11th Annual European Data Protection & Privacy Conference

Věra Jourová is currently Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency and deals with democracy, rule of law, disinformation and media pluralism. From 2014 to 2019, she served as EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality. In 2014, before arriving to the European Commission, Ms Jourová held the position of Minister for Regional Development in the Czech Republic. Previous to this, from 2006 to 2013, she worked in her own company as an international consultant on European Union funding, and was also involved in consultancy activities in the Western Balkans relating to the European Union Accession. She holds a Degree in Law (Mgr.) and a Master’s degree (Mgr.) in the Theory of Culture from the Charles University, Prague.

Bio will appear here soon

Marjan Dikaučič was awarded the title of Bachelor of Law in 2006 and immediately after graduating from the Faculty of Law he was employed as a judicial trainee at Ljubljana Higher Court. He passed his state bar examination in 2009 and then continued his career in the private sector.

In his work to date has encountered both the public and private sectors, gaining his knowledge and experience in a variety of legal and economic fields.

After he passed the professional examination to act as a liquidator in insolvency and compulsory liquidation proceedings he worked as a liquidator and was engaged in studying issues related to insolvency law.

He was appointed Minister of Justice 15. June 2021.

Kent Walker is the President of Global Affairs & Chief Legal Office at Google, where he oversees the teams responsible for legal matters, government affairs, content policy, and philanthropy.

For nearly 30 years, Kent has focused on the intersection of technology, law, and policy. Since joining Google in 2006, he has led the company’s advocacy on competition, content, copyright, and privacy. He has worked with government leaders and regulators around the world and served as the first chair of the Global Internet Forum to Combat Terrorism. After overseeing the creation of Google’s AI Principles in 2018, he became chair of the company’s Advanced Technology Review Council.

Kent was born in Silicon Valley when it was still called “the Valley of Heart’s Delight” and known more for its fruit orchards than its tech startups. The son of a Navy officer and a public health nurse, he grew up next to Stanford’s campus and learned to code using mainframe punch cards before going on to graduate with honors from Harvard College.

Kent’s interest in technology deepened at Stanford Law School, where he earned his JD degree in 1987 and co-founded Stanford’s Law & Technology Association. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Francisco and Washington D.C., starting one of the first “computer crime” units in the country and later advising the U.S. Attorney General on technology policy issues.

He went on to hold executive positions at Netscape, AOL, and eBay, as they navigated the rise of the web, online communities, and ecommerce.

Over the years, Kent has been involved with several nonprofits, community organizations, and industry associations. Currently, he serves on Harvard’s Board of Overseers and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Kent and his wife Diana, a former journalist, have three grown children.

Paul Adamson is chairman of Forum Europe and founder and editor of Encompass, an online magazine dedicated to covering the European Union and Europe’s place in the world.

Paul is a member of the Centre for European Reform’s advisory board and Rand Europe’s Council of Advisors. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Policy Institute, King’s College London, a patron of the University Association of Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.

In 2012, Paul was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) “for services to promoting understanding of the European Union” and in 2016 he was made a Chevalier in the Ordre national du Mérite by the French government.

On January 1, 2014, Andrea Jelinek, who holds a doctorate degree in law, became head of the Austrian Data Protection Authority. While still a student, she worked as a consultant at the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), later as a trainee lawyer and from 1991 as a legal officer at the General Secretariat of the Austrian Rectors’ Conference. Two years later, she moved to the Ministry of the Interior, where she first worked as a legal officer and later as head of department in the legal and legislative department. One of her specializations – asylum and immigration law – helped determine her further career. From October 2010 to June 2011 she was head of the Vienna Foreign Police. Before that, in 2003, she was the first woman in Vienna to be appointed head of a police commissioner’s office.

Since February 2018, she has also been the Chair of the Article 29 Working Party.

Juan Fernando López Aguilar is a Senior Spanish MEP for the Socialist and Democrats Group. He is the Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. He is a member of the Spanish Socialist Party and served as Minister of Justice between 2004 and 2007. In addition, Mr Lopez Aguilar is a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and an expert in comparative law, federalism, fundamental rights and judicial systems. He has authored 15 books in constitutional law as well as multiple articles, essays and scientific collaborations.

Mathias Cellarius is SAP’s Global Data Protection Officer and the head of Data Protection and Privacy at SAP.

