Nominations for this year’s Data Privacy Hero Awards are now open! Launched in 2024, the Data Privacy Hero Awards recognize the privacy, legal, IT, and security professionals powering our collective future.
Last year, we recognized Gauri Manglik from GoFundMe, Eric Lovell and Sean Kellogg from Dexcom, and Kirsten Daru from NETGEAR. These individuals stood out for their creativity, dedication, and commitment to privacy.
Who inspires your work in privacy? Nominate your personal privacy hero for an award. Your hero will be eligible for a prize package valued over $600, and you’ll be entered into a raffle to win your very own prize kit.
Read more about the awards, selection process, prizes, timeline, and our FAQ below.
The Awards
Each year, the Data Privacy Hero Awards recognize the Innovators, Visionaries, and Champions of privacy. All three categories recognize their own semifinalists and honor a grand prize winner.
Read on to learn more about the awards and explore who you may want to nominate:
The Innovators
Innovators empower their organization to minimize business risk while strengthening customer trust. They pioneer new creative and technical solutions to drive organizational change and set new standards in privacy excellence. The Innovator should:
- Skillfully implement solutions to automate manual privacy tasks such as fulfilling data subject requests, completing data protection impact assessments, collecting user tracking consent, and/or generating a Record of Processing Activity
- Raise the bar for privacy at their organization by engaging with and advocating for best practices
Innovators may be an individual or reflect a team (such as a department or committee). If nominating a group, you must select one individual to accept the award on behalf of their team.
The Visionaries
Visionaries are senior leaders who have seamlessly aligned privacy, security, legal functions to pave the path for radical transformation in their organization. The Visionary should:
- Establish clear, ambitious goals and develop an exceptional privacy strategy
- Motivate and mobilize their organization to tackle modern privacy challenges cross-functionally
While innovators produce tangible changes in their organization’s every-day privacy practice, their work would often not be possible without a visionary building the bridges necessary for such work to be successful.
The Champions
Champions are creative and bold leaders who leverage their personal platforms to advocate on issues of personal data privacy. The Champion should:
- Inspire privacy practitioners by sharing new ideas and best practices
- Keep others in the privacy space on new regulations and litigation trends
Distinct from both innovators and visionaries, champions have an impact beyond their own organization. They may leverage conferences, social media, research, or any number of other channels to support privacy professionals beyond their direct circle.
The Selection Process
Our Data Privacy Heroes should reflect all of us — and our selection process was designed with that in mind. This year, we’re excited to welcome Gauri Manglik (Deputy General Counsel – Head of Legal Privacy and AI Gov, GoFundMe; 2024 Data Privacy Hero Award Winner), Scott Goss (Associate General Counsel, Product & Privacy, NETGEAR; 2024 Data Privacy Hero Award Winner) and Tyler Finn (Senior Advisor, PrivacyWise) as special guests on our Selections Committee.
Innovator and Visionary nominations will be reviewed by the Selections Committee using standardized rubrics designed on the award criteria listed above. While accepting their nomination, nominees can also provide any supplemental information for the Selection Committee’s consideration. Identifying information like names and organization names are redacted from the nomination text prior to review to ensure an unbiased assessment.
Potential champions are evaluated separately. Since these nominees are being awarded on the basis of their impact in the larger privacy community, semifinalists will be selected based on the quantity of nominations received. We’ll then evaluate this smaller group by the quality of the nominations we receive to identify a grand prize winner. Champion nominees can share the nomination form on social media and encourage followers to submit a nomination on their behalf to improve their odds of recognition.
Prizes
Grand Prize Winners: One Innovator, one Visionary, and one Champion will be selected to receive:
- $500 to be delivered as a gift card or charitable donation of the winner’s choosing
- Winners gift package (incl. Trophy, Privacy Data Hero t-shirt, and DataGrail goodies)
- A digital badge the winner can choose to display on LinkedIn
- Recognition across DataGrail’s social media and marketing channels
Semifinalists: Each category may choose to recognize several runner-ups to the grand prize. These individuals will receive:
- A digital badge the semifinalist can choose to display on LinkedIn
- A data hero gift package (incl. Data Hero t-shirt and DataGrail goodies)
Nominators: Just by nominating a friend or colleague, you’re entered to win a Data Hero t-shirt of your own! Sorry, nominating yourself does not enter you into the raffle – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!
Timeline
June 2, 2025: Nominations open
June 27, 2025: Nominations close
July 18, 2025: Deadline to accept your nomination
August, 2025: Winners notified
September, 2025: Winners announced
FAQ
Who is eligible to receive an award?
Any individual working in privacy is eligible to win a Data Privacy Hero Award. Nominees do not need to be DataGrail customers to be considered for an award. Innovators and Visionaries are expected to be working in a privacy-related function (compliance, legal, security, privacy, IT, engineering), while Champions could have any role in influencing the privacy community.
What happens if I nominate someone?
We’ll contact them directly within a week to pass along your kind words and invite your nominee to accept their nomination. Your nominee must accept your nomination to be considered for an award – but this is a very quick, two question form. You are entered into the nomination raffle regardless of whether your nominee accepts. Your nominee will not be opted into any further communications unless they accept their nomination.
Can I nominate myself?
Yes, absolutely. When you nominate yourself, you’ll be asked a few more questions than if you’re simply accepting a nomination from someone else. This is to ensure the selections committee has enough information to evaluate you fairly.
Can I nominate multiple people for awards?
Definitely! You’ll be entered into the raffle for each individual you nominate.
Can I nominate one person for multiple awards?
Sure, but it might not be the strongest use of your time. The selection process is competitive and we encourage you to pick the award that best suits your nominee. If you’d like to nominate someone for multiple awards, you’ll need to submit each nomination separately.
How does the $500 prize work?
This portion of the prize package is delivered as a $500 gift card or charitable donation of your choice. Winners can choose from a lengthy list of vendors (including a simple visa gift card) and non-profit organizations.
I am not permitted to accept some or all of the prize package. Can I still be considered for an award?
Absolutely. Award winners can win even if due to organizational policy they cannot accept a prize or do not prefer to receive one. DataGrail will omit any part of the prize package as needed on the part of the winner.
Nominate yourself or a peer here.
