Why a CIPPE-qualified Privacy Pro working for the Big Four joined the Privacy Pros Accelerator programme! 

In this inspiring episode, Ednan talks about why he joined the Privacy Pro Accelerator Programme, how it changed his life and how he got four job offers in one week without even applying! 

Hi, my name is Jamal Ahmed and I'd like to invite you to listen to this special episode of the #1 ranked Data Privacy podcast.

Get the inside scoop on how Ednan secured a role at a Big Tech Company. Uncover:

• How to boost your persona brand to set you apart
• Why most people who self study for the CIPPE struggle with imposter syndrome 
• How to gain clarity, confidence and credibility as a Privacy Pro!

Ready to become a World Class Privacy Expert? Book your call to join the World's Leading Privacy Program

Ednan works within Compliance, Privacy and Risk for KPMG, with ten years of experience working for two of the Big 4.

Ednan specializes in risk and is responsible for educating other employees on using progressive systems and applications in a compliant and risk adverse way. Ednan is a powerful force in the workplace and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. In his free time, Ednan likes to hike, travel and play football competitively.

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

Subscribe to the Privacy Pros Academy YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/PrivacyPros

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Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Privacy Pros Academy podcast. My name is Jamilla, and I'm a data privacy analyst at Kazient Privacy Experts. I'm primarily responsible for conducting research on current and upcoming legislation as well as any key developments and decisions by supervisory authorities. With me today as my co-host is Jamal Ahmed, Fellow of Information Privacy and CEO at Kazient Privacy Experts. Jamal is an established and comprehensively qualified privacy professional with a demonstrable track record solving enterprise-wide data privacy and data security challenges for SMEs through complex global organisations. To date, he has provided privacy and GDPR compliance solutions to organisations across six continents and in 30 jurisdictions, helping to safeguard the personal data of over a billion data subjects worldwide. Welcome, Jamal.

Hi Jamilla, nice to be back. And I'm so happy today because we've got one of my good friends on the podcast. Why don't you tell us who that is?

I'm excited for our guest as well. With us today we've got Ednan, who works within compliance, privacy and risk for KPMG. With ten years of experience working for two of the Big Four, Ednan specializes in risk and is responsible for educating other employees on using progressive systems and applications in a compliant and risk averse way. Ednan is a powerful force in the workplace and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. In his free time, he likes to hike, travel and play football competitively. Welcome, Ednan. Thanks for joining us.

Welcome, Jamilla. Welcome, Jamal. How are you guys? Good.

I'm great, thank you. Ednan, how's it going?

Good, thanks.

Good.

So, as we always do, we'll start off with an ice breaker question so what is one thing that can instantly make your day better?

Payday, I guess. Today.

It’s today.

Well, yeah, pay day is today. I just remembered actually, you reminded me.

So there you go. Your day is instantly better. What about you, Jamal?

A couple of team makes my day instantly better.

Does it?

Yeah, absolutely. And good news, if someone shares good news with me, that instantly makes my day better. I get really happy for them. What makes your day better?

When Uber Eats sends me a discount code.

That's true.

That's a good one. I refuse to do Uber eats. I refuse to do just Deliveroo. No, I don't want food delivered to me through an app. If I want the food, I will go and get it myself.

You've got a car.

You can select pickup on Uber eats.

But why am I going to pay the extra? Why don't I just give the money directly to the restaurant so they can have the full amount without a big 25% cut?

So I wouldn't do it if they don't give you the discount when they give you the discount, then it's worth it.

And I just live far away from any of the restaurants, the good Halal restaurants takes me maybe an hour to walk to. So when it's raining on a Friday night, No.

I'm going to give you the phone number for my brother in law, who's in Cardiff, and he will hook you up. Jamilla.

Thanks. See, that's made my day instantly better. What a good start to the podcast. Right, let's get into the questions. So, Ednan, how did you first come across Jamal and the Privacy Pros Academy, and what drew you to it? As someone who's already CIPPE qualified,you work for the Big Four, so why the academy?

