Prior to joining Sanders Roberts, Lakeysha was the Associate General Counsel specializing in data privacy and data governance. She has cross-functional expertise in data privacy, cybersecurity, and products & features counseling. Lakeysha also has extensive experience helping organizations with privacy program development and management and data governance, conducting data mapping, gap assessment, performing data analytics, third-party risk management, and responding to investigations by the California Attorney General’s office. She also has experience handling data security incidents and breaches.
Prior to practicing data privacy and data governance as Associate General Counsel, Lakeysha was IT Transactions and data privacy counsel at Kellogg Company (now Kellanova). This background has enabled Lakeysha to establish a niche practice in workplace privacy, including the collection, use, disclosure, and retention of personal information; workplace monitoring (e.g., video/audio monitoring, GPS/smartphone monitoring, keystroke software, and biometric temperature scan); and automated decision making.
Lakeysha is also a top-level technology law strategist and negotiator with more than 12 years of experience representing both the buyer and seller, on both the business and legal side. With a decade- long tenure working in the technology arena, Lakeysha has always operated at the intersection of technology, data and value creation. She has negotiated more than $200 million in strategic technology transactions and is known for her ability to get landscape-changing technology deals done.
Lakeysha is admitted to practice in Michigan, New York and Georgia. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Emory University School of Law, and her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, graduating in 3 years. When she is not wearing her legal hat, Lakeysha spends time cooking, trying new food establishments, traveling and motorcycle riding. Lakeysha is also a board member of the YWCA Kalamazoo and prior board member on Family & Children Services.
EXPERIENCE
- Legal Secondee at a large multinational technology conglomerate advising on third-party risk management and oversight and data analytics, including enhancing frameworks and safeguards to protect user data and information shared with and received from the company’s third-party ecosystem as required by global regulations, including GDPR, FTC, CCPA, etc.
- Responded to numerous data security incidents and breaches involving ransomware, financial breach, HIPAA breach and more. Provided assessment of the data security problem and facilitation of all legal and commercial agreements and services to contain, analyze, investigate and remediate the incident. Also, provided breach notification letters to affected individuals and corresponding agencies.
- Performed product reviews and best practices for compliance and consumer protection, as well as related risk assessments, including a high-level review of a COVID-19 contact tracing software.
- Previously oversaw all ongoing global activities related to the development, implementation, maintenance of, and adherence to a Fortune 500 company’s process, policies, and procedures covering the privacy of, and access to, personal information in compliance with international, federal, and state laws such as GDPR, CCPA, CPRA, PIPEDA, LGPD and HIPAA among other laws.
- Led global privacy review of new products, product features and other product-related matters to ensure compliance with privacy and data protection laws including negotiating Data Transfer Agreements, Data Processing Agreements, Business Associate Agreements,etc.
- Successfully negotiated a $96 million dollar global initiative, which initiated the consolidation of 40+ ERP systems into one integrated global ERP platform, creating cost savings and improving operational efficiencies.
- Previously acted as a sole subject matter expert in negotiating, drafting and reviewing major and/or non-standard commercial and technology contracts, including licensing agreements, maintenance agreements, professional services agreements, cloud services agreements, outsourcing agreements, software as a service agreements, hardware purchasing agreements, e-commerce agreements, website and mobile hosting and development agreements, evaluation agreements, non-disclosure agreements, and telecommunications agreements.
- Represented an affiliate of a Fortune 500 company in responding to CCPA noncompliance investigations by the State of California’s DOJ, Office of the Attorney General.
- Drove privacy by design into a strategic capability framework and developed enterprise data rights strategy for products and services to drive growth and compliance, including delivering data protection and privacy strategies to the C-suite.
- Provided advice to internal Business Units of several companies, including marketing, sales, IT, analytics and customer service, to improve practices and procedures related to consumers exercising their privacy rights under the GDPR, CCPA and CPRA.
- Developed and drove activities such as a global data mapping framework between various data items to ensure individuals receive timely and thoughtful responses to data subject requests or supervisory authority inquiries. Also Conducted data mapping, documentation, vendor management, data security and training management for global companies’ privacy offices.
- Drafted and implemented organization privacy by design governance framework, including policies, procedures, playbooks, guidelines, data agreements, and toolkits (PIA, DPIA, DSAR, etc.) in collaboration with a cross-functional teams.