Mathias further heads ‘SAP Export Control’ as a second regulatory responsibility. His professional experience spans the company’s legal, public policy, research and intellectual property functions.

Mathias holds a law degree from the University of Freiburg and his bachelor law degree with the higher regional court of Karlsruhe. In addition,  he holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with the University of Mannheim

Bio will appear here soon

In January of 2019 Ulrich Kelber was elected Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information for Germany.

For this charge he resigned as a Member of the German Bundestag, which had been his dedication for nearly twenty years. During that time he was the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection for five years from 2013 to 2018.

Ulrich Kelber is a professional computer scientist and works as knowledge management consultant at an IT company since 2002

With a degree in European competition law from King’s College London, a master’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics, and a magistère in economics and statistics from the Université des sciences sociales in Toulouse, Pascale Déchamps is an economist specialising in competition with a strong interest in digital issues. She has many years of experience working in economic analysis. Since January 2019, she has been a managing partner at Oxera, where she was head of the Paris office since its opening in October 2018, after having held the same position for several years in Brussels (2013-2018).

She has advised companies in connection with mergers and anticompetitive practices examined by the European Commission and other competition authorities, including in France. She has also intervened in cases involving control of state aid and sector-specific regulation. In addition, she has served as an expert for both defendants and claimants before the courts in several cases involving compensation for damages suffered as a result of anticompetitive practices.

Until now, Pascale Déchamps has been a non-governmental adviser for the Autorité de la concurrence within the framework of the International Competition Network (ICN). In 2020, GCR selected her as one of the 40 persons under 40 who are influential in the competition field (‘40 under 40’). She is included in the 2020 editions of the International Who’s Who of Competition Lawyers and Economists and Who’s Who Legal Consulting Experts: Economic Consulting – Competition Economists.

Dr. Paul Tang is a senior Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), as part of the Group of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). In 2014, Tang led the list of the PvdA for the European elections. In 2019 he was re-elected.

Paul Tang’s main priorities involve the fight against tax evasion, digital taxation, sustainable finance and platform regulation. Since September 2020, Tang is chair of the subcommittee on taxation (FISC). Next to that, Tang is one of the negotiators on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) and co-founded the Tracking-free Ads Coalition within the European Parliament.

Previously, Paul Tang was a Member of the Dutch Parliament. Here, Paul Tang was spokesperson for financial and fiscal affairs from 2007 until 2010, right through the financial crisis.

Prior to that, he worked for the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs and the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

Paul Tang received a PhD degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam.

For further reference on MEP Tang’s work and his resume, please consult his official page on the website of the European Parliament or his personal website. 

Linda Thielová serves as Head of Privacy CoE, DPO at OneTrust – the #1 most widely used privacy, security, and trust technology platform. In her role, Linda provides guidance on GDPR, ePrivacy, and global privacy-related obligations to support customers and product innovation and is responsible for overseeing OneTrust’s data protection strategy and implementation to ensure compliance with GDPR requirements. She also conducts training and workshops on the global privacy landscape and regularly contributes to various publications and conferences. Linda is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E, CIPM, CIPP/US) and earned a Master’s in Law and Legal Science from Masaryk University Brno.

Geraldine is a Certified Information Privacy Professional by the International Association of Privacy Professionals and ECPC-B Professional DPO certified by Maastricht University. Since 2011, she covered postal, digital, consumer and data marketing issues within FEDMA. Her experience enables her to have a cross sector view on data protection. She is focusing on the implementation of the GDPR and updating FEDMA Code of Conduct on the processing of data for marketing purposes to be in line with the GDPR. She represents FEDMA at the European Commission expert group on the implementation of the GDPR.

Elisabeth Dehareng joined Baker McKenzie’s Brussels office in 2003 and is a partner since 2014 in the Information Technology & Communications and Intellectual Property Practice Groups. She was admitted to the Brussels bar in 2003. She is a member of the EMEA IP Tech Steering Committee.

Elisabeth is regularly mentioned in publications such as Legal 500 and Chambers.

Elisabeth advises clients in all fields of IT, IP and new technology law, with a special focus on data protection and privacy aspects. Her practice focuses on European and worldwide data protection compliance projects, in the field of which she advises on GDPR-readiness programs, cross-border data transfer strategies, processing of special categories of personal data, cybersecurity and data breaches management, and provides strategic advice on other areas such as internal compliance issues, digital media and online applications, as well as in relation to privacy litigation.

