Russell Opland

Russell Opland has designed, implemented, and led privacy and information security programmes for extremely large and prestigious organisations in the US for over 10 years, serving as their chief privacy and information security officer. He is the only person in South Africa with this wealth of practical, operational experience in privacy and data protection. For three years, he led PwC’s and EY‘s Africa Privacy consulting practices as an associate director, before establishing his own, independent consulting practice over three years ago. Russell Opland has advised SA’s largest organisations in various industries on real-world risk assessments for POPI and practical privacy implementation techniques, based on over a decade’s experience with US regulators. His unique hand’s-on privacy experience and countless “war stories” offer invaluable insights for tackling the POPI challenge.