George Wheeler-Carmichael

George specialises in technology-related commercial matters, data protection and information governance.  George was previously in-house General Counsel at Agilisys, an IT Services, cloud and digital solutions provider and before that spent several years as a partner in the technology practices of leading London law firms.

“I much enjoyed my time as GC because of the variety of work and the hands-on nature of the role. I worked closely with the senior leadership team and the business owners. Working in-house taught me the importance of getting the job done in a pragmatic and down-to-earth way. You learn a lot about working effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team and how to understand the perspectives, and look after the interests, of the various business stakeholders.

I’ve always had an interest in data and much of my career has been involved in helping clients and colleagues with the challenges of information governance and compliance with data protection law, especially since the arrival of the GDPR in 2018.

Any Data Protection Officer will agree that good data protection practices depend at a high level on integrating three aspects: people, processes and technology. My experience of drafting and negotiating a wide range of technology contracts from big outsourcings to small software agreements and working closely with technical people has been useful from a data perspective and often fascinating. I have also worked with information security specialists and played a lead role in a number of GDPR compliance exercises and ISO27001 implementations, seeking to make optimal use of tools available in systems to help the governance, risk and compliance functions of the business.”