Elisabeth also advises on data protection aspects of corporate transactions and reorganizations.

Elisabeth also advises clients in relation to e-commerce, digital media and online applications, including legal aspects of big data and internet of things.

Christian works in the data policy and innovation unit of DG Connect ­­in the European Commission. He is currently working on the implementation of the data strategy, in particular the preparation of the Data Act proposal. He has been responsible for devising the EU’s cybersecurity strategy, a study into the future of adtech and privacy, and helped coordinate the roll out of interoperable contact tracing apps across the EU. Before joining DG Connect, he was head of the Private Office of the European Data Protection Supervisor, advising on privacy-related legal and policy developments in the EU, including online manipulation, digital monopolies, digital ethics and scientific research.

Before that, Christian drafted and negotiated the EU’s first internal security strategy and carried out the evaluation and review of the data retention directive. He moved to Brussels in 2008, after several years of advising the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales on senior judicial appointments, discipline and complaints handling, succession planning and constitutional reform matters. He also served for several years as private secretary to the Chairman of the UK Labour Party.

Deirdre Clune is a Member of the European Parliament for the constituency of Ireland South, having been elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2019. She is a full member of the Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection and a substitute member of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.
Deirdre graduated from University College Cork in 1980, with a B.E. in Civil Engineering. She completed a diploma in Management Engineering with Trinity College Dublin in 1983. She returned to UCC in 1996 to complete her HDip in Environmental Engineering. Deirdre went on to work with some of the leading engineering firms both here at home and overseas, including Delap & Waller, Roughton & Partners and Arup.
Deirdre is a former member of the Dail Eireann (1997-2002, 2007-2011) and Seanad Eireann (2011-2014). She was elected Lord Mayor of Cork City in 2005, in which time the City was designated as the European Capital of Culture.
During her time in Leinster House, Deirdre was Deputy Spokesperson on Enterprise with the Special Responsibility for Innovation. She was also the Fine Gael spokesperson on Environmental Information and Protection, and Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.

Cornelia leads Microsoft’s European Rule of Law & Responsible Tech team which focuses on the impact of new technologies and regulatory frameworks that meet expectation of society. Her team covers policies such as responsible/ethical/trustworthy AI, digital safety and content regulation, privacy, lawful access, human rights and competition. In her role, she works hand in hand with Microsoft’s Office of Responsible AI, Microsoft Research and members of the AI, Ethics, and Effects in Engineering and Research (Aether) Committee. She regularly engages with leading European scholars in these fields to advance academic thinking. Cornelia has long standing experience in Information Society & Internet policies and speaks regularly at regional and international conferences. Before joining Microsoft, she headed the legal department of BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation. She has also gained experience in a top 10 law firm and started her professional career in the European Parliament as a political advisor to an MEP. Cornelia is a qualified German lawyer, and holds a master’s degree in information technology and telecommunication laws. She studied law at the Universities of Passau, Porto, Hamburg and Glasgow/Strathclyde.

Cecilia Álvarez Rigaudias is the EMEA Privacy Policy Director at Meta since March 2019. From 2015 to 2019, she served as European Privacy Officer Lead of Pfizer, Vice-Chair of the EFPIA Data Protection Group and Chairwoman of IPPC-Europe. For an interim period, she was also the Legal Lead of the Spanish Pfizer subsidiaries. She formerly worked 18 years in a reputed Spanish law firm, leading the data protection, IT and ecommerce areas of practice as well as the LATAM Data Protection Working Group.

She is a member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation in the section of the Law on Technologies of the Information and the Knowledge as well as Arbitrator of the European Association of Arbitration (ITC section).

Cecilia was the Chairwoman of APEP (Spanish Privacy Professional Association) until June 2019 and currently in charge of its international affairs. She is also the Spanish member of CEDPO (Confederation of European Data Protection Organisations) and member of the Leadership Council of The Sedona Conference (W-6).

She formed part of the Volunteer Group of Privacy Experts of the OECD (Working Party on Information Security and Privacy; WPISP) in charge of the 2013 review of the OECD guidelines governing the protection of privacy and transborder data flows of personal data. She formerly participated in the Group of Experts selected by the Spanish DPA to prepare the Madrid Resolution on International Privacy Standards in 2009.