I guess I worked with Jamal a number of years ago, so that's how I know him, and we had a good friendship then. I was just observing privacy in general in terms of the types of fines that a lot of the big companies were getting. I had a lot of experience working within privacy, but I wanted to be the best within that field, and I felt Jamal was the person to go to with regards to that and being able to improve and get to that elite level. So that's the main reason why I chose Jamal, because I know him first-hand, so I already have that experience with him. I know with Jamal that he simplifies things, and I'm someone that likes information to be concise and straight to the point. So that's why I knew I could definitely work with Jamal and go on this journey with him.

Jamal, what was it like having a friend of yours on the program?

You know what, actually, it was really fascinating having a friend of mine join the program. As I said, we worked together at the Financial Ombudsman service for many years, and we built a really great friendship. And throughout that course, we got to really know each other quite well. So I know Ednan’s strength, I know the strength of his character and I knew just how much potential there was waiting to be untapped from Ednan if he was to take the Privacy Pros Programme. And I think at the same time, Ednan, because he knew me, he liked me and trusted me from when he worked with me in the past, he could see that this is an actual way for me to get that clarity, get that confidence, and get that credibility. Now, the thing sometimes when you know someone is you have all of these misconceptions, or you have these ideas ahead. So sometimes when you are actually going through the strategy call with someone you know, it's a completely different experience to when you go through the strategy call with someone you don't know. And for everyone who's listening, who doesn't know what a strategy call is, the strategy call is the application call that you make if you want to join the privacy pros accelerator program. So this program that we have is very exclusive. It's only for three people three times a year. It's a very exclusive program. We only take on nine people for the whole year. And to be one of the three people on the program, you have to go through a road map to success strategy call. And on that strategy call, it's an opportunity for me to really get to know you where you are right now and understand where you want to be. And during that strategy call, what we look at is where you are now and where you want to be. And if the five steps, the five pillars that we have on the program is the bridge to get from where you are now to get to your ideal goals, if it is, then I make you an offer to join the program, provided the program is the right fit for you and you are the right fit for the program. And because we already had this great relationship, the roadmap success flowed really well. And it was just was now about Ednan deciding whether he wants to go ahead and commit or not. Because I remember initially when we first started the Privacy Pros Academy, this year, Ednan actually jumped onto one of our calls. And at that time he decided it wasn't right for him. And then a few months later, he actually came back and he went applied again. And this time he decided to jump in with both feet. And we'll hear in a minute about how that's worked out for you. When you first jump on the strategy call, back in January and you decided you wasn't going to go through the program, what changed from you from that time to more recently, where you decided, hang on a minute, I'm going to have another go at this, and this time you decided to move forward.

A lot of it was dependent on a lot of the other people that were within the program and seeing their results, I knew that it would bring me success in January. But just seeing that just gave it that confirmation that essentially that people with far less experience than me that didn't know much about privacy compared to myself, and I actually had the CIPPE already to add to that. That's one of the things you said to me in the second strategy call is your background is actually quite stronger than my previous intake in terms of your experience within the market. I can pretty much guarantee you will be successful if you go into this program. And your confidence in the second call just made me realize that if Jamal is this confident, I know he wouldn’t just say this for no reason. And you even gave me a guarantee you will get to wherever you need to, whatever your goals are, and I guarantee that you will achieve that at the end of the program. So is that confidence from Jamal that made me think it's a no brainer to take this.

The program works. We follow a proven methodology. We have the five pillars, and the program is designed to work so we can guarantee that the program works. And what I want to make sure is that we only invite people onto the program who are actually going to follow those five steps to get to the ideal life that they want, the life that they told me about, and the one that you described to me. And I'm so grateful that we managed to help you to get over that bridge very quickly before you even complete the last third of the program. But the reason I was so confident is number one is because I know this works. We've seen it work a number of times, and over the years, it's actually what's worked for me, what's worked for my family, what's worked for the people who I have mentored. And now that we're offering this as a mentoring program, we can see that people with no previous experience, people with no legal background, people with no IT background, are starting off on the program. And twelve weeks later, they are doubling their salaries. Twelve weeks later, they are increasing their income. Twelve weeks later, they are living the life of their dreams, working for a company in a role where they have meaning, where they are valued, and where they are respected. And when you came to the strategy call, knowing what I already know about you, knowing how motivated you are, knowing how much of a hard worker you are, knowing how much of a great positive attitude you have, I could see by taking you through this process of the academy and transforming you and adding to the potential that you already have, people would snap you up. And that's exactly what happened. So, Jamilla, over to your next question.

So I heard through the grapevine that you had four interviews in a week, and you've got offers from all four companies that you interviewed with what was that experience like? What happened there and which one did you go for?

I mean, all praise to God for that happening. It was a strange feeling, to be honest with you. Sometimes you think things like that actually put you in a bit of an awkward position. If it's never happened to you, you don't know what to do. I've had two offers before and that's when you can sort of make a decision more easily. But when you've got four on the plate, it is quite difficult. And especially a lot of the recruiters and even the internal staff are trying to convince you to go with them. Especially one of the interviews was actually a two stage, but they just cut it to one stage straight away and said, wow. I said, look, there's no need for a second stage. You know your stuff, we want you. I actually said no to them and it was very difficult because I think in the back of mind, this person's giving you a lot of confidence and putting all the eggs in one basket. So it is hard to say no in those situations. But the one that I went with was a company in the tech sector and they're within journalism and I found that quite interesting. But they get the third most clicks after Facebook and Google, so they're massive. And the person that was speaking to me, the interview was very short. It was like 20 minutes. And I really liked that because I was like, you know what, this is really refreshing. Normal interviews are like 1 hour, 1 hour, 2 hours. There's like so many stages that there's no need for too many questions. Just ask the questions that I want to know. That's what I really liked about him. I was like, you're straight to the point and you're direct and that matches myself. So I know that if I'm doing well at that company, he will tell me. If I'm not, he'll tell me as well. And that's what I need. So that's why I went with him. Big company. And he seemed like a person that would be good to work with. And I think Jamal's worked with him as well. He said good stuff about him. I felt confident in that.

This is amazing. Like one of the things about privacy, it's such a small space and that's why it's so important that we focus on building a personal brand because our reputation often precedes us. One of the things you mentioned there was you had four different companies of recruiters, internal recruiters, trying to convince you. Now, when I speak to most people who haven't completed the program or people who ask me for advice, the biggest problem is them trying to convince somebody they should give them a chance and hire them. Some people can't even convince other people to get interviewed. The fact that you didn't have to convince anyone to hire you and they were trying to convince you to pick their company over the other offers you have. How did that feel?

Usually you're the one chasing the recruiter. Like, when are you going to get back to me? When are you going to tell me what's happening with my interview? When are you going to give me feedback? Even if you do get through, it was like going to the other side where they're chasing you and they're asking you, when are you going to let us know? Some of them I have to say, look, I'm going to let you know tomorrow. Let me think about it. It's not like all the things that used to happen to me is happening to them now, where they're chasing me as opposed to me chasing them. I guess it's important to still stay humble within those periods and not to get carried away with it. Anything can change in life. So that's one of the things I tried to stay level-headed about it. And I know the end of the day, those companies were great companies to work for as well. I had to select one at the end of the day and I just went with the ones that I felt was best for me. God willing it is. Absolutely, absolutely.

So one of the problems you described having was you having too many offers. Have you had that level of success anywhere before?

No, especially at those levels of salary. So never.

What do you think was the difference that made the difference for somebody who was just normal and was struggling to get job opportunities or even interviews to somebody who is being chased out and saying, don't let him walk out the door without signing the contract?

