Senior Counsel - Data Governance, Privacy, and Cybersecurity

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Job Details

Position Summary:
Cencora seeks an attorney with significant experience in the areas of data governance, privacy, cybersecurity, and emerging artificial intelligence issues to provide strategic legal advice in addressing Cencora’s data risk management and innovation priorities. This role will report to the and will collaborate with other legal, business, and functional teams across the enterprise.

While part of a global team, this particular role will also require expertise in and frequent counseling with regards to US, Canada, and LA-relevant privacy, cybersecurity, and AI laws, regulations, and regulatory/self-regulatory guidance. Significant analysis and legal advice regarding HIPAA and state-relevant healthcare privacy laws and regulations is also a routine expectation for this role.

This position thus requires a lawyer with strong analytical skills and the ability to deliver business-oriented, pragmatic, and efficient legal services in a fast-paced, changing technology environment. The successful candidate will also have strong prioritization and project management skills. This suite of skills includes the ability to provide strategic insights to compliance partners tasked with operationalizing privacy and cybersecurity compliance along with developing governance mechanisms for areas of data and technology law.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Advise clients on complex legal, regulatory, and policy questions in the areas of data privacy and protection (including federal and state laws and regulations in the general privacy and healthcare arena, particularly focusing on HIPAA, state privacy laws, Canadian provincial laws, etc.), cybersecurity (e.g., CMMC, NIST cybersecurity frameworks, ISO 27001, HITRUST, etc.), and artificial intelligence (including the NIST RMF, the growing body of state and local AI laws, etc.).
• Draft, review, and/or negotiate various contracts, including healthcare- and HIPAA-related agreements and contract provisions dealing with privacy, cybersecurity, AI, and other data protection and operational continuity issues. This work also envisions creating template agreements and associated playbooks to expedite contracting issue management in privacy, cyber, and AI law arenas.
• Assess and help mitigate harms associated with privacy and cybersecurity incidents through clear communication, disciplined issue escalation, and partnership with other privacy, cybersecurity, and business stakeholders.
• Conduct reviews of new customer- and/or vendor- related technology proposals entailing privacy, cyber, and/or AI risks and offer pragmatic, creative solutions reflecting privacy and security by design concepts.
• Demonstrate strong and calm decision-making capability and communication skills in the midst of time-sensitive incidents or high-risk business proposals requiring escalation to senior levels of leadership.
• Manage competing projects and reviews with agility, effectively multi-tasking and prioritizing work to ensure that high value and/or high-risk business needs and projects are addressed in an efficient and strategically stream-lined way.

Experience and Education Requirements
A minimum of 5-7 years of experience as a lawyer, particularly with a focus on privacy, data governance and cybersecurity substantive areas. Prior in-house experience and cross-functional collaboration working for a multi-national company/companies is preferred. Additionally, substantial legal work with or for healthcare companies is also ideal.

Must be a graduate of an accredited law school and be admitted and in good standing with a US state bar.

This role is comparable to a seasoned, senior associate in a law firm, and is a professional who can conduct sophisticated counseling and internal client management with limited supervision.

Minimum Skills, Knowledge and Ability Requirements:

• Familiarity with variety of privacy, cybersecurity, emerging AI and related laws and regulations (including cyber disclosures to other regulatory bodies such as the SEC), across NA and LA. Knowledge of healthcare-specific laws, regulations, guidance and applications also a plus, particularly HIPAA.
• Ability to capture and communicate consistent themes across jurisdictions for pragmatic risk management counseling to relevant business partners when working on multi-country technology launches or business investments.
• Facility in managing outside counsel and liaising with other experts engaged to work on matters for Cencora, including specialists from major law firms, consulting agencies, and forensics experts.
• Capable of readily grasping existing and new business models and technology trends and of marrying existing legal requirements and anticipated future regulatory developments with business strategy to help “future proof” Cencora’s business investments.
• Experience in advising and presenting to all levels of business management, including senior leadership, with clear distillations of risk, potential impacts, possible solutions, and risk mitigation strategies.
• Strong soft skills, particularly while handling incident management and risk escalation issues – i.e., projecting calm and confidence to business partners and leadership in time-sensitive and elevated risk scenarios.
• Experience collaborating with compliance professionals, advising on highest priority compliance requirements, and helping to define operational targets through ongoing partnership, feedback, and clear communication skills.
• Possession of one or more privacy, AI, and/or information security certifications (CIPP, CIPM, AIGP, CIPT, CISSP) (preferred).
• Excellent negotiating, prioritization, multi-tasking, juggling, and client management and expectation-setting skills – including forging and managing strong relationships to ease conflicts when new projects/issue management scenarios take priority over existing matters.

What Cencora offers

We provide compensation, benefits, and resources that enable a highly inclusive culture and support our team members’ ability to live with purpose every day. In addition to traditional offerings like medical, dental, and vision care, we also provide a comprehensive suite of benefits that focus on the physical, emotional, financial, and social aspects of wellness. This encompasses support for working families, which may include backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave. To encourage your personal growth, we also offer a variety of training programs, professional development resources, and opportunities to participate in mentorship programs, employee resource groups, volunteer activities, and much more.