Cecilia has written numerous publications on data protection and regularly lectures on data protection, IT and e-commerce at different Master’s programmes and seminars.

Daniel works as Europe Policy Analyst at Access Now’s Brussels office. He works on issues around artificial intelligence and data protection, with a focus on facial recognition and other biometrics. Previously, he was hosted by Access Now as a Mozilla Fellow from October 2019 to July 2020. During his Mozilla Fellowship, he worked with Access Now to develop aimyths.org, a website that gathers resources to tackle 8 of the most common myths and misconceptions about AI. He has a PhD in Philosophy from KU Leuven in Belgium and has worked on political philosophy (especially political dissidence), philosophy of technology, and the philosophy and sociology of war. He is also a member of the Working Group on Philosophy of Technology at KU Leuven.

Dr. Rob van Eijk serves as the Future of Privacy Forum’s Managing Director for Europe. In this role, van Eijk implements FPF’s agenda in Europe, overseeing its day-to-day operations, and manages relationships with stakeholders in the industry, government, academia, and civil society. Van Eijk is a technologist with an M.Sc. from the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden University, and a Ph.D. from Leiden Law School, Leiden University, focusing on online advertising (real-time bidding).

Prior to serving in this position, van Eijk worked at the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) as Senior Supervision Officer and Technologist for nearly 10 years. He represented the Dutch DPA in international meetings such as the Technology Expert group of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and as a technical expert in court. He also represented the European Data Protection Authorities, assembled as the Article 29 Working Party, in the multi-stakeholder negotiations of the World Wide Web Consortium on Do Not Track.

Mr Gencarelli heads the International Data Flows and Protection Unit at the European Commission (DG Justice and Consumers). In the past years, he led the Commission’s work in the area of data protection, as regards both new legislation and international negotiations. He notably headed the Commission’s delegation in the interinstitutional negotiations with the European Parliament and the Council that resulted in the adoption of the EU data protection reform (“General Data Protection Regulation” and “Law Enforcement Directive”). He was also one of the lead negotiators of the EU-US Privacy Shield and “Umbrella Agreement”. He recently negotiated the mutual adequacy arrangement with Japan.

Mr Gencarelli previously served as a member of the European Commission’s Legal Service and as an assistant (référendaire) to a judge at the European Court of Justice after having practiced law in the private sector. He holds degrees in law and political science, and teaches EU Competition Law at Sciences Po Paris. He is the author of numerous publications on EU law.

Bio coming soon

Barbara Cosgrove is vice president, chief privacy officer at Workday, and is responsible for Workday’s global privacy, ML ethics, and compliance strategy and operations.

Barbara has extensive expertise in managing international data protection compliance programs, and implementing data governance policies, technology compliance standards and programs, and privacy-by-design frameworks. She has also served as the chief security officer for Workday.

Prior to joining Workday, Barbara led various compliance programs within Kaiser Permanente and PeopleSoft. Barbara holds a Juris Doctor degree from Widener Law School and a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University.

Thomas Boué oversees the BSA | The Software Alliance’s public policy activities in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. He advises BSA members on public policy and legal developments and advocates the views of the ICT sector with both European and national policy makers. He leads on security and privacy issues as well as broader efforts to improve levels of intellectual property protection and to promote open markets, fair competition, and technology innovation in new areas such as cloud computing.

Prior to joining BSA, Boué served as a consultant in Weber Shandwick where he advised clients on a wide range of technology and ICT-related policy issues and represented them before the EU institutions and industry coalitions. In this role, he also served as policy and regulatory adviser for both EU and US telecom operators. Prior to that Boué worked for the EU office of the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry where he was responsible for the lobbying activities towards the EU Institutions in the areas of trade, education, and labor, as well as for the organization and running of seminars on EU affairs for SMEs and business professionals.

Boué holds a Master of Business Administration from the Europa-Insitut (Saarbrücken, Germany), a Certificate of Integrated Legal Studies (trilateral and trilingual Master’s degree in French, English, German and European Law, from the Universities of Warwick (UK), Saarland (Germany) and Lille II (France) as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Law from the University of Lille II, France. He is based in BSA’s Brussels office.