I think because I went to a lot of interviews and I spoke to yourself, Jamal, a lot about the interviews, we sort of summed it up and realized there's a process within these interviews. I started telling Jamal that I think it's a numbers game and it's luck. And Jamal was saying, no, it's not luck. There are things that they're looking out for and that's what you have to demonstrate. Once you told me what those things are and how I should demonstrate them, I realized that's all I had to do was you go in there and you know, there are certain questions they're definitely going to ask you in an interview, and it's about answering them really well. Do you know what's going to come up? So it's like having the answers to an exam paper. If you know the answers, you should be able to answer the question really well. And then the second thing, you have to show them that you're a cultural fit. They work with you. You're not just going to be boring, you're going to be a fun person, you're going to bring something to the table that they want to work with you. And I was able to demonstrate those things slowly but surely and I guess one thing is when you start getting offers as well during the week and you've got another interview, you know you got an offer, you're a bit more relaxed during the process. So you're just, okay, if I get it, I get it, but I already have something in place anyway. Your attitude changes. Not in an arrogant way, but I think that confidence kind of lays into kind of feel that, OK, this guy's in demand for some reason, and it's weird how it works.

How do you think the actual mentoring aspects of the program helped you to demonstrate that confidence, that credibility, and that you are now a world class privacy professional that brings a lot of value to the table, to these organizations?

For sure. Paul is also on our program, and he's got a lot of privacy experience, as do I. And a lot of these concepts that we learned during our career, they just are simplified within the program. So when they're asking those complex questions because we went through the program, we can answer them. To be fair, the interviews are most impressed by that because they don't want to hear too much jargon. That's the difference is being able to simplify complex information. And you get that on the program. I think that's the main thing that flowed through in the interviews. From a technical aspect,

One of the things that we really promise on the program is clarity, confidence and credibility. And what you've described there just sums that up. So when you're able to answer a question without the jargon and you can really reduce it, you're being clear and concise. And because you're clear and concise, it shows that you have confidence in your answer, that you don't have to waffle for three minutes to convince them that you know your stuff, you know your stuff, and you tell them in a very clear and plain way that makes sense to everyone. And because you're clear and you're confident, they can see that you are a credible candidate.

That's right.

So Jamal mentioned a little bit earlier about personal branding. How did you feel about those classes and how did they help you? That's something, I guess, that's quite unique about the academy is the personal branding kind of aspects to it.

It's very unique. If you were to jump onto a privacy course with some of the other competitors, and which I did look into, you don't get that same personal touch. It feels more like a numbers game. Obviously, at the end of the day, every business needs to make money, right? There seems like there's no actual element of getting personally involved with that person and understanding that person's journey and adding things on to that person. And that's what Jamal does, is he actually takes his own time out and really looks at how we can improve your personal branding. I remember there were times when we would have a call from six to eight and Jamal would still be there till nine. Like looking through my branding and trying to improve it. That time and effort you would not get from any other program. The personal branding is crazy, the LinkedIn, the amount of attention that it gets when you're posting. Obviously, my CV was improved a lot as well. To really get all the experience that I have in there. It's just crazy how much recruiters are still contacting me now and I'm not even posting anymore. And that's why I've actually stopped posting for a while, because I just can't keep saying no. Like, so many people keep messaging and saying, we've got this job, we got this job, we got that job. And it's just like, how many people can you keep turning down every week?

This is making me smile. This is music to my ears. One of the things I promised Ednan is, I said, Ednan, we're going to teach you the strategies and we're going to work with your personal branding so much that you will be magnetically attracting opportunities to you without ever having to apply for a job. Have I fulfilled that?

Yeah, definitely. I've not applied for any of these roles that I gone for, I didn't have to do anything. It just came to me.

Jamal is obviously saying that we're going to do this and we're going to do that. Were you a little bit sceptical ever? Did you think sounds a bit too good to be true?

