People Behind Visier: Ruth Yeo

Name: Ruth Yeo

Title: Privacy Director and Data Protection Officer

Residence: Vancouver, BC

Hometown: Vancouver, BC

Ruth is the Head of our Privacy and Data Protection Program. In this role, she ensures Visier operates in compliance with privacy laws and regulations, and guides the Visier team to appropriately handle and process personal and customer data in a trustworthy manner. 

Ruth oversees privacy operations at Visier, which includes policies, procedures, and guidelines; customer, employee and candidate privacy notices; data breach preparedness, privacy assessments and training. . Her team’s work allows Visier to be a trusted partner for our customers.

“I love how Visier’s people analytics product can help organizations better understand their people and also help support their D&I initiatives by successfully implementing data-driven decisions to make change happen,” says Ruth.

Let’s dive deeper into Ruth’s work and her life: 

Work Questions:

What’s your motivation for doing what you do? 

I have been in the privacy industry for 20 years and I’m happy to finally see a shift where companies recognize that privacy matters as a critical business imperative and take it seriously. It also feels great to see that the work I do brings value to our company and contributes to the design and development of trusted solutions and services.

How does your team support customers?

We help our customers understand our global privacy program and how we handle and safeguard their data, which allows them to trust us when it comes to handling their sensitive data. We continually update and communicate Visier’s privacy and data handling practices, as well as produce customer facing knowledge articles. These initiatives help maintain our customers’ trust and confidence.

What has been a big learning moment in your career?

When I decided to pivot from healthcare privacy to dealing with privacy in global financial services, it broadened my perspective on how different industries deal with privacy, how they assess their risks, and how they prioritize their efforts. I also learned how to navigate through different organizational structures and cultures.

What’s most exciting about your job?

The privacy landscape is constantly changing and it keeps me on my toes! Privacy is about the data and I enjoy collaborating with stakeholders across different functional areas. It’s exciting to see how the technology and data dots connect.

What Visier feature do you think is super cool?

I think our security model is very cool. It is flexible and robust which helps our customers manage and control access to their data. It also enables an organization to ask relevant business questions and derive insights without the need to reveal personal details.

Diagram showing Visier’s security model from permissions to content packages

What is something professionally you are proud of? 

I am proud to have acquired practical privacy experience working across various industries and organizations. I believe these experiences have made me a better privacy professional as I am able to develop sustainable privacy programs and processes that fit an organization’s culture, strategy and values.

Life Questions: 

What’s the best advice you were ever given? Who was it from?

The best advice that I was ever given was from a co-worker at my first ‘real’ job at St. Paul’s Hospital. The advice was: “Never assume.”

Essentially, it means to not assume that everyone has heard the same thing or is on the same page. This piece of advice has made me better at documenting meeting outcomes and action items, and following up.

What was the last concert you went to?

It was Post Malone. I enjoy his music and unique personality. Plus, he gave a great performance!

What’s one hobby you’d love to get into?

I would love to get into curling! I had a trial lesson before the pandemic hit and would love to join a league. And if I had more time, I would be on the golf course.

What book are you reading now?

I recently finished reading The Outsider by Albert Camus. I read his other novel, The Plague, at the start of the pandemic and now I’m a big fan of his work. 

What is your dream travel destination and why?

My dream destination is the Maldives! It’s such an exotic location and I love all the photos I have seen. It’s definitely on my bucket list. 

Do you have a fun fact about yourself that you would like to share?

I was a Canadian Regional Finalist in the Stella Artois Canadian National Draught Master Competition! I may be able to pour a really good beer but I don’t drink it. I prefer wine!

Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn