scanning technology, Jamal, that lives within your own environment and behind your own firewall at your organization.

We were really intentional about that. So even though it would have been easier to suck up your whole code base and then host that in the tenant that Relyance, spins up for each of our customers. We said, listen, customers are going to take issue with this. Let's have our co-pilot live within their environment.

They can control it, they have full control, they configure it, and all that gets sent back to us , with data minimization, since that's the topic of our conversation, is a summary of what we need in order to automate the data map, inventory, and ROPAs. That's it. Your code is your code that stays with you.

I think this is a music to a lot of people's ears who are listening right now. And I can imagine them smiling almost as much as I am, because this could really be a game changer into how quickly projects are delivered, into how quickly risks are analysed. In to making sure that you're not relying on somebody to turn up to work, making sure you're pumping them with coffee in the morning, trying to manage their energy, whatever else is going on, and it will just be there the whole time, assisting you, doing the work for you, and then flagging up anything that it believes that you need to have a look at. And the best thing about all of this is, it's you and your experience, your lived experience of actually having gone through all of these challenges and feeling the pain that's actually come up with a solution to put these things together. It's not just like, there's a lot of money here. We've got this great idea.

Go and build it guys. It's no, hey, I've identified this problem. These are all of the challenges that I've had and every single question I've asked you, you said, yeah. I felt that pain and there's a solution for that. And I'm very intentional in that solution because I know the pain you guys are going through. So that's super valuable and inspiring for me, but what I'm curious about a little bit is obviously being an entrepreneur is quite, it's a bit of a big jump from where you are. So you had this decorated career, you have extensive experience working with notable companies. And you could have done that all the way until retirement and have a very nice life. What inspired you to join the crazy people and become an entrepreneur and shift into the startup?

Thank you Jamal for all the kind words. I think very highly of you, so I appreciate that. Means a lot coming from you. You know, sometimes there are problems that are so important to you, that it just keeps you up at night and privacy for me was one of them. I really believe Jamal that privacy is one of the most fundamental issues that we face as a society today. And I think particularly with the development of AI technology, there's simply no way the old way of doing things will ever work. AI is here. These large language models are here. One thing I appreciate is that, we're building chat GPT in the open, because it has the potential to do a lot of good, but also potential harm. And if we continue to rely on these old ways of trying to understand large language models, just emphasis on large, as a human being, it just would never work.

There are a variety of things going on in the world today where having an understanding of where your data is going, who's accessing it and what they're doing to that information. And particularly with women, with underrepresented groups, minorities. This is truly an important issue that we need to address. So it mattered to me so much that I said, I've got to find a way to fix it.

And I think there's a kind of a second part to it, Jamal, which is, I grew up in a multilingual household. My father is originally from Iran. My mom is American. And, I always was surrounded by two different languages, two different cultures, even multiple religions in our house. And I always looked at some of the issues that I faced Jamal as a translation problem.

It never made sense to me why lawyers were just speaking in contract and laws and regulations, but engineers were speaking in code and we couldn't translate this into, one, Single platform where we could all speak the same language. So for the very first time, we're allowing lawyers, data privacy, data protection, AI governance, professionals to speak in code.

And at the same time, engineers, I. T. professionals to speak and contract regulation and understand what the requirements actually are. And because I had grown up like this, which is a little bit of personal background here, but it really helped me see the issues that I was facing, the problems I was facing as we're just not speaking the same language.

How can we better speak the same language? And, it's been both a very rewarding journey. Of course, as a founder, there are ups and downs. Often in the same day, you can have your highest high and your lowest low. In the same day, you can feel, just exhilarated, deflated sometimes. But it's been overall just an incredible journey and I'm so grateful. So proud of what, we've built with just an incredible team.

Wow. It sounds like almost if you, take a step back and look at it, like the universe, or even God has been conspiring for you to come up with this and you've had all of the training and all of the building blocks have led you to where you need to get to at this stage. And I'm super excited to see how you further develop this and what the future holds there.