I don't know if I was sceptical. Jamal explained why we're doing everything like that. Look, why are we adding these hashtags? Or why are we doing this? Just ask me and I'll tell you the science behind it. LinkedIn works on algorithm, so there are certain things that you can add and say that will bring more attention to your profile. Like, Jamal was saying that only a small percentage of people actually post on LinkedIn. So just by your posting, it puts you in the small percentage of people that are doing it. It was quite interesting. Types of people that would get in touch with you as well, and people that will comment and you see a range of different people. And good. It's always good to experience new things and do new things.

What was your favourite part of the academy?

It’d be the classes. I really enjoyed my Tuesdays and Thursdays with Jamal, and I'm not someone that really likes having that structure. You have to go to work from nine to five, for example. I don't really like that kind of structure, but with Jamal’s classes, strangely. I was looking forward to it. It wasn't like really a learning session as such. It was more like an interactive session. It doesn't matter, like, if you don't know something, we'll try and help you as much as we can for you to understand that concept. It was fun, actually. It was actually quite a fun session so I really enjoyed it.

That makes me so happy you made my day.

You didn't have to drink tea as well.

And were those the classes, theory classes, or were they the mindset classes?

The Mindset classes were really good. I enjoyed that. I did a few courses on coaching and it went back to my days of studying like psychology. It was quite interesting, actually. I find all that stuff fascinating in general, but I really like the learning aspect of it. Like when we're talking about the GDPR and for example, international data transfers, stuff about the legal basis, the principles of data protection, all of that simplified to that level was really good. The way Jamal structures things is not for you to just go there and then after you forget, right. He structures it in a way for you to remember. So when I go to interviews, they can really tell that he knows his stuff, because I actually do know it, because it's all stuck into my brain because of the way Jamal taught it to us is that it's been designed the course has been designed for you not to forget and for you to remember everything that you've learned from Jamal in a very structured manner.

So you'd already done your CIPPE before coming onto the course. So did you still benefit from those classes?

Yeah, definitely. The CIPPE is you're studying a textbook at the end of the day, doing past exam questions, so that's what you're doing. And a lot of the time, like with most exams, people can't say that they remember everything that they did during their GCSE or during their A-Levels. Right. You can't even remember what you wrote as an answer. And that's because you've gone through these lessons where there's about 30 people and you might have had so many questions at the time and you couldn't really ask them because you want to go for lunch. You have other things on your mind. That's the difference here, very concise, there are only three people in the sessions. A lot of the time it was just me and Moji as well. So there's two people in the class. You have that direct attention from someone that's an expert in the field. So having that extra attention as well as someone giving you a structure for you to remember, is something that's different. It's very different to studying for the CIPPE to actually have an interactive session and learning everything that the CIPPE is actually teaching you by putting it in a practical manner that you can use within your professional line of work. And it's actually made me improve my current job as well. And obviously my new employees are going to benefit as well.

Jamal, if someone was listening and they've done the CIPPE, but they're still interested in maybe coming on the program, but maybe they think there's not anything more for them to learn. What would you say to that?

