Julie Brill advises organizations, policymakers, and thought leaders seeking to align innovation and AI adoption while facing an evolution in regulations and data governance standards.
Julie helps enterprises deploy AI responsibly, advising government leaders and other stakeholders on how to effectively regulate advanced digital technologies, and enabling organizations to navigate complex regulatory environments. With more than three decades of leadership shaping how businesses and governments navigate complex challenges, Julie is a globally recognized authority in the fields of technology, regulation, and governance. Julie has been consistently recognized as one of the foremost voices in privacy, data protection, cybersecurity, AI governance, antitrust, and consumer protection.
Her career spans senior executive roles inside multinational technology companies, unanimous Senate-confirmed public service at the highest levels of U.S. regulation, and decades advising global enterprises on complex regulatory strategy. As National Advisor to Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips, Julie serves in a strategic advisory capacity for a multidisciplinary, integrated professional services firm providing legal, consultancy and technology guidance to its clients. Julie delivers strategic advice to clients and engages with boards and senior executives to help organizations design strategies for deploying and advancing AI and data governance systems that demonstrate trustworthiness, foster innovation and work in the real world. Julie is a Non-Executive Board Member of Ethyca, which offers technical solutions focused on data governance for AI and privacy. She provides fiduciary oversight and strategic guidance to drive the company’s mission to help enterprises thrive by using and protecting data through trustworthy technical systems that foster innovation.
Julie is an Expert in Residence at Harvard Law School and an Affiliate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Institute for Society and the Internet, where she collaborates on global tech and regulatory policy approaches and interacts with students, faculty and the broader Harvard community. She also serves as a Governor and Senior Fellow for The Ditchley Foundation (UK) where she is currently leading a program to help create an international forum to address digital sovereignty questions across nations, governments, civil society and the private sector. Julie’s current portfolio allows her to focus on enabling people and organizations to thrive in an increasingly complex digital and regulatory world by: • helping enterprises and organizations develop governance that encourages and supports responsible technology and fosters innovation; • working with a wide swath of stakeholders in the private and public sector at the intersection of technology, policy and leadership to develop regulatory solutions that build trust in technology; and • engaging as a trusted advisor, keynote speaker, and panelist with executive teams, regulators, and global organizations to translate complex policy and technology issues into practical, actionable insight.
Julie recently retired from Microsoft, where she served for 8 years (2017-2025) as Corporate Vice President for Privacy, Safety and Regulatory Affairs, Corporate Vice President for Global Technology and Regulatory Policy, and Chief Privacy Officer. In these roles, Julie led the company’s global privacy, safety, and regulatory affairs strategy through a period of intense technological and geopolitical change. She drove large scale organizational alignment across global governance and policy frameworks, including internal adoption and operationalization of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). She helped define technical infrastructure and policy frameworks that were the foundations for solutions around AI governance, sovereignty, data localization and divergent regulatory frameworks around the world. Championing responsible and efficient approaches to AI, data use and privacy, Julie influenced policy worldwide.
Prior to Microsoft, Julie served as Commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a role to which she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. At the FTC, she set agency-wide priorities across policy and enforcement, authored decisions shaping digital competition and consumer protection, and participated in discussions to address transatlantic data flows and other trust issues between the US and the European Union. Widely recognized as “the Commission’s most important voice on internet privacy and data security issues,” Julie played a defining role in establishing global regulatory norms for the digital economy. Julie also was a Partner and Co-Director of the Privacy and Cybersecurity Practice at the Hogan Lovells law firm, where she guided multinational corporations through complex regulatory landscapes in cybersecurity, advertising, and data protection. Earlier in her career, Julie held senior leadership positions at the North Carolina Department of Justice and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, where she led regulatory, litigation, and policy strategies spanning consumer protection, antitrust, utilities, and privacy.
