Lindsey Finch. Courtesy photo.

With less than two weeks until the General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect, cloud computing company Salesforce has appointed Lindsey Finch as its first data protection officer.

The role is required for companies of a certain size under the new European Union privacy regulation, which impacts those collecting or processing data from EU citizens. DPOs are tasked with overseeing GDPR compliance and serve as contact points for privacy and data protection authorities.

Finch, whose appointment was announced by the San Francisco-based company on Monday, has worked in-house at Salesforce for 10 and a half years and also serves as senior vice president of global privacy and product legal.

She said in the announcement of her appointment that the added role as DPO makes sense, given her experience. “I've had the honor of leading Salesforce's global privacy program for the last 10 and a half years, and I've also led the company's product legal team for the past four years,” Finch said in a Q&A press release. “My team's role has always encompassed ensuring Salesforce complies with privacy laws and helping enable our customers' compliance in using our services. So the official DPO designation is a natural outgrowth of our existing program.”

In the announcement, the new DPO also addressed how she and Salesforce as a whole are working to comply with the GDPR. Finch said her team has and will continue to ensure privacy is considered during product development and that Salesforce's privacy working group, which includes executives from a number of departments, will continue to meet and make decisions on privacy.

Finch, who is based at the company's headquarters, added that Salesforce reached out and received feedback from customers on the company's GDPR plans. Many customers she spoke with were eager to learn how to use Salesforce services to comply with GDPR, so the company now provides a public guide on how to tackle data portability requirements and other challenges with their tools.

“The top theme I'm hearing is that our customers are using the GDPR as an opportunity to focus on their privacy practices and putting their customers—oftentimes end-consumers—at the center of their businesses,” Finch said. “The GDPR is a complex law, but putting the individuals to whom the personal data relates at the forefront, and focusing on their expectations and preferences, is a great starting point for compliance with the GDPR and other privacy laws.”

Before joining Salesforce in 2008, Finch spent two years as privacy counsel for General Electric. She's also served as a law clerk at both the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.