Stephen Almond, Director of Technology and Innovation, leads the ICO’s team responsible for anticipating, understanding and shaping the impacts of emerging technology and innovation on people and society. He is charged with engineering information rights into the fabric of new ideas, products and business models as part of our dynamic digital economy.
Prior to joining the ICO, Stephen led a World Economic Forum initiative to promote the adoption of a more agile, innovation-enabling approach to regulation with governments and tech firms worldwide. He previously worked in leadership roles across the UK Government, including creation of the White Paper on Regulation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and roll-out of the Regulators’ Pioneer Fund, which invested in regulatory sandboxes and similar initiatives to unlock technological innovation.
Rebecca is a partner in Slaughter and May’s corporate and commercial group in London, co-heads the firm’s global data protection and privacy practice and is a member of our cyber advisory unit. She advises on all aspects of data protection and privacy, including cyber or data breach preparation and incident response, challenges with new technologies, implications for contractual arrangements, privacy aspects of M&A and investigations, and on companies’ policies and procedures. Rebecca sits on the UK Information Commissioner’s Office’s Legal Reference Panel and is Vice-Chair of the City of London Law Society's Data Law Committee. She is also a frequent contributor to data protection journals and events.
Olga Ganopolsky is the General Counsel – Privacy and Data at Macquarie Group Limited. Macquarie Group is a global financial services provider. It acts primarily as an investment intermediary for institutional, corporate and retail clients and counterparties around the world. Macquarie, headquartered in Sydney, has more than 70 office locations across 28 countries.
Olga is a seasoned privacy and regulatory lawyer and has had extensive experience in most things data and privacy, ranging from building privacy facing compliance frameworks and functions, defending class actions and other litigation, conducting privacy audits and advising on complex data structures and commercial arrangements where data is a vital and valuable asset. In the last few years, much of Olga’s work has involved the privacy law reform process, culminating in the far reaching changes introduced by the General Data Protection Regulation and the introduction of mandatory breach reporting under the Privacy regime in Australia and the implementation of those reforms in a variety of commercial settings.
Alexandra Leonidou led the UK government’s work on AI regulation leading up to the Spring 2023 publication of the white paper and through the public consultation. She now leads government’s work to ensure that the framework as set out in the white paper can adapt and respond to emerging risks and opportunities as Head of Frontier AI Regulation and Governance. Alexandra previously practised as a lawyer specialising in data and digital related matters, both in-house at Warner Bros. Entertainment and as a partner in private practice advising businesses ranging from AI sector startups to large global corporates across a variety of sectors.
Ben advises clients across the UK and internationally on practical AI implementation and governance solutions.
He is deeply passionate about the ethical aspects of privacy and is the creator of Privacy Made Positive®, a research programme designed to demonstrate that good privacy practice delivers quantifiable business benefits and a more sustainable enterprise.
An experienced entrepreneur and active investor, Ben holds the CISSP-ISSMP, CIPP/E, CIPP/US and CIPP/M, is an IAPP Fellow in International Privacy, BCS Fellow and a Chartered IT Professional.