Harriet Pearson is Vice President, Security Counsel & Chief Privacy Officer at IBM. She is responsible for information policy and practices affecting over 400,000 employees and thousands of clients. In addition, she leads a global team of legal, data protection and technical professionals at IBM who address privacy and data security in the leadership manner expected of this global brand.

Harriet also leads IBM’s global engagement in public policy and industry initiatives relative to cybersecurity, data security and privacy. She currently serves on the executive committee of the Centre for Information Policy Leadership; the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Commission on Cybersecurity; and the advisory boards of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Future of Privacy Forum.

In 2007, Harriet was recognized with the Vanguard Award, which is given annually by the IAPP to the single professional who exemplifies leadership and innovation in the field of privacy. IBM itself has been recognized as the top “Most Trusted for Privacy” business-to-business company in the U.S. and Canada several times by the TRUSTe/Ponemon independent survey of consumers.

Harriet is a practicing attorney and Certified Information Privacy Professional with executive leadership experience in law, compliance, human resources, communications and public policy issue management. She graduated with honors from the UCLA School of Law (Order of the Coif) and from Princeton University (B.S.E. Geological Engineering). Before joining IBM in 1993, she practiced law in a Washington, D.C. law firm and briefly worked for Shell Oil on offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

She lives in the Washington, D.C. area, where she serves on the board of two non-profits, Food & Friends and the Potomac Harmony Chorus. A first-generation American, Harriet speaks Greek fluently.