Senior Counsel, Data Governance & AI Regulation

Cisco Systems, Inc; North Carolina; Hybrid; USD 192,000 - 244,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a strategic Legal Counsel to support data governance, privacy, and AI regulatory readiness.

You will advise on data classification, inventories, retention, and defensible deletion while partnering with product, security, and policy teams to implement governance across the enterprise. Requirements include a JD, 8+ years of relevant experience, and deep expertise in GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and emerging AI regulations.

Qualifications

• Juris Doctor with active bar membership.
• 8+ years of legal experience in privacy, cybersecurity, data governance, or technology transactions.
• Experience with global privacy and data laws including GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and emerging AI regulations.

Responsibilities

• Own interpretation and provide specialized, actionable data privacy advice on domestic and international laws and regulations.
• Advise on enterprise data governance frameworks, standards, and controls; data classification, data lineage, and information lifecycle governance.
• Counsel stakeholders on data classification, inventories, stewardship, minimization, records retention, defensible deletion, and data access governance.
• Establish governance requirements for data sourcing, use, sharing, aggregation, deidentification, anonymization, and synthetic data initiatives.
• Define governance structures across the company and review Data Processing/Data Sharing Agreements and AI-related provisions.
• Partner with product, engineering, security, and compliance teams to operationalize governance requirements.
• Develop guidelines for assessing legal risks in new uses of data with analytics, AI, agents, and ML.
• Advise leadership on data-related risk, opportunity, and strategic data utilization initiatives.
• Lead responses to regulatory inquiries, audits, investigations, and litigation readiness.
• Collaborate with Government Affairs to influence data legislation and standards.

Skills

Regulatory compliance

Cross-functional collaboration

Legal drafting

Privacy laws

Education

Juris Doctor

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a strategic Legal Counsel to support data governance, privacy, and AI regulatory readiness.

You will advise on data classification, inventories, retention, and defensible deletion while partnering with product, security, and policy teams to implement governance across the enterprise. Requirements include a JD, 8+ years of relevant experience, and deep expertise in GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and emerging AI regulations.