Michael Lewis, group chief privacy officer, The Admiral Group

Describe your career to date

Leaving university, I was happy enough skateboarding and fixing surfboards. However, free skate-shoes and other merchandise doesn’t really help to pay the bills, so I took a temporary job with Admiral, and 20 years later I am still here learning new things.

My early years in Admiral were spent in the customer contact areas, and I credit this time as being foundational in helping me understand how the business works and, more importantly, what the important people expect – customers are central to everything.  I spent a very short period then as an internal auditor, focusing on regulatory risks, but again getting great insights into varying aspects of the business, before "inheriting" the data protection officer role in 2007.

The role has developed in parallel with the business and has expanded into new territories as new businesses have been created. Over the years, I have witnessed numerous regulatory and legal challenges, in particular designing and delivering the GDPR governance framework across the entire group. At all times, I aim to be sympathetic and supportive of data innovation practices and strategies, and my focus has always been on breadth and precision within my understanding, which means that I am constantly researching and exploring complex legal and technical issues.