Vivienne is a Senior Data Strategy and Policy Advisor to CIPL, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership, Non-executive Director of Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation, Advisor & Ambassador to Privacy Culture, Chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group Data Working Group, and is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

Previously, Vivienne was a Managing Director and Chief Privacy Officer at the London Stock Exchange Group, Refinitiv and Thomson Reuters, leading the Privacy Office and overseeing global privacy strategy and practice across 190 countries.  Prior to being a Chief Privacy Officer, Vivienne was a Managing Director and Global Head of Privacy Legal & Head of International for the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Group at Citi.  Before moving to Citi in 2000, Vivienne practised as a solicitor in London, focusing on technology, privacy and commercial matters in three City law firms.

Vivienne is on the Advisory Board of Women in Banking and Finance, having been President and CEO from 2017-2020.  Vivienne is also on the Business and Law Advisory Board of St Mary’s University, the Alumni Advisory Board of Pembroke College Oxford University, and is on the Founding Editorial Board for the Journal of AI and Ethics.

Vivienne is an exceptional gender champion and leader having been awarded the Champion for Women Award at the Women in Banking and Finance Awards for Achievement 2016.  Vivienne was recognised in the 2019 PrivSec200 list of privacy and security professionals across Europe and received the 2019 WeAreTheCity Rising Star Editor’s Choice Award in recognition of her tireless efforts in the diversity space, and as an individual who is pushing for change within her industry.  Vivienne placed in the HERoes Executive Women Role Models List in 2020 and 2021, was awarded Woman Solicitor of the Year in the Law Society Excellence Awards in 2020, and has many years of experience leading a broad range of diversity initiatives and groups both within firms and across sectors.  Vivienne was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours in 2021 for services to financial services and gender diversity.

Stephanie Bodoni has been a journalist for almost 20 years. Before joining Bloomberg in 2006 in London, she was Europe editor at one of Euromoney’s main legal magazines. She built on this experience at Bloomberg and moved back to the heart of the EU to focus on her coverage of legal and regulatory news in Brussels and at the EU courts in Luxembourg. As sole correspondent of an international news organization based in Luxembourg, she’s covered central bankers, politicians and followed for years EU finance meetings during some of the euro-area’s most tense times. She has a BA in English literature from Queen Mary University in London and and an MA in Print Journalism from the London College of Communication.

Cathrin Bauer-Bulst serves as Head of the Cybercrime Unit in in DG Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission. Her unit develops legislative proposals and policy and coordinates EU efforts to better fight cybercrime and child sexual abuse. The team works on topics ranging from substantive criminal law to procedural question such as access to evidence, encryption, and the impact of internet governance rules on criminal investigations. She co-chairs the Commission’s informal task force on electronic evidence and the Governmental Advisory Committee Working Group on Public Safety issues within ICANN. She has a background in law and IT.

Ella works as a policy advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi), working on AI, biometrics, ePrivacy and other digital rights topics. She holds an MSc in Human Rights and previously worked for an engineering & technology company. Earlier this year, she was named (along with her colleague Sarah) as one of Politico’s top 28 in the European tech space, due to their work to mobilise civil society around justice and anti-discrimination.

Denton has worked with the INHOPE network since 2005 in all aspects of Hotlines and the environment that they operate in including network development, technology development, outreach and training. He is a self-confessed Hotline evangelist with a mission to combat online Child Sexual Abuse. He has a BA in Business & Marketing (University of South Wales) and a Postgrad in Information Technology (National University of Ireland Maynooth).

Catherine Garcia-van Hoogstraten, in her capacity of  Director of Responsible Technology, European Government Affairs Microsoft, she build consensus on European regulatory and policy issues at the intersection of Digital Safety, Platform and Content Regulation, Human Rights supporting Microsoft’s TechFit4Europe vision. Career-long track record and solid understanding of EU tech policy and legal challenges across a range of critical policy and regulatory files, including platform and content regulation, digital safety, human rights, consumer regulation and responsible tech. She is Juris Doctor in Law and Political Science and has pursued specialization in International Human Rights, Privacy, Information Security and Philosophy of Technology Design. Follow her work on LinkedIn and twitter CatherineGvh

Michèle leads Cullen International’s Media regulatory intelligence service. She worked for many years in the digital economy practice and has extensive knowledge of the implementation of the EU frameworks at national level across Europe. She is a researcher at the CRIDS research centre of the University of Namur where she also lectures on the regulatory aspects of online platforms at the postmaster degree course (DTIC). She joined Cullen International in 1998, previously working as a lawyer in Brussels.