Emerald is a data protection and privacy specialist, lecturer and entrepreneur. Her qualifications include two law degrees (LL.B), a Masters in E-Law and Intellectual Property (LL.M), a Masters in Business Information Systems and the CIPP/E qualification. She is also Harvard Law Certified in Copyright Law. She was invited to join MIT Sloan’s School of Business’ Cybersecurity consortium on critical in fracture (IC3) in 2018 where she contributes on areas relating to European data protection law.

She wrote her first master thesis on the GDPR in 2012 after which she founded EuroComply, a company that advises organisations around the world on matters relating to data protection and privacy. In addition to her work with Eurocomply, she is a faculty member at the Law Society of Ireland on the Technology Law and Data Protection Courses as well as at the Irish Management Institute where she responsible for the data protection module for the business students.

In 2018 she was awarded the prestigious German Marshall Fund Fellowship from the US Department of State. She was recommended by Forbes as a female entrepreneur to watch and has featured frequently in publications such as Bloomberg Law. In 2017, the European Commission, Parliament, and EYIF in Brussel awarded Emerald the European Young Innovator of the Year Award and she received a 30 under 30 award in 2017.