But what I'm curious about is you talk about lawyers speaking about legal stuff, then we've got the ops people like me, and then you've got the engineers and obviously perhaps your father was speaking Farsi and your mom was speaking English or something else. And there was that confusion, but how did you go from legal speak to source code?

What happened in your career? When did that first come across as a thing for you?

Yeah. I think when this really got challenging Jamal was when I was actually at adaptive insights. I was the chief privacy officer there. And I had about four and a half months to get a 15 year old company totally ready for the GDPR alongside a parallel IPO timeline because I was also brought in to help take the company public.

That timeline is just very short to say the least to try to accomplish this herculean effort of GDPR compliance. And I just thought, gosh, I have got to automate this in a way that is not going to have to cause pain for the teams around me and also my own team and myself. And we've got to accomplish the problems that we've set out to solve.

Leila 33:24

And I didn't end up buying anything because it didn't do what I needed it to do. I just said, why can't you just understand code? Why can't you just understand code and automate this? And it was just forms and surveys. And I said, we have to do things. We have to do things differently. There has to be a better way.

So I think when the pain is great enough and you've experienced it personally that can be some of the most important inspiration that you have. And working on a problem That matters to you because being a founder is like nothing you will ever experience with any other career as an employee.

it's just so different. You are responsible for everything. We have employees who are accountable. Sometimes they are the sole breadwinner in their households and there is a tremendous amount of responsibility but also reward and happiness that can come along with the journey.

I don't even know where to begin to talk about some of the responsibilities that you might have. You've got to think about sales. You've got to think about marketing. You've got to think about communications. Then you've got to think about actually taking care of the people that are helping you build the company. And then you've got to have, deals and you've got to think about the development side and the tech staff and what's working and what's not and making sure you're getting feedback from people who are early testers and users and different industries will bring their own different challenges.

So lots of things to juggle. And it's so inspiring when you see somebody who is having such a great time and doing such a great job of it. So I'm really inspired by not just everything that you've been doing up until now, but exactly what you are doing right now too. What, I do want to know is let's say there's somebody listening right now who is a privacy professional or in ops or a lawyer, and they're so inspired by wanting to be part of the solution and how privacy is done in the future that they want to transition to privacy tech. What advice would you have for them?

We're hiring. Does that count? So if you, want to join Relyance AI, we are hiring. And there are just tremendous opportunities in the space, Jamal. And in addition to privacy, but there's been an interesting trend of Privacy teams inheriting AI governance.

I think there's a huge new frontier here. And there are a lot of, types of pets, privacy enhancing technologies and there are some things that we are actually not doing. So anonymization and de identification, we actually partner with companies that will offer that. But there are just tremendous opportunities if you are going from being an operator, in the space to wanting to actually build technology around it. and we as a data protection profession , in general tend to be late adopters to technology. So educate yourself as much as you can. There are so many resources available to just learn about what a large language model is. How does AI actually operate? What options are available? And often data protection professionals can be a little technology averse in some cases. We need to change that and not be afraid, but actually make time, focus time to sit down and learn about and adopt new types of technology, and that might actually bring new ideas to what you can build in the space.

That's some great advice. Thank you. Question for you Leila, we all face challenges in our careers. Can you tell us about a story or a time where you experienced a particularly challenging moment, how you tackled it? And what the lessons you learned from it.

Oh, wow. I think anyone who has worked as an in-house privacy professional has definitely faced challenges with implementing their programs. So I guess one of the things that I would really strongly advise for anyone in the space, especially for those looking for a new role is Understand whether or not your executive team is going to support your program.

If you are not supported with your program, then consider joining another company because you don't want to have to feel like you are at odds with what the company is building. It's just critical. And I've had clients that are just absolutely supportive of privacy and they want to allocate resources and budget and I've also had clients that it just wasn't the right fit and this was just an annoyance as opposed to something that they really wanted to invest in.

It's so critical through the interview process, what I would have really done differently with various clients of mine in the past is just make sure that you, the executive team is on board with what you're building.

