January 29, 2001

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New Breed Of Chief Tackles Corporate Privacy Issues

By Eric Chabrow

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ot all "C" titles are created equal. Although the chief financial officer, chief marketing officer, and chief information officer usually report to the chief executive officer, that's not true with what may be the most recent C-titled post: chief privacy officer. Nevertheless, the CPO, usually operating with a miniscule staff and reporting to an officer several rungs down the corporate ladder from the CEO, performs a task that's gaining stature in a customer-sensitive age: developing and implementing privacy policies crucial to maintaining customer satisfaction.

As customers become more concerned about the safekeeping of personal information collected by Web sites, some companies are turning to CPOs to keep legal and public-relations problems from surfacing. CPOs train employees on privacy policies, weigh privacy policies with potential risks, manage customer-privacy disputes, and brief top executives on privacy matters.

Typical of this new breed is Kirk Herath, who holds the dual title of chief privacy and public policy officer of Nationwide Insurance Cos. "One of my roles is to be the conscience of privacy at Nationwide," says Herath, a lawyer who reports to two executives at the $28 billion Columbus, Ohio, insurer: the VP of government relations and the general counsel. Part of Herath's job is to lobby state lawmakers and agencies as well as Congressional staffers on privacy issues.

Herath's direct subordinates number only three. But as many as 150 managers and employees from other departments throughout Nationwide work under his direction in dozens of teams to help develop and implement the company's privacy policies. Not surprisingly, the CPO position requires strong people who can be persuasive. "You've got to get people to volunteer to do things on their own," Herath says.

Staff size doesn't matter to Herath, but support from top management does. He says he has backing at all levels of Nationwide to implement privacy standards and programs. "People get this; privacy hasn't been a tough issue to sell," Herath says. "I've asked 150 people at one time or another to work on this project, and no one has ever balked."

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Photo by James DeCamp

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