Some technologies move gradually, others exponentially. This has a direct effect on corporate governance processes. Whatever the pace of technology, compliance roles such as that of the Data Protection Officer (DPO) must keep up. Today’s role of the DPO was born with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. Whilst early entrants were much in demand and eased into the profession by setting up data protection compliance programmes, those entering the profession now can easily lose sleep over the complexity of evolving privacy issues, rules and solutions. The top job of the DPO is no longer immediately available without climbing the data privacy career ladder first. This is understandable as we observe a near exponential rise in the level of expectations placed on the DPO in terms of skill, knowledge and experience.