They support the vision. And I know we don't always ask this during an interview, but it's something that I highly recommend that privacy professionals do ask how much budget you are going to get, because you cannot build a program like this without, resources, without technology, without headcount.

And so making sure that the team is fully on board, I would say, is one thing. Another challenge that I had faced, Jamal, was so when you're on a tight timeline, you don't always have full the time to kind of build the relationships with folks because you're just trying to get your program done.

And being the type A personality that I am, Jamal, it was like, okay, I have the objective, get this done and go as fast as possible. Do not underestimate the criticality of building relationships with your cISO and the security and engineering team. I highly recommend pizza. If you have beer or wine that also can help, but build those relationships.

It is not possible to build a privacy program without those champions across different departments. And you've got to make time, even though it's not, it has nothing to do with privacy, but it's really about building the relationships it's absolutely critical to making sure you can get your program done effectively.

I think that's some great lessons that you shared there, Leila. And on the first note in particular, I've been involved with clients. I've been involved with roles where it just feels like it's a constant battle every day. I'm like, you’ve hired me, you're paying me to come and do this, but why is it every time we're trying to take a step forward, it's like you try and push us two steps back. Sometimes it can be fun, but it gets to a point where you're just like, why am I even doing this? Why am I even here? And if you don't deal with that the right way, it can actually have an impact on your own mental health. It can have an impact on your self esteem, and it can also have a dampening effect on your passion and the way you approach your work and how energized you are.

So making those right decisions, making sure that you're not in an environment where that's going to be a challenge you're actually in an environment where you're encouraged to flourish will make a big difference to a lot of people. So I think that's very important. I don't think enough people are brave enough to admit that or to talk about that.

So I'm really grateful that you've actually sharing that. And then the second thing you mentioned there was about, building relationships, right? And I am probably Just as big as an advocate for building relationships and improving communication skills and improving emotional intelligence amongst my mentees and all of the people that I get an opportunity to speak to, because look, the technical skills. That's one part. Any mediocre privacy pro has the technical skills, otherwise they wouldn't be doing privacy to begin with.

But the difference that makes the difference between a mediocre privacy professional and a world class privacy professional is the one that understands how to read the room, the one that understands how to lead people, how to influence and how to persuade them, and how to make sure you go and meet them where they are and show them how we're all going on the same journey and guide them towards where they need to get to without feeling that you need to be the captain that's steers the ship because if you're the captain that steers the ship you're probably on the wrong lawn. You should be an executive or the CEO, right? You're there to help them navigate through the waters to get to where they need to get to safely and in a way that is ethical and in a way that is actually maintaining and upholding the trust of all of the people who have trusted you with their personal information. And so communication, having that psychological understanding, the emotional intelligence, those are really key for me. And so I want to thank you for highlighting those two.

Well, and thank you for using the words emotional intelligence, Jamal, because so much of the role is having that EQ, that allows us to understand what are the problems that the person you're asking to do something for your privacy or AI governance program are facing, what are they dealing with?

Understand and empathize and put yourself in their shoes before making those asks. And I will tell you that earlier in my career, I didn't always think like that. I was like, well, this is the law. Why aren't you just doing it? You know, why are we, it just, it felt like a waste of time, and it felt like So it's silly conversation to have, but like, it's like, come on, you know, this is just so obvious, just get it done.

But the reality is they are all dealing with their own problems. They all have their own priorities. Everybody has a boss and they have their own objectives. So us coming in and asking engineers or other folks to do things. They've got other stuff going on and so it's really critical that we have that understanding and appreciation of their worldview.

And once we can understand that we can help figure out how to embed what it is that we need to make it part of the goals that they are trying to accomplish too.

Absolutely. Now, Leila, before I let you go, we always let the guest ask me a question. So what would you like to ask me?

What inspired you Jamal to have the career path that you've had and just accomplished so much with respect to your career as an operator and build your podcast.

