So You Got the Privacy Officer Title, Now What?

Teresa "T" Troester-Falk has over 20 years of experience building privacy programs that work when resources are limited and timelines are real. She led initiatives at DoubleClick (Google), Epsilon, Nielsen, and Nymity (TrustArc) before founding BlueSky Privacy and BlueSky PrivacyStack. Today she creates practical tools and systems that help privacy professionals step into their role with confidence and give executives decisions they can act on. Through her writing and teaching, she brings clarity to complex requirements and shows how privacy can succeed in practice.

In this episode…

Privacy professionals step into their roles with foundational knowledge, yet often without the support needed to apply it in practice. They are sometimes expected to build and maintain privacy programs without a budget, authority, or a clear plan. This gap creates daily uncertainty, especially for newly certified privacy professionals who enter the field with little operational experience. So how can privacy professionals move through these challenges and build programs they can defend with confidence?

Building a functioning privacy program requires making decisions in gray areas and moving forward without waiting for perfect information. Privacy pros can start by focusing on high-risk areas first and documenting their decision-making process using a three-pillar approach. This framework helps professionals explain the decision they made, maintain what was decided, and defend it with evidence. Clear ownership and accountability ensure processes hold over time. With the right operational structure in place, privacy pros can move privacy programs forward even when resources are tight.

In this episode of She Said Privacy/He Said Security, Jodi and Justin Daniels talk with Teresa Troester-Falk, Founder of BlueSky Privacy and BlueSky PrivacyStack, about building effective privacy programs with limited resources. Teresa explains how a simple decision-making framework can help new and seasoned privacy professionals work through ambiguity. She also shares strategies for prioritizing privacy work when budgets are tight and expectations are high, and explains why establishing ownership and operational processes are essential for sustaining long-term privacy success.