CEB Advising Special Counsel Alia Luria brings more than two decades of