Christopher J. Foreman,
CIPL Fellow

Chris has 20+ years’ experience in global privacy, cybersecurity, data governance, trademark infringement litigtion, and EU pharmaceutical law.

Most recently, Chris was the Chief Privacy Officer at Merck & Co., Inc., (MSD).  Heading the Global Privacy Office, he led a team responsible for the governance of the Global Privacy Program, which has approved EU Binding Corporate Rules.  Notably, Chris deployed the Program worldwide via a network of 300+ Privacy Stewards.  Prior to working in privacy, Chris held several leading roles in MSD’s Office of the General Counsel and worked as a corporate lawyer at two private law firms in Washington, DC, New York and Brussels.

Chris has served on a number of external boards, including the Information Accountability Foundation, dplegal, and the International Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Privacy Consortium.  He was an active member of the EFPIA Data Governance Working Group, helping to draft its EU Code of Conduct on Scientific Research and Pharmacovigilance Reporting, and recently he was invited to Co-Chair the Working Group. 

Chris has spoken widely at privacy and legal conferences, webinars and roundtables (e.g., IAPP; EU Pharmaceutical Law Forum; Computer, Privacy and Data Protection Conference; dplegal; and OneTrust) on topics such as the complexities of international data transfers between the Europe and the United States and the European Health Data Space. In addition, he was a faculty member at the University of Georgia Law School teaching Comparative Privacy Law.

Chris earned his B.A (Government), J.D. (cum laude) and LL.M. (magna cum laude) from the University of Texas, University of Georgia, and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, respectively.  He is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E), Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) and Fellow of Information Privacy (FIP). 

In his spare time, Chris enjoys traveling, already visiting all seven continents, and takes a huge interest in history, art and politics.  Chris also likes to spend time with his family, and to get beaten at golf by his teenage son.