If you're interested in. You've already acquired the CIPPE, then great. That's awesome. But the challenge I find, and the problem most of us find when we get to the higher end of the privacy professional peers, is that anyone that's self-studied to pass an exam, that's all they've done. They've just passed an exam. They lack the clarity that they need, they lack the confidence, and they feel like they're an imposter. And a lot of people talk about self-imposter syndrome. It's because all they've done is learn how to pass a book. They don't own this stuff. So Ednan speaks about he remembers everything, right? It's not that he's memorized what I've said. He knows everything because he's got it from a level, because it’s been ingrained in his DNA, because that's the level of clarity that I've given him. As a professional, as someone who's been doing this for a long time, as someone who's got this strange experience, I've exposed him to all of the experience that I've had, and I've explained from my experience so he doesn't have to go and make those mistakes and learn the hard way. I've actually sat with a mentor, someone who's been there, done it, and I've shown him how it's done. I've shown him how this stuff applies and I've explained what this stuff does in a way that's so clear to him that he feels like he owns this material and is part of him. He doesn't have to think about it, he doesn't have to remember something. He doesn't have to regurgitate a piece of text and read out an article and expect someone to understand what he's talking about, because he owns this, because he's got the clarity that he needs. He's confident that he knows this, and now he's a world class privacy professional who is applying this in his role and will continue to apply this, and he will only see the return on investment for that. And this is what made him so valuable that four companies were fighting to hire him. Now, I know Ednan is very humble and he hasn't mentioned this, but he's actually managed to achieve an increase in his salary by 30%. And one of the things he said to me is, this is life changing.

For me in terms of the increase in salary. Yes, definitely. It is life changing compared to where I am now and where I'm going to be. All praise to God. I'm very happy about the increase, so hopefully he can go on a few more holidays once all this COVID stuff is over.

That's transforming your lifestyle as well, isn't it? It's not just about having more money. It's about what does that money allow you to do? Like we all know, privacy is very rewarding. And when you become a world class privacy professional, it gives you a full transformation of your lifestyle. And that's why I spend so much time asking people at the beginning, what are your goals. What are your dreams? What are your hobbies? To really make sure that we understand whether we can help you to achieve those goals through this program or not. Come back to the question that you ask is, if someone has already got the certifications, does it make sense for them to come on the program? Well, I'm not sure if it does or not. For some people it might not. For others, it really depends on what their goals are and whether they've actually grasped the stuff at the same level as Ednan has now grasped it, or if they've only grasped it as he had previously grasped it. And he'd learned how to pass an exam by studying a textbook and looking at some past paper exams. So for those people who want clarity, who want confidence, who want credibility and they want to be seen as a person of value in the privacy sector, they want to be a world class privacy professional, then it absolutely makes sense. For those people who just want to get by and who just want to be able to tick boxes and do templates, then for them, they've got different goals. And I respect those goals. But it's probably not going to be the right program for them because they would not have the right mindset. They would not be the right fit. This program is for highly driven and ambitious people who want to be the best they can possibly be. And because I knew Ednan, I knew how motivated he was, I knew how he was so committed to being the best he can be and we can hear this in everything that he's saying when he's still remaining and having that humility in him. This is exactly the kind of person that makes this program great. And the honest truth is, I don't do anything special on the program. The real people that attend the program, my mentees, they are the stars and they are the people who are celebrating. So whenever you see results on the program, whenever you see people have achieved great things, we attribute that success firstly to God, but then to that individual. There is nothing I've done. I'm just a mentor. I've just given them a little bit of guidance, right? I did not beat anything to you. I did not change anything. All I did was first of all, we went through the five pillars. You have a look at your mindset and you said you've already done coaching, you've done these things. So I already knew that you have someone that always has a positive mindset. You want to see how you can be the best version of yourself. So this program is for people who want to be the best version of themselves. They want to unlock that potential. They just don't know how. Ednan was one of those great individuals, just like all of the other mentees that we have in the program and that we have on the waitlist, who fit the definition of the ideal person for this program? There is nothing I do on this program that doesn't come from within the mentees themselves. And that is why it's so powerful. It's because we take people who genuinely want to be the best they can possibly, who want to become world class privacy professionals, and we take them through the process, we look at their mindset, we make sure they have that subject matter expertise where they have clarity of understanding. We help them gain that world class credibility, we help them with their personal branding, and we make sure they have all of the practical experiences to make sure they put all of those things together. And now they go out onto the world where they are now an elite world class privacy professional in as little as twelve weeks. And they have organizations, employees and recruiters fighting for them to sign their contract. So if that sounds like that's in line with what you want to achieve and that's the kind of goals that you have, and you want to be just as valuable as Ednan is to organisations, then the program is right for you. And the reason why it's limited to three people is because three is the number that I can give that individual dedicated focus to. Three is the number of people I can think about. Three is the number of people that we have from our internal team that can support these people every second of every day to get them from where they are now to where they need to get to by the time they graduate from the program. What Ednan hasn't explained yet is it's not just me that people invest in, they invest in the academy. And all of the support that comes from the academy, not just from me, but the real stars in the business, which is my team, which is people like Sharan, people like Ananya, and all of the other world class privacy professionals in the Signal community. We are always working for them in the background. I'm just the face of it, right? I deliver the classes, I come up with the concepts based on my experience. But I have a powerful team behind me who do all the heavy lifting to make sure that people like Ednan, people like Zaynab, people like Fayaaz, people like Moji, people like Paul, people like Sarah, who is joining people like Audrey, people like Rashid, who are joining the program and having this amazing journey, have the best possible experience they could possibly have.

