Company Description
It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.
We’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.
The problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful—because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.
If you’re ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you’ll find your purpose here.
Job Description
Primary Function of Position:
The Senior Director of Privacy & Data Protection will be responsible for identifying and ensuring the company’s obligations under data privacy and data protection laws, including AI, across the globe. The role requires the attorney to both manage and perform direct work on many varied privacy and data protection legal matters, including protecting customer, employee and patient personal data, licensing data assets, advising on data protection terms in contracts, and digital data matters. The attorney will interact daily with engineers, researchers, human resources, IT, product security, marketing and company executives. The attorney will also manage in-house and outside lawyers and supervise their work products to ensure that company is appropriately protecting its data assets, including personal data and its use with AI.
Roles & Responsibilities:
- Counsel managers, individual contributors, business units, and executives regarding Privacy & Data Protection matters.
- Actively seek out and identify opportunities to enhance our privacy program.
- Work with to ensure that personal information is protected using the appropriate legal and risk frameworks.
- Identify and advise on privacy and data protection risks and opportunities that impact business goals and priorities employing a risk-based approach.
- Advise company executives about value of data assets to license or purchase.
- Advise company executives about privacy and data protection laws, including emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence.
- Analyze new and emerging data privacy and data protection laws.
- Lead readiness and implementation for new laws.
- Advise on enforcement activities that will likely impact the company.
- Support privacy and data breach investigations, remediations and regulator inquiries.
- Provide data privacy support in the drafting and negotiation of agreements covering a variety of business needs, including:
- Research and Data Use agreements.
- Data licensing agreements.
- Other data sharing, M&A and general commercial matters.
- Manage, mentor, and train less senior legal team members, including setting constructive goals and providing career development opportunities for direct reports.
- Participate in and lead cross-functional projects and initiatives involving the Legal Team.
- Identify key and strategic opportunities to enhance the effectiveness and quality of the company’s data protection posture.
- Allocate and deploy Legal resources appropriately to advance the interests of Intuitive in a cost-effective and timely manner.
Qualifications
Skills, Experience, Education, & Training:
- Juris Doctorate
- Membership in at least one U.S. Bar
- At least one IAPP certification
- Minimum of thirteen years’ experience in global Data Privacy legal and compliance matters, and working with non-U.S. counsels in various foreign jurisdictions in
- In addition, to effectively perform the responsibilities of this position, the following skills are preferred:
- Eligibility for Membership in the California State Bar or as registered in-house counsel
- Proven experience identifying and managing privacy risks across multiple jurisdictions.
- Experience in the health care industry including direct patient care, life sciences, academic medical research, and/or medical devices
- Superior interpersonal skills for engaging closely with various executives, managers, employees, and employee teams, making and communicating difficult information/decisions, and inspiring excellence in others.
- Excellent writing, drawing, and oral communication skills—this includes the ability to communicate complex legal issues in clear, concise language, as well as characterize risks in actionable terms.
- Strong contract drafting and negotiation experience, including experience in business associate agreements and/or data protection agreements.
- Ability to assess, prioritize, and manage multiple tasks within a rapidly changing environment in compliance with resource and bandwidth constraints.
- Ability to independently plan, organize, and execute complex, highly strategic assignments involving multiple teams and individuals.
- Superior legal judgement and analytical skills to effectively resolve issues that involve competing priorities and high-level objectives.
- Management skill to effectively guide the work of others to ensure well-integrated, timely, high quality and within-budget deliverables.
This position is based in Sunnyvale, CA with at least three days in office per week.
Additional Information
Due to the nature of our business and the role, please note that Intuitive and/or your customer(s) may require that you show current proof of vaccination against certain diseases including COVID-19. Details can vary by role.
Intuitive is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees, and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type, without regard to race, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, age, religion, protected veteran or disability status, genetic information or any other status protected under federal, state, or local applicable laws.
U.S. Export Controls Disclaimer: In accordance with the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR §743.13(b)), some roles at Intuitive Surgical may be subject to U.S. export controls for prospective employees who are nationals from countries currently on embargo or sanctions status.
Certain information you provide as part of the application will be used for purposes of determining whether Intuitive Surgical will need to (i) obtain an export license from the U.S. Government on your behalf (note: the government’s licensing process can take 3 to 6+ months) or (ii) implement a Technology Control Plan (“TCP”) (note: typically adds 2 weeks to the hiring process).
For any Intuitive role subject to export controls, final offers are contingent upon obtaining an approved export license and/or an executed TCP prior to the prospective employee’s start date, which may or may not be flexible, and within a timeframe that does not unreasonably impede the hiring need. If applicable, candidates will be notified and instructed on any requirements for these purposes.
We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with fair chance laws.
Preference will be given to qualified candidates who do not reside, or plan to reside, in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, or Tennessee.
This position may be filled at a different job level than listed here depending on
business need and/or on the selected candidate’s experience, knowledge and skills.
Compensation will be based primarily on the job level at which the role is filled and the
candidate’s qualifications, consistent with applicable law.
We provide market-competitive compensation packages, inclusive of base pay, incentives, benefits, and equity. It would not be typical for someone to be hired at the top end of range for the role, as actual pay will be determined based on several factors, including experience, skills, and qualifications. The target compensation ranges are listed.