Derek Pignatelli

About Derek Pignatelli

Privacy, AI governance, and compliance program leader with 18+ years of experience in technology, including 8+ years building and scaling enterprise programs at Meta and Amazon. JD-trained and California-licensed attorney who bridges legal, technical, and business teams to translate complex regulatory requirements into scalable operational models.At Meta, I owned the end-to-end relationship with FTC auditors across 7 consecutive regulatory audit cycles with zero substantive findings. I built the Affiliate Data Sharing program from a few slides into a fully operational compliance framework covering $3B+ in acquisitions. I designed and deployed AI-powered workflows using Metamate to automate evidence triage and risk monitoring, eliminating the need for 5+ additional FTEs while scaling audit capacity. I used iterative prompt engineering to categorize 1.5 years of internal complaint data, achieving 85% routing accuracy and reducing a multi-week analysis to roughly 6 hours.At Amazon, I built and scaled a 30+ person global team from scratch across 20 countries and 15 languages, supporting annual inquiries. I redesigned operational metrics to expose hidden dependencies, driving a 40%+ improvement in speed and 20%+ improvement in quality within a year.I am currently building agentic AI tools using Gemini, Claude, and Python as both a personal productivity investment and proof of concept for taking unstructured manual processes and turning them into scalable AI-powered solutions.Core domains: Privacy & Data Protection (GDPR, CCPA, FTC Consent Order), AI Governance & Responsible AI, GRC & Compliance Program Management, Cross-Functional Program Leadership, Trust & Safety Operations, 0-to-1 Program Building.Open to Director-level and Senior Program Manager roles in privacy, AI governance, compliance, and trust & safety. Seattle-based, open to remote.

Experience

1. Privacy Strategic Program Manager

   Meta

   Mar 2022 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

   Responsible for establishing and implementing the overall strategy and execution muscle for the Affiliate Data Sharing program, successfully building it from initial concept to a fully operational program managing Meta\'s growing portfolio of acquisitions. The development of this program involved policy and process design, audit mechanisms, identifying and tracking KPIs, OKRs, budgeting, roadmapping, and identifying best practices to ensure that Meta acquisitions are onboarded to Meta\'s privacy program with the appropriate risk controls and privacy protections.• For three years I was the lead representative of Meta\'s Affiliate Data Sharing program, tasked with engaging the FTC Assessor concerning the development and maturation of the Affiliate Data Sharing program, ensuring compliance with FTC Order requirements while maintaining operational efficiency.• I work with Meta\'s internal privacy and executive leadership across multiple functions of the company to implement the vision of the Meta Privacy and Data Practices organization, specifically within the Foundations - Shared Services Team, and drive cross-functional strategic and operational alignment for privacy safeguards affecting billions of users.• I work closely with legal, privacy and product leadership teams (including Executives within Meta Privacy and Data Practices organization) to establish and drive priorities across functions and organizations to ensure that these priorities are comprehensive, codified, and monitored.• I manage my programs and prioritize work based on urgency and complexity while building operational cadences across technical and operational teams to coordinate work, including privacy incident response processes and compliance framework implementation.• I set priorities, multi-task and work independently in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment, successfully adapting to evolving regulatory requirements and organizational changes while maintaining program effectiveness.

Education

• University of Southern California

  Journalism

  1994 — 1998

• W. P. Carey School of Business – Arizona State University

  JD/MBA, Law and Business

  2011 — 2014

• University of Oregon School of Law

  Doctor of Law (J.D.), Law

  2010 — 2011

Skills

• Research
• Social Media
• Project Management
• Public Speaking
• Editing
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Networking
• Data Analysis
• Marketing
• Digital Media
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Excel
• Powerpoint
• Market Research
• Budgets
• Analysis
• Entrepreneurship