So what inspired me to move towards privacy? I was in compliance, right? I went to university. I enrolled to do a law degree that lasted two weeks. Every Monday mornings we had a three hour session on Montesquieu and public law, and I was like, I can't do this. Right. And also what we had to do was we had to go and sit in the courts. So we have magistrates courts here where they deal with the petty criminals. And I was like, I don't really fancy a career sitting in the cell, sitting in police stations, dealing with these kind of petty criminals and actually having to suffer three hours of Montesquieu on a Monday morning. And so I transitioned, to business with law and I found that, the business side of things was a lot more natural. And I think that was kind of a key into what has helped me to do some things I've been able to do. So I left university and then I got a first job as a business consultant.

Jamal 45:19

Right. and I wasn't probably same person you see today because a lot of that frustration, it was presenting itself in different areas of my life. So I wanted to make sure that whatever I pick next, actually, fulfills a lot of the criteria that I had about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. And then I found data privacy or data protection. GDPR was on the horizon. I was like, this is interesting. It's never gonna happen. Big tech companies will never let you see the light of day with all of their lobby groups. So I was like this is never gonna happen But actually, you know to my surprise it did and I was like this is going to be a game changer. And one of the things I used to do or I still do is i've always been someone to invest in my professional growth But to know that I don't have all the answers, right?

I came from nothing. I grew up in one of the poorest boroughs in the UK. My parents are both immigrants. I was the first person in my family to go to university. So I know, I know nothing, right? And now I come from a very modest place. We probably spent most of our life growing up below the poverty line. So. I know, I don't know any of these things, but there are people who will know. And one of the things that I actually had a love for when I was younger was reading books. And through reading books, it gave me a really big idea of the world and what's possible. And all of my mindset coaching, the NLP stuff that I've done, it helped me to think on a completely different level and not be limited to what I thought was realistic or what a lot of people I grew up with thought was realistic and go down the wrong path. So I knew I wanted to have a massive impact. And then my wife got pregnant, right? And we've been married at this point for, I think, seven, eight years. And we've been trying and we've been challenged. And so we're finally, about to get specialist help. And just before that appointment, we get good news that God's blessed my wife and she's pregnant.

I was like, wow. Every, my whole perspective on life and everything changing. That's like, I want you to do something meaningful. You can think so. I'm moving on to privacy. And so I go and do the usual stuff that you do, the analysis, the low level, junior level stuff, and I'm there and I'm happy, I'm learning. I'm having a positive contribution. And one of the things I was really good at was actually getting that buy in because I valued communication and building those skills. So I'm just generally quite sociable. I was doing that for a bit. Yeah. And then we lost the baby.

I mean, all praise to God for all of the gifts that gives us. And so we lost Aya and I was like, okay, look, I'm patient. Trust God, whatever happens happens and let's see how we learn and move on from that. And so that kind of knocked me down to my knees a little bit. And then what happens is later that year, we find out my wife's pregnant again, it was like, I don't know how to describe this. So when usually people hear someone's pregnant, they get excited and happy. When I hear someone's pregnant and I get that news, I go into a panic. Like it, my fear starts because of all of the challenges that I had to experience the first time.

I was like, Oh my gosh. So I used to kind of sleep with one eye open during that whole pregnancy. And we start getting through the pregnancy. It gets very complicated. He'd lots of hospital visits, lots of. Challenging times going on. And then my wife goes into labor again. And this time we have twin boys, right? So I have Noah and I have Isaac. Isaac survived for eight days and Noah survived for two weeks.

My gosh, Jamal.

Yeah, by the time I buried Noah, the third one, like there was no sense in the world for me for anything, nothing made any sense. I couldn't see anything positive. It was just a very dark place. I shut myself off from the world.

I think we both shut ourselves off from the world. We pretended everything was okay. I would go to the meetings with clients and like, Hey, yeah, great weekend. How was it? And I remember one afternoon my wife turned around to me and saying, are you really okay? You've just sat with me and we've just had this conversation and you're on there.

