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Privacy, Ad Tech, and AI: Julia Shullman, GC and Chief Privacy Officer, Telly
Privacy, Ad Tech, and AI: Julia Shullman, GC and Chief Privacy Officer, Telly
Key Insights
1. Privacy is a Strategic Engine, Not Just Compliance.
Shullman argues that the most successful companies don't shunt Chief Privacy Officers (CPOs) into siloed legal roles. Instead, they treat privacy as a fundamental strategy to avoid missing market shifts and to discover a competitive edge in product development.
2. Admit What You Don’t Know to Gain Technical Depth.
To provide effective guidance, lawyers must be willing to go "under the hood" and get technical. Shullman advocates for asking repetitive, detailed questions until the data flows are crystal clear—a process that builds the necessary trust between legal and engineering teams.
3. The "Mini GC" Model of Product Counseling.
Product Counsel should act as generalist stewards for their specific product line. This requires understanding everything from user-facing disclosures to backend data sharing, ensuring that "what we say we do" perfectly matches technical reality.
4. Collaboration within the Industry Ecosystem is Vital.
During the implementation of GDPR, Shullman and her peers at Google and Facebook collaborated non-competitively to set industry norms. By building "tight-knit relationships" across the ecosystem, GCs can access insights into emerging regulations that help their businesses remain nimble.
5. AI Governance is the Natural Extension of Privacy Frameworks.
While AI brings new challenges in IP and ethics, the operational frameworks built by privacy professionals are ideally suited for AI oversight. Legal leaders should not merely "lift and shift" privacy laws into the AI space but should massage existing data collection and sharing policies to account for AI-specific complexities.
6. Closing Insight
Your role as General Counsel is to ensure that the transparent exchange between your company and its customers is not just legally sufficient, but strategically superior. By mastering the technical back end and the global regulatory ecosystem, you move from the "conscience" of the company to its most valuable strategic navigator.
In this podcast, we cover
0:00 Introduction
1:03 Blending hardware, software, and privacy at Telly
4:21 Finding your way from M&A to privacy law
6:43 Transitioning into ad tech at AppNexus
10:43 Identifying the necessary attitude to be successful in privacy
13:43 Overseeing the transformation from AppNexus to Xandr at AT&T
15:50 Taking on a GC role at TripleLift
22:14 Building trust with executive team and partners at Vista Equity Partners
26:02 Stepping away to found a privacy and policy consulting firm
32:17 Advice to lawyers searching for their next GC role
33:32 Considering the future of the chief privacy officer role
36:23 Speculating on the future of privacy and AI
41:36 Book recommendations
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