Chance Conversations Interviews (Odia Kagan) – 2024 08 28 15 55 IST – Recording [00:00:00] Conor Hogan: hi, and welcome to another episode of Chance Conversations. I'm Connor, [00:00:15] Carey Lening: and I'm Kerry, [00:00:16] Conor Hogan: and today we're so excited to have with us a true leader in the world of privacy and data protection, Odia Kagan. Welcome, Odia. [00:00:23] Odia Kagan: Thank you. Nice to be here. [00:00:25] Conor Hogan: Odia is a partner and Chair of Data Privacy Compliance and International Privacy at Fox Rothschild. She specializes in guiding companies through the complexities of privacy laws, including the GDPR, and offers practical advice on tech transactions and third party engagements. With certifications including all of the letters that you can possibly imagine, and recognition as a Fellow of Information Privacy from the IAPP, Odia brings deep expertise to her role. She's advised [00:00:51] Odia Kagan: Sure now I have to top that intro, right? [00:00:55] Carey Lening: I will briefly introduce the rules just for the folks who haven't heard this [00:01:00] before for each category you'll get to pick a number one through three where a question in that category will be chosen at random There are two questions in each category and three total categories. The first is industry trends and insights We'll ask questions about where you think the industry will go in the future, where it might be stuck, some common misconceptions, hype cycles, and a few other surprises, because I keep adding questions. Next, we will talk about career observations. And in this category we'll talk about your highlights, what you've learned along the way and what advice you might have for future generations in this space. And then finally, personal questions. This is one of my favorite sections. These are questions about you, who you are, your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations, life lessons and challenges you've overcome. Nothing too crazy personal, but just a little bit to get to know you better. You could skip one question and a new question will be asked in its place. You can also throw one question back on Connor and I and we'll answer it first But then you need to answer in the end [00:02:00] The goal here is as always to broaden the conversation and for serendipity to take over a little bit like the conversations you might have with friends So sound good. Cool. Let's do it. No nonsense All right, i'm gonna go first connor All right, we're gonna start with career pick a number one, two, or three [00:02:21] Odia Kagan: Okay. I want to start i'm going to try two. [00:02:23] Carey Lening: Okay, two I should let everyone know I reconfigured my little random number generator thing And so now there are pictures of cats for each and it looks like there's like a playing card. It's pretty awesome. This is only for my personal edification, but it's our podcast, so I can do it. Okay, the question is, what does success look like to you? [00:02:44] Odia Kagan: Oh wow I read about this in one of my books that I'm reading, and it had a really good definition of success. Let me see if I can remember it. It basically said something like, Success is the continued. striving [00:03:00] towards a worthy goal or something like that. So. I've thought about this a lot recently because, I have spent Pretty much almost all of my career, and law firms and big law and kind of the concept of success in that construct is very clear. I think my definition as I'm thinking about it is basically to continuously do work that is interesting, that is intellectually challenging. And that makes a positive impact on, on people and on clients. So I really like what I do. I like what I do because I find it. Interesting because it changes all the time because there's challenges because there's puzzles to solve, because there are new facts to apply to old rules and there's [00:04:00] surprises that are happening all the time. There's technology involved. And also because I feel most of the time that I am, making a positive. Impact on the people that I work with, right? Be it, clients helping them solve problems, helping them, avoid problems, mitigate risk, avoid being sued, avoid, having a negative consequence. And so when I think the combination of those together is a definition of success for me. [00:04:34] Carey Lening: I like it. It's a well rounded answer. I love that by the way, you were reading a book on the definition of success. What book is that, by the way? [00:04:42] Odia Kagan: So I have I have a reading corner, where in the morning in the crack of dawn, I read 15 books simultaneously. And I read like a few pages in each as I drink my coffee. That's like my morning thing. [00:04:53] Carey Lening: 15 books simultaneously [00:04:55] Odia Kagan: yeah, I read a few pages in each, they're all different things. They're like [00:05:00] philosophy, history, I don't know, statistics, like different things. Yeah. [00:05:05] Carey