Like, Hey, everything's okay. I said, look, that's my work face. This is this. And I realized like it was just such a miserable place. I don't even remember when it was day and when it was night, because it was just in a very destructive cycle, eating takeaways. And I was kind of going down to really negative part then, One day my friend took us out to a restaurant and then suddenly the door burst open and all of these guys come in with cameras and there's all these people and they present stuff to us.

And I was like, what's going on? So they said, Hey guys, we've heard about your story. We want to take you on a trip. I was like, okay, where are we going? So they took me and my wife, on a fully funded trip to Mecca. So we did pilgrimage and I think that started the healing journey because on the trip there was lots of people who have been afflicted through trials and tribulations like us. There was people who had lost their family in the conflict in Afghanistan. There was a huge fire here, a huge tower block court fire here. And there was one person who had lost all Two generations of his entire family. He was the only survivor. And there was so many, people who had been through so much on that journey. And so we was all kind of going on this journey and we were sharing our stories and we was healing together.

And for me, when I got to Mecca and I saw millions of other people, all dressed in white, just like me, two sheets, and then we just like moving around, I just realized how insignificant I am and how insignificant my problems are. When you think about the greatness of God and the greatness on how many people and all of the people have their own challenges and problems. So I said, look, I can sit here and I can continue to be miserable and wallow, or I can go and do something. So we came back and we started, doing some charitable work. So my wife, put some cupcakes and I found ways of marketing and selling them. And we did lots of fun things to make money for charity. And so we built some, community center, some education. And so I was like, you know what, this is rewarding. It feels good to have a positive influence and impact, but I don't want to be in the charity sector. We're doing this because we want to, but obviously. It's not sustainable. I'm not a charity. There's only so much money I can make before I have to set up as a charity and meet all that red tape and all the regulatory requirements.

Jamal

I love what I'm doing here. I'm actually very good at helping businesses get where they need to get to. But what I'm also very good at is helping people, empower themselves, to upskill, to believe and realize their full potential, because I see them in me once where I was when I was stuck in compliance. And that's when I decided I'm going to go and do the Privacy Pros Academy. And so the whole idea is to create a world where every woman, every man, and every child has freedom over their personal information. And I started doing that as a legacy to my children. And then a few years later, well, two years ago, actually, my daughter, Amy was born. She's going to be two tomorrow, actually. And, we got to bring her home and she's everything. My whole life revolves around her now. And so I was like I want her to grow up in a world where, she's free to go wherever she wants, do whatever she wants to do, but know that she has total freedom when it comes to her privacy.

And so I'm working towards building a world where that freedom is there. And I know I can't do it by myself. I can't do it through my consultancy, but what I can do, what I'm very good at is helping people empower themselves, become world class professionals. And once we have enough people in our community, At the Privacy Pros Academy, who are all delivering at a world class level, who are all implementing the advice that you gave, overcoming the challenges at the leading industries, governments, organizations, that we would have achieved that it's just a matter of time, right?

And so the reason I do the podcast, the reason I give away so many resources, the reason I try to make everything as accessible and help people to say, Hey, there's great opportunities here, is And there's lots of fun come and do it is quite selfish really is because I want them to be part of that legacy where we together, come together to have an impact that's going to be lasting. And that's going to be a tribute to my children and also where our children can grow up in the world, where they have complete freedom of their information, wherever they go.

Wow, Jamal, that is so touching. I mean, I had goosebumps as you were talking through this. I'm so sorry for what you and your wife have been through. I can't even imagine having to go through that multiple times. That's so tough. And I'm so glad you have Amy now. And she sounds amazing and so inspiring that you made it through.

Spun to what was otherwise just a really tragic and difficult situation to something so positive. And the impact of your work is felt across the entire community. And I think your focus on, thinking about how to make things better for not only your daughter, but for children in general, is quite inspiring.

So thank you so much for sharing that with me. Really, really touching experience and story.

My absolute pleasure to share that with you. for asking the question. And you know, One of the things that I found helped me to start getting over the grief was actually sharing my story and being vulnerable and actually letting people know, Hey, I have been through this and this is what it was like, but it's one of those things that is, can be quite triggering for a lot of people.

