The opinions expressed in this blog belong to Mr. Spadea and do not represent the opinions of any other person or organization, including those of his employer.

Mr. Spadea’s full CV is available here as is a recent article about Mr. Spadea here.

Since 2012, Michael Spadea has been a thought leader in privacy and data protection as aDirector at Promontory Financial Group, where he leads the Privacy and Information Assurance Practice, which he built from the ground up. Sharing his advanced expertise on regulatory matters concerning privacy, security, and information governance across global jurisdictions, Michael has significantly increased the quality of information governance for many global technology companies and multinational financial institutions. With his incredible knack for relationship building, Michael has generated millions of dollars from major client accounts by working closely with top executives and CISOs, CMOs, CDOs, CCOs, and legal experts to expand service offerings.

Prior to his work at Promontory, Michael served as the Commercial Privacy Manager at Microsoft, where he spearheaded all privacy training and awareness campaigns for more than 13,000 staff members located throughout 87 countries while managing enterprise customer data in the Services Division.In this role, he directed all aspects of information governance, ensuring the IT infrastructure fully complied with EU/US Safe Harbor standards. He even created Microsoft’s first computer-based privacy training specifically for support engineers. Most notably, Michael won Microsoft’s prestigious Great People, Great Performance Award for systematically resolving enterprise-wide customer privacy and security issues.

Before 2010, Michael lived in London, England, serving as the Global Head of Privacy at Barclays Wealth. Across the pond, he maintained the highest levels of compliance to privacy and information security laws. He developed a dashboard that provided real-time updates for all risks and incidents and thoroughly evaluated the bank’s IT infrastructure. Driving the efforts of 30+ global privacy champions, Michael played a key leadership role in developing the privacy risk assessment and mitigation program that won the 2009 Privacy Innovation Award by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Before Michael directed privacy matters in internal business leadership roles, he provided substantial legal expertise as a practicing attorney. He even developed a successful litigation and appellate practice as a solo practitioner, and played key roles in regulatory investigations.

Michael earned a Juris Doctorate and a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from Northeastern University. He is an active member of IAPP, serving on the Educational Advisory Board and teaching a wide variety of privacy-related courses. Through IAPP, he earned his credential as a Certified Information Privacy Professional.

Always passionate about protecting privacy around the world, Michael has provided public speaking for 35+ conference presentations/panels, and has travelled throughout the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia to visit vendors, learn operational procedures, and share his considerable expertise.