Sharan is always available for any questions I have. I would always ask around and he would clarify exactly what I have to do. There would be a place where there's a lot of documents that you can access.

You're talking about our library that we make available to all of our mentees.

So there's like a library of resources there. So for every single topic that you need to know, there's so much data and it's always kept up to date. So you're able to first of all, understand what's happening in the privacy world and secondly, you can really apply that within your current job. If you want to do a record of processing activities, all the material is there for you to do it in the best possible way. If you want to do a subject access request, all the material is there. If you want to do a privacy notice, all the material is there. Good thing about it is there won't be too much material, it will just be what you need which is relevant and that just cuts all the stuff that you don't need when you're doing all these kind of activities at work. Okay, this is what I have to use to write the best privacy notice and that's what's amazing about all the resources. So it's very good and straight to the point.

What about the community aspects of it?

A lot of the members are outside of the UK. Everyone is very friendly and what's good is being with people that are like minded if they've joined a course, they obviously thinking similar to yourself to keep people that have the same goals as you, the same ambitions and aspirations. That's what's good about the communities. A lot of them in the same place as you or they might be further on or behind, but everyone helps everyone, and everyone sees everyone as equal and we all try to help each other get through the program in the best way possible. The community is amazing and you carry on with the community even after you're done. You always keep up to date with the best practices. Yeah.

And I think that's one of my favourite aspects of the program is attracting people who have similar goals. Who have similar mindset from anywhere in the world and they're all coming together on the Privacy Pros Accelerator program and we're all working together towards one common purpose. Which is to really help businesses to protect their personal data and to make sure that the individuals are honoured with the right to their privacy so that they can enjoy the fundamental rights and freedoms. And everyone that comes on board is a part of our mission of being able to protect and safeguard the personal data of every single person on the planet. One of the reasons I set up this program is because when I started Kazient Privacy experts, one of our missions was to empower every organization on the planet to safeguard people's personal data. One of the things I quickly realized is regardless of how big we are as a consultancy, it's going to be very difficult for us to empower every single organization just by ourselves. So that's when we started looking and attracting opportunities to go and advise governments, we can advise governments and they can bring in these policies and we can take care of that country, we'll take care of that continent, we'll take care of that jurisdiction. But we actually still need to create more world class privacy professionals with the same values, with the same ethics, with the same moral compass, and with the right attitude to go out there and make the difference. And that's why we've got the Privacy Pros Academy so that we can fulfil that mission of being able to empower every single organization on Earth to safeguard people's personal data. Now, although the Privacy Pros Accelerator program is limited to three or four times a year, we still have the CIPPE training, we still have the CIPM mentoring. In the future we're going to have more and more courses. So regardless of where people are in the world, regardless of what financial resources and financial constraints they have, there is going to be something for every single person listening. Right? That's my promise to you. Just give us enough time. We will make sure that we create valuable learning experiences, valuable mentoring opportunities for every single person, wherever you are in the world right now. I know some people in South Asia, I know some people in Africa are desperate to get onto one of our courses, but because of the currency situation, they find it unaffordable or unacceptable. So we are working on things to make it as accessible. And one of the things that you can see that we're doing and working so hard on is creating as many valuable resources as we can, that we can share at no cost at all. So we're summarizing the enforcement actions, we've created an easy peasy version of the GDPR. I go and do a live training every single week, which is available for free to anyone with a Facebook account, and has been in the Facebook group at no cost at all. And this is all part of our commitment to giving back the biggest gift that we have to the world is this Privacy Pros podcast. Right now it's enjoyed by thousands of people in 71 countries around the world and counting. I look forward to bringing more great content, bringing more valuable guests on this podcast, and sharing our gift with the world.