Lening: How do you do that without like your brain exploding? [00:05:08] Odia Kagan: Seriously, that is like my time of happiness. I really like Kindle and I don't do paper at all and everything is digital, but this is like a literal stack of books. That's brilliant. Like, I'm very similar to that. [00:05:20] Conor Hogan: Not that I have 15 books on the go at any one time, but usually if I'm reading a book, which is pretty regularly, I usually have more than one and probably less than five on the go, but like 15 just blows my mind. [00:05:31] Carey Lening: I can't keep track of reading a menu without, having to focus. So the idea of fifteen in like small bits and chunks I don't know how you do it, girl. But that does explain a few things about how prolific you are in your responding to and summarizing all these pieces. You must have like speed reading done or something. [00:05:49] Odia Kagan: So I think to answer your question, it was probably, it was either I have two quote books. One is Robert Greene. It's the Daily Laws. It's like a quote a day, right? And one is the Daily [00:06:00] Stoic, the Ryan Holiday, who I love his books. I might, it's either one of those, or it might be I'm reading Tal Ben Shachar, who's this Israeli researcher. He works, I think, at, he's got a famous course. Now I don't remember if it's Harvard or Yale, about happiness. So the book is called Being Happy. And I think that might be where I read it. [00:06:21] Conor Hogan: Oh, wow. Do you know what, we were talking on an earlier episode about, I think it might have been the same question, and the answer that the guest in question gave was that there's not something necessarily that they're striving towards, In terms of, retirement or, the typical measures of success, but rather it was really similar to this in that it's actually constantly striving to make an impact and to be better and to enjoy. And I just think it really is quite revealing when. Somebody like you, Odia is of exactly that same mindset, it's actually very encouraging, I would argue, to anybody who's, listening and embarking on a career [00:07:00] in this space or, wants to pursue big law and all that sort of stuff you can still do that, be happy and enjoy and make an impact, that's what I'm hearing. [00:07:07] Odia Kagan: Yeah, I really like what I do. I really enjoy it. , I think that this type of career is really difficult to do if you don't really love what you're doing. It's hard because it's very, time consuming and, a lot of investment and. Yeah, and it's also very easy to get embroiled in all your day to day stuff and kind of forget that, you're supposed to enjoy it, too. [00:07:28] Conor Hogan: And you're, so you're, your coffee in the morning at dawn with 15 books, is that time to yourself where you're like, you know what, it's not just about a rat race or anything like that. [00:07:38] Odia Kagan: , like I'm reading one of my books is Winnie the Pooh. Which is amazing. It's so cool. It's Rabbit is and Eeyore and it's very, like, when you read it as an adult, it's wow, this is really interesting. [00:07:50] Carey Lening: So you're reading like fiction, nonfiction, studies, law, whatever. [00:07:54] Odia Kagan: Yeah, there's a privacy thing in there. There's a lot of philosophy. There's the quote books. There's [00:08:00] Winnie the Pooh. I'm reading a book about like math and statistics, which, I'm a lawyer. I can't do anything related to graph paper. That's, that stopped, a while ago. So I'm trying. So yeah, there's Yeah. It's, I'm doing a thing in like Chinese medicine. [00:08:14] Carey Lening: Oh, geez. . I thought I was impressed, impressive because I was like trying to pick up Feynman's lectures on physics again. And I read it and I'm a couple pages like you. I can't do too much because my brain is literally going to explode. But you're all over the map. You got everything going. [00:08:27] Odia Kagan: That was one of the books that's on my list is he's got a book about like six simple things, right? Or something like that. , but physics was what I avoided in high school. I did not, I was in the physics class, like all my classmates were doing physics and I was the person who didn't do physics, but I sat with them and watched them struggle. So my physics knowledge is like negligible. [00:08:47] Carey Lening: He's a good one to read for that. Yeah. Okay. We're going to talk about books the whole time. Connor, you should ask another question. [00:08:54] Conor Hogan: Alright, okay. I will move to industry. We'll try and put it back in there. Odia, pick a [00:09:00] number, one, two, or three again, please. [00:09:02] Odia Kagan: Let's try three. [00:09:04] Conor Hogan: Okay, perfect. Ooh, I like this one, actually. What is something that you've rethought In the last year it doesn't even have to be the last year but what is something that you've thought about again all over again and Rethink it rethought it [00:09:18] Odia Kagan: In the privacy industry [00:0
