TrustArc CFO Tim Sullivan Shares the Finances Behind Data Privacy
Tim has managed TrustArc’s Finance, HR, IT, Compliance, Legal and Policy teams since 2010. He has a unique view that helps other Chief Financial Officers and businesses understand the financial needs surrounding data privacy requirements.
Getting Data Privacy Wrong Can Have Serious Financial Impacts
Getting data privacy right is critical to a company’s brand and finances. Just one enforcement action against a company for a privacy violation can cost 20x or more compared to implementing a privacy solution that could have prevented such a violation.
Are Companies Investing Enough in Data Privacy?
Tim doesn’t think so.
“No, companies are not investing enough in data privacy. The problem today is that the efficiency of a dollar spent on data privacy is low. Consultants are expensive, and their work has a very short shelf life.”
Therefore, budgets are constantly under pressure, and other more immediate and productive projects from legal, security, or general IT pull budget dollars away from privacy.
TrustArc’s new automated solutions make budget dollars spent on privacy significantly more productive and extensible. For one organization it reduced time to compliance from 8 weeks to just 3 weeks.
Saving employee time and costs to the business.
The Surprising Thing About Data Privacy
Most people would be surprised to know how complicated the management of a company’s data is. Tim deals with corporate and HR data every day, and monitors TrustArc’s data security practices via the IT team.
It is crystal clear to me just how difficult a task it is to control internal data flows and ensure ongoing compliance with internal and external requirements.
TrustArc is the first company to offer automated ways to help privacy professionals get a handle on the vast amount of data.
What Does Tim Like Most About Working at TrustArc?
Similar to TrustArc CEO Chris Babel, Tim shares, “the people at TRUSTe are great. We’ve built a fantastic team that is tackling a huge market opportunity and that makes it exciting to work here.”
The evolution of the data privacy market is following the same pattern established by the data security market 15 years ago — which means the data privacy market is about to explode from about $1 billion today to four-to-five times that in the next five years.
What does Tim do for Fun when he’s not Working?
I enjoy do-it-yourself projects around my house, working on my car restoration project, playing water polo, lounging poolside in my backyard and watching my kids swim.
