Championing skills mastery in the Data Protection space

Kevin Shepherdson, CEO of Straits Interactive, was one of a select number of Singaporeans who received the nation’s highest accolade, the SkillsFuture Fellowship, in recognition of his dedication towards skills mastery.

He received his award from President Halimah Yacob, Guest of Honour and Patron of the SkillFuture Fellowships and SkillsFuture Employer Awards, at a ceremony held on December 10, 2021, at Marina Bay Sands. Minister for Education Chan Chun Sing was also in attendance.

The SkillsFuture Fellowships, now in its fifth edition, are conferred upon Singaporeans who are respected masters of skills in their respective fields, and who champion lifelong learning and are committed to mentoring others.

Kevin has consulted and trained intensively in data protection and privacy over the past eight years and is widely recognised for his skills and experience in the profession. In that time, he has founded Straits Interactive and been engaged by data protection regulators in ASEAN countries to share his expertise.

In addition, he has co-designed 17 data protection courses with the Singapore Management University over the past three years to train future talent.

To benefit the professional community, he also initiated the development of the Data Protection Excellence (DPEX) Network content portal to facilitate sharing of knowledge, and authored 99 Privacy Breaches to Beware Of, a book on privacy breaches.

Check out our courses page to find the best data protection course for you.

In an interview with SkillsFuture Singapore, Kevin shared some of his thoughts on lifelong learning, building up skills competencies and himself being a mentor to others.

How do you maintain a culture of lifelong learning?

If you want to maintain a culture of lifelong learning, look at key trends which align to your competencies, experience, or interests, and then proceed to leverage them to your advantage.

For example, in my case, when I saw multimedia was taking off (led by innovations by Creative Technology/Sound Blaster), I quickly learned about multimedia production since I already had music and writing skills. I did the same with data protection. Eight years ago, I predicted that there would be a shortage of data protection / privacy expertise since data protections laws were being passed. I then strived to master the subject, developing both the theory and practical side of it – I even founded my current company, Straits Interactive, to leverage the trend.

What are the skills that you find most important in your work area?

From a soft skills perspective, it is about leveraging your key strengths and managing your weaknesses. Each team member brings his or her own strengths to the team – whether it is communications, problem solving, organising, etc - and these need to be identified and utilised as part of the combined team strengths. If your responsibilities make use of your skills and talents, then you are constantly feeling actively engaged in the workplace.

From a specific domain knowledge perspective, it is important to have skills in governance and data protection, especially in today’s pandemic era where many companies have rushed into digitalising their work processes without thinking about the privacy and security implications.

How has being a mentor at work contributed to your own personal development?

As a mentor, you share your knowledge and experience or train others with the objective of helping to develop them. For me, I benefited significantly when mentoring my colleagues in the area of data protection and this a great responsibility. As the saying goes, in “teaching others, we teach ourselves”. I found myself constantly keeping up to date with the latest developments and learning more with the objective of mastering this domain area. In short, the more I mentor, the more I enhance my competencies and knowledge.

Learn more about our DPO competency roadmap here to figure out the right path to take in your data projection journey!