And a lot of people They don't know how to react. They don't know what to say. So you end up just making yourself more isolated. So for a long time, I just stayed quiet and I just tried to do what I need to do. But then I realized, no, I'm going to actually own this. I'm going to step into it and I'm going to go and live my values.

And we're going to go and do this thing. And so some of the challenges I face in the industry sometimes is because, you know, I don't fit the demographics of this country. I might have a bit of a funny accent. I haven't been to law school, so I'm not a lawyer. So at the beginning, there was a lot of people who was trying to gatekeep and push me out.

He says, just put it on the coat stand in the cloakroom or wherever they have. I was like, okay, why don't you know what it's, why do you want me to do it? He says. You're not part of the catering team. So I was like, wow, so this is the industry and these are some of the

That I've had to deal with. And then the other thing is once you start getting a bit of traction, you attract a lot of haters, right? And so last summer I published the book, the easy peasy guide to the GDPR. Um, it became a bestseller. During pre release in the UK and then Canada and then India. And it's been in the top, 10 or in the bestseller list ever since publication. But there was a couple of people that didn't like the fact that I'd published a book, I think more than anything else. And so there was a lot of stuff going on, but a lot of people like, my mentees, people that care about me, like, how did you get through that? Like, it didn't seem like it affected you or bothered you or something. I said, yeah, it's fine. I've buried three children. What can anyone say or do to me that's going to come anywhere close to what I've had to go through to deal with that? Like I'm pretty much invincible unless there's an act of God. There isn't anything somebody can say or do to me that would be greater than what I've had to get through. And so I say all praise to God for all of the challenges, trials and tribulations. And this is one of the reasons we have the podcast as well is to help create that value, create awareness, attract more people into the industry and give great privacy professionals, a platform, like yourself to come and share some of your stories, share some of the inspiring work you're doing and let people know about how great you are.

Companies can actually meet those compliance objectives in a way that's easier and in a way where we can actually bring in innovative technology AI to be part of the solution rather than be scared of it and think it's part of the challenge.

Oh, well, I mean, I have several responses to what you just shared, Jamal, at the outset. Yes, I think that's very upsetting to hear. That you were treated this way. And I think we have a lot of work to do as an industry, especially in tech, there's a lot of work to still be done with ensuring equal treatment of everyone.

And that's something where we can certainly be better. And given what you and your wife have been through together, Jamal, it really does make a difference. Put things into perspective. And I guess, I'm sure you were at your lowest lows, having to go through that experience. I just can't even imagine. It does put things into perspective and, you know, haters gonna hate. So the best thing that we can do is just keep Building and you know, your book being in the best sellers, category and so many different countries, Jamal is just absolutely incredible, something to be proud of and just keep building and no one can take away the things that you've built.

That's it. That's what I'm focusing on is. As long as I focus on adding value and as long as every single one of us just focus on what can I give rather than what can I get, I'll focus on what someone else is doing, then you know what, we're going to be fine because we're creating value and value speaks volumes and it speaks over anything else. And. The moment we start looking at what other people are doing and comparing yourself to somebody else, you start robbing yourself of your own joy and you're no longer adding values. So instead of focusing that time on thinking about someone else or what they're doing, just compete with yourself and say, can I be better today than I was yesterday? And just focus on being 1 percent better in the different areas of your life every single day. And I think as long as we all just keep ourselves occupied with that, then we'll all be just fine.

Yes, exactly. Compare you to you. Set your own goals and ambitions. And it's just sad. I just think about why anyone would criticize someone for building something great. but it happens, and I think your ability to tune out the noise, and just continue to focus on building and no one can take that away.

Thank you so much for your kind words and the support and the wisdom. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. I know I've kept you almost 50 percent longer than we agreed. I'm grateful.

The pleasure has been all mine, Jamal. Thank you so much for having me. You're such a delight and thank you for sharing your story, which I didn't know. And it was really just wonderful chatting, excellent questions, and you're bringing light to some really important topics beyond privacy, this is just life advice in many dimensions.

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