Benjamin Hayes Joins Nielsen

Gail Chiasson, North American Editor

Benjamin Hayes has joined Nielsen as chief privacy officer, effective immediately, with responsibility for overseeing Nielsen’s global privacy program, building upon Nielsen’s current privacy best practices.

“Nielsen is committed to vigilantly protecting the privacy and security of the client and consumer information we handle around the world,” says Karen Kornbluh, executive vice-president for external affairs. “Hayes’ knowledge of global privacy regulations and understanding of how best practices interact with developing technologies will certainly help Nielsen continue its proud history of responsible data use.”

Hayes joins Nielsen from Accenture LLP, where he spent eight years as the North America Data Privacy Lead. He launched global programs including Accenture’s incident response program, its Client Data Protection program and its implementation of Data Loss Prevention software. He also designed Accenture’s approach to managing privacy requirements in cloud computing. He was responsible for providing subject-matter expertise on privacy laws and practice, collaborating with technologists to embed privacy legal requirements into IT systems, software and business processes and driving internal privacy compliance.

“Data privacy is an important and expanding global issue,”
says Hayes. “Nielsen, as a data-driven company with a strong reputation on privacy, has an opportunity to build upon existing relationships with clients and the public to realize competitive advantage. I’m looking forward to driving awareness of Nielsen’s global privacy practices and building out Nielsen’s privacy program.”

A lawyer, Hayes will report to Kornbluh and work in close collaboration with Jim Cuminale, Nielsen’s Chief Legal Officer; the Nielsen Legal-Privacy team led by Elise Berkower; and other senior company leaders.


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