OpenAI’s voracious appetite for data and lawyers continues with the hiring of Idris Kechida this month as the company’s first global data protection officer.
Kechida, who most recently served as general counsel and chief privacy officer at Match Group Inc., confirmed his new role at OpenAI in a message. A former senior associate at law firm Baker McKenzie, he is one of more than a dozen lawyers who have joined the artificial intelligence provider’s in-house legal team since the spring.
“I will be advising OpenAI on the diverse privacy laws that apply to the various markets in which it operates and ensuring strict compliance is maintained,” he said. “This will require close collaboration with all teams across the organization, including our extremely talented privacy legal team.”
The group will be led by Emma Redmond, who was hired a year ago as OpenAI’s lead privacy and data protection counsel after leading the privacy and data protection portfolio at fintech company Stripe Inc. Kechida said he’s known Redmond for years (they’re both based in Dublin, home to the European Union’s privacy regulators that scrutinize AI companies’ use of data), and will work with her and her entire team at ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, toward a “shared goal.”
“I was deeply interested in navigating the complex and novel privacy challenges posed by this groundbreaking technology,” said Kechida, who joined Match about eight years ago from PayPal Holdings Inc. When asked about his motivation for leaving the company, he said, “I was deeply interested in navigating the complex and novel privacy challenges posed by this groundbreaking technology.” OpenAI’s advances in generative AI have unsettled some tech giants, governments, employees, companies and academics.
Late last year, an attempted board coup led to the brief removal of CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, who was supported by much of the company’s legal staff. OpenAI’s Kechda said he is committed to making generative AI work for the benefit of everyone.
“We are fully aware that privacy is, and will continue to be, central to achieving our mission,” he said.
A Match spokesman said Kechda has been replaced as the new privacy chief by Brandon Carstens, a Canadian lawyer who has worked on privacy and data protection issues at the Dallas-based company, which owns dating apps such as Hinge, Match.com, Meetic, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish and Tinder. Match announced its ChatGPT partnership with OpenAI in February.
New Employees
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Kechda and the roughly 20 lawyers it has hired in recent months, including in positions outside the legal team.OpenAI’s chief counsel, Choi Chang, spoke to Bloomberg Law last summer about plans to expand its in-house legal team, which had grown over the past year.
During that time, OpenAI has faced new threats to its business operations, including lawsuits related to its business model and working practices, as well as scrutiny over its use of reliability and security protocols and non-disclosure agreements.
The new additions to the legal team include senior counsel Jeffrey Shi and Alexander Zbrozek, senior director of tax Jay Chayoung Kim and associate general counsel Susan Kim, all of whom joined from Alphabet Inc.’s Google, a frequent target of San Francisco-based OpenAI’s hiring efforts.
OpenAI also hired deputy general counsel Daniel Cook and commercial law expert Mangesh Kulkarni from Akasa Inc., a generative AI company in healthcare, and Benton Gaffney from ServiceNow Inc. as deputy general counsel for AI policy and regulation, international and competition.
Danielle Bembry Westbrook, who was general counsel at video technology company Room Inc., joined the firm in June as general counsel, while Ali Butters, Netflix Inc.’s former global head of trademark and brand protection, and Shannon Togawa Mercer, general counsel at WilmerHale, joined as cybersecurity and privacy. Ghalia Amram, a partner at Morrison & Foerster, was hired as associate general counsel.
OpenAI last month hired Kurt Kurzenhauser, an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, as a corporate adviser, after bringing on Alan Hayes, a former international trade adviser at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, who previously worked at Amazon.com Inc.
To supplement its non-legal duties, OpenAI has also added lawyers to its staff.
Labor and employment lawyer Lindsay Tran, who worked at Twitter and most recently served as global head of employee relations and investigations at Jack Dorsey’s Block Co., is now OpenAI’s global head of employee relations. Tax lawyer Steven Bonovich was hired from Agilent Technologies as vice president of tax. Veteran Washington lawyer and lobbyist Chris Lehane was recently named vice president of public affairs. Other lawyers who have joined OpenAI’s policy group include Joshua Lawson, Deborah Yim and Ebel Okobi.
