Anita Barksdale

Anita Barksdale is a Managing Director in the KPMG Cyber Security practice. She is also an IT auditor, lawyer and consultant with management, HR, advisory, legal compliance and business experience. Her expertise has been focused on helping Technology and Retail companies grapple with new technologies and new laws as they are passed and as they mature—including companies that struggled with the General Data Protection Regulation and companies that are now struggling with newer privacy and technology laws and international regulations such as the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. 

Through her experience, she can take operations and technology apart, understand the legal, risk and control issues and build back better while understanding the human and people element, communicating to stakeholders across the enterprise, including the C-suite. She has led large-scale data and technology projects for Fortune 100 companies that enabled privacy, security and AI for consumer and product experiences, including the metaverse. She has developed data strategy efforts, spanning from policy creation to operationalizing with engineers. She understands data platforms, data tagging, and data governance which serves as the base for AI and other technology enablement. She has also led compliance program implementations and assessments globally, including those responding to FTC requirements. She has built information governance programs for companies that are balancing data as an asset and data as a liability, and led teams building technology while mapping personal data to regulations and determining privacy, security and AI controls for technology products going to market.