Global Data Protection Officer & Senior Legal Counsel

About the role

Digital Green is seeking a hands-on lawyer to serve as our Global Data Protection Officer and Senior Legal Counsel.

The primary focus of the role is to build, operationalize, and lead Digital Green’s privacy and data-governance program end to end. Most of this work will relate to FarmerChat, including how farmer and user data is collected, used, shared, retained, and protected across the countries where the platform operates. The role will also oversee and implement Digital Green’s broader organizational data-governance program, including employee, partner, vendor, research, donor, and operational data.

The successful candidate will work closely with Product, Engineering and Programs to review product features, AI use cases, consent and communication flows, data-sharing requests, research and M&E activities, and expansion into new jurisdictions. They will both design the program and operate it in practice, including developing policies and processes, reviewing individual requests, maintaining required records, tracking implementation of agreed actions and escalating material gaps as appropriate.

The role will also serve as Digital Green’s primary in-house lawyer. In addition to data protection, the person will review and negotiate contracts in their entirety and provide practical legal support on technology, intellectual property, partnerships, grants, research, and selected cross-border and new-country matters.

This is a hands-on role in a lean organization. The successful candidate must be comfortable moving between strategy and detailed execution, and between specialized data work and broader legal advice.

In carrying out the Data Protection Officer function, the role will provide independent advice and oversight on data-protection matters and will have appropriate access to senior leadership and the Board as needed. Business and functional leaders remain accountable for decisions concerning the purposes and means of processing and for implementing agreed controls.

Key areas of responsibility
Build Digital Green’s global privacy and data-governance program

• Assess Digital Green’s current privacy and data-governance practices and develop a practical, risk-based roadmap for strengthening them.
• Build a coherent privacy program covering both FarmerChat and Digital Green’s broader organizational data, including employee, consultant, partner, vendor, donor, research, and operational data.
• Develop and implement the core policies, privacy notices, procedures, templates, records, governance structures, and approval workflows needed to support the program.
• Establish clear processes for product privacy review, data sharing, data-subject rights, DPIAs, retention and deletion, international transfers, incident response, and regulatory compliance.
• Establish clear roles, accountability, and decision-making processes across Product, Engineering, Programs, HR, Operations, and country teams, including clear ownership of processing activities by the relevant business and functional teams.
• Develop practical tools, training, and guidance that allow teams to apply data-protection requirements consistently.
• Create mechanisms to track risks, remediation actions, decisions, and the overall effectiveness of the program.
• Ensure that the program is proportionate to Digital Green’s mission, operating model, resources, and risk profile.

• Serve as the principal legal and data-governance adviser for FarmerChat and related digital products.
• Work closely with Product, Engineering, Design, Data, and Programs as FarmerChat evolves, helping teams identify and address legal, privacy, data-governance, and responsible-AI issues early in product and program design.
• Advise on new features, AI use cases and model development, integrations, user onboarding, consent and communication flows, research and M&E activities, and proposed uses, sharing, or publication of farmer and user data, including use of text, voice, images, and other data for model training and evaluation.
• Translate legal and regulatory requirements into clear and workable product, technical, and data-governance requirements, including appropriate controls for PII, sensitive data, dataset access and reuse, and re-identification risk.
• Advise more broadly on technology, intellectual property, research, partnerships, user communications, and emerging regulatory issues affecting FarmerChat.
• Develop practical approaches to transparency, user choice, data minimization, de-identification, access, retention and deletion, international transfers, training and evaluation datasets, open-data and dataset publication, human oversight, and responsible AI.
• Monitor developments in privacy, data protection, AI, and electronic-communications law and assess their implications for FarmerChat.
• Help ensure that Product, Engineering, Data, and program teams incorporate appropriate legal and data-governance review into their regular ways of working.

• Serve as Digital Green’s Global Data Protection Officer and principal internal adviser on privacy and data protection, including serving as the designated DPO for relevant Digital Green entities where appropriate and coordinating any additional local DPO or representative arrangements required by law.
• Operate the privacy program on a day-to-day basis, including reviewing data-subject requests, data-sharing and data-access requests, DPIAs, complaints, incidents, and retention or deletion questions.
• Review and document proposed uses, disclosures, and transfers of personal data and provide practical, risk-based recommendations.
• Oversee privacy incidents and breach-response obligations and coordinate internal teams and external counsel as needed.
• Maintain required records and evidence of compliance, including records of processing, decision logs, assessments, and remediation tracking.
• Oversee relevant data-protection registrations, regulatory filings, and other required local privacy arrangements.
• Serve as an appropriate point of contact for data subjects and regulators.
• Coordinate local privacy counsel and integrate country-specific requirements into Digital Green’s global approach.
• Provide independent advice to leadership on material privacy and data-governance risks.
• Monitor implementation of agreed actions and escalate material gaps where appropriate

• Review, draft, and negotiate contracts in their entirety, including partnership agreements, technology and vendor contracts, grants and subawards, research agreements, MOUs, and other commercial arrangements.
• Advise on liability, indemnities, intellectual property, confidentiality, publication rights, termination, compliance obligations, and other material legal terms.
• Draft and review data-processing agreements, data-sharing agreements, privacy addenda, cross-border transfer provisions, and data and AI clauses.
• Develop and maintain practical templates, standard clauses, fallback positions, and contract-review playbooks.
• Advise teams on legal issues involving technology, intellectual property, research, partnerships, grants, and new operating models.
• Support the COO on selected cross-border and new-country matters, including regulatory registrations, operating structures, contracting, partnerships, and coordination with local counsel.
• Identify matters requiring specialized employment, tax, corporate, litigation, or local-law advice and coordinate external counsel as needed.

Qualifications

Required

• Law degree and authorization to practice law in India, Kenya, the United States, or another relevant jurisdiction.
• Approximately 7–10 years of relevant legal experience.
• Strong experience in privacy, data protection, technology law, commercial contracting, or a combination of these areas.
• Experience building, implementing, or operating a privacy or data-protection program.
• Experience serving as a DPO, privacy counsel, product counsel, technology lawyer, or senior in-house legal adviser.
• Experience advising digital products and working directly with Product and Engineering teams.
• Strong experience reviewing and negotiating contracts beyond their privacy provisions.
• Familiarity with core privacy-program requirements, including notices and consent, data-subject rights, DPIAs, data sharing, controller and processor analysis, cross-border transfers, incident response, and records of processing.
• Ability to work across multiple jurisdictions and manage external counsel effectively.
• Strong judgment and the ability to translate legal requirements into practical, proportionate actions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong project-management skills and the ability to work independently in a distributed organization.
• Willingness to personally handle both strategic and detailed operational work.
• Ability to exercise independent judgment in the DPO function while also serving as a practical and collaborative in-house legal adviser.

Preferred

• Experience with AI, machine learning, large language models, or responsible-AI governance.
• Experience in international development, nonprofits, agriculture, research, health, or another mission-driven field.
• Familiarity with data-protection laws in several of Digital Green’s key jurisdictions.
• Experience with intellectual property, technology transactions, grants, research agreements, or cross-border partnerships.
• Experience establishing or significantly improving a privacy program in a lean organization.
• Relevant privacy certification.