Camille Stewart is an attorney who is passionate about tech! She has built and scaled cybersecurity and privacy programs at many large and complex government agencies and companies. She was formerly appointed by former President Barack Obama to serve as asenior policy advisor for cyber, infrastructure and resilience policy at the expanding cybersecurity cooperation with DHS’s Israeli counterparts. She is well versed in cybersecurity and privacy issues and has worked and created impact internationally, nationally, for major companies and for individuals. Sheared her exciting career journey with La Femme Exec:
Discovering your dream career can be a daunting process for many millennials! Were you always interested in law and tech? Yes, I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer and my dad is a computer scientist so technology was always present. I just didn’t know how to combine my two interests. That was and is a process. I create my role at every company or organization where I find myself. Traditional attorney roles don’t quite capture the range of issues I work on but I love identifying the gaps and creating a role that allows me to add value and make an impact in the lives of others.
Please tell us more about what you do and the most exciting part about your job: The most important and exciting thing I do is protect individuals and entities from cybersecurity threats while educating them on how to be stewards of their privacy and security. I do that in a number of ways including being the Head of Security Policy for Android and Google Play where I lead security policy, election integrity, and misinformation. I also lead a national security research project for a think tank in DC, and lead and invest in organizations that empower and amplify diverse voices in the tech and national security sectors like DINSN, WICyS, WCAPS, etc
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Do you have a career crush? ( please state her name and why) if you have one! I have so many! Anyone truly walking in their purpose noticed or unnoticed inspires me. Anyone who has created their own lane motivates me. Anyone that has taken a leap of faith and pivoted away from the “traditional path” encourages me to keep pushing. My career crushes create spaces for themselves and others that allow for authenticity and wholeness by bringing all of their talents, lived experiences, and competing interests to the work they’re doing. If I had to pick someone that embodies that it is Aisha Bowe. She didn’t let setbacks keep her from achieving her dream and now has her own company that is thriving and investing in the lives of your students by making STEM accessible. She is writing her story on her terms and making room for others in the process. You can here more about her story here. My co-host and I interview a bunch of other similarly inspiring people on my podcast Hustle Over Entitlement.
What is your typical work day like? At Google, no day looks the same. My days always consist of meetings with stakeholders from different teams – from engineers to legal to partner managers. I am a translator for all the groups involved in building and evolving our mobile products. While we all work to serve and protect our users, I am an advocate for user safety. In meetings I make sure that perspective is well represented as we design and improve our products. I provide policy interpretations when something unusual happens. I counsel partners on the policy implications of their actions. My team internalizes what’s going on globally from a law and policy perspective and reflects that in our work. I am often putting pen to paper writing new policies for our products based on the insights gained from working with cross-functional partners. I educate external stakeholders on our work and perspective.
Specifically, I lead the Play & Android election integrity program which works to ensure our product is not leveraged to impede global elections in any way and to prevent and mitigate disinformation. Additionally, I work on security and privacy policies like how and when developers access your phone’s permissions like location and your text messages.
What advice do you have for young women who want to work at the nexus of tech and law? Do it! Figure out the issues that interest you and learn as much as possible. When you’re well informed, get your voice out into the world on those issues, we need your unique perspective! Write, speak, blog, tweet, whatever it takes to get your voice out into the world.
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