NUALA O’Connor Kelly is senior counsel, information governance and chief privacy leader for the General Electric Company. Based in Washington, D.C., O’Connor Kelly is one of the country’s leading practitioners in information risk management and data protection law and policy, and is a frequent speaker on privacy and the evolving area of information governance.
In her current role at GE, she leads the company’s Information Governance Council, the legal and information technology team responsible for the development and implementation of the company’s policies and practices across the data life cycle, including creation, protection and disposal.  She also facilitates the team of business privacy leaders and the Information Governance and Privacy practice groups.
Prior to joining GE, O’Connor Kelly served as the first statutorily appointed chief privacy officer (CPO) in the federal government, serving as CPO of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from its earliest days in 2003.  In this role, she reported directly to Secretary Tom Ridge and was hailed upon her departure as a fierce defender of civil liberties.   She also built one of the top privacy teams in the federal government, and served as the lead policymaker for the department on the Privacy Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
Prior to that, O’Connor Kelly served as chief privacy officer for the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she also served as chief counsel for technology and as deputy director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning. 
Prior to public service, O’Connor Kelly served as vice president-data protection and chief privacy officer for emerging technologies for the online company DoubleClick, and also served as the company’s first deputy general counsel for privacy.
O’Connor Kelly has practiced law with the firms of Sidley & Austin, Hudson Cook, and Venable in Washington, D.C.  She is the vice president and president-elect of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and will begin her term as president of the IAPP, a 6,000-member trade association, in January 2010.  
O’Connor Kelly, a native of Belfast who grew up on Long Island, received an AB from Princeton, a master’s from Harvard and a JD from Georgetown Law.
She and her husband Glenn have three children.

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