You're very busy. You're hiking, you're traveling. It's a twelve-week program, but it's quite intense. What would you say to someone who's thinking, I've got other commitments, family commitments. I'm not sure I have the time.

At the beginning, it does take up a lot of time because you're adjusting. You have to essentially do a lot of tasks that Jamal will set you in terms of like homework, attending the sessions. But I think after the first month you adjust to it and you sort of understand, OK, this is how I'm meant to be essentially doing the summaries on LinkedIn, and this is how I'm meant to be doing some of the tasks that are set. So I think gradually it's fine. But it's always important to have that conversation with whoever it is that's going to take over during those responsibilities and letting them know that you're on a life changing journey and just those twelve weeks will make a big difference to your whole life. Three months of sacrifice, the bigger picture, which is a successful career, and also giving back, as Jamal says, to the privacy space. My mom and dad are, like, very proud of me. I was able to go to the next level in my career. They don't like to praise me too much because they like to keep me level headed. In general, I think they can see changes. Like, I'm obviously more happier because I feel like I'm going to a career that I really like. Although it's been great at KPMG and learning aspects of privacy is great, but going on to this next phase with a massive tech company is where I really want to be. They can definitely see I'm more driven and I spend more time studying and reading, and I'm always showing interest in different areas of privacy, and I think they can see that. And I'm starting to watch a lot of different programs on TV that's more related to the privacy space and even, like, general news, I'm watching it and relate it back to privacy as opposed to anything else. They notice those kind of small little things. Like, I have more of a purpose now in terms of where I'm going. I see more direction, what I want to do, where I see the future, where I want to be in a year, where I want to be in five years. That's a lot, thanks to the program. I think it's important for everyone, even if you don't join the program, to have those milestones. So you can compare yourself from where you want it to be and where you are. And it doesn't matter if you don't hit those milestones, but at least you know where you are and where you want to go after.

What would have happened if you hadn't joined the program?

I think if I didn't join the program, I could get to where I am now, but it would have just taken much more longer. It would have probably taken, I would say probably a year to two years longer. So it saved me at least a year of my life. So that's significant because time is something you can't buy, right? It's significant.

It saves you time and earn you some more money.

No comment on the second part. I don't want no evil eye.

So we like to always end the podcast with having the guest ask Jamal a question.

Jamal, how did you get into privacy?

Thank you for the question and thank you very much for appearing on today's podcast. It's been a really interesting one. I know Jamal has enjoyed this podcast. I think he always likes to listen to what his mentees have to say about the program.

Thank you so much for sharing everything that you'd share on the program, Ednan. I just want to make sure that even before you finish the program, I want you to know that I'm so proud of you. And all the hard work and all the heavy lifting and all the results is actually down to you and you alone. You put the work in, you showed up, you decided to invest in the program. So it's all thanks to you. And of course, we attribute all praise to Allah. But I want you to make sure that you take ownership for this success and you know that it was all down to you. And if you can achieve this. Now, I just want you to imagine all of the possibilities that wait for you as you travel through your career.

Thank you, Jamal. Thank you.

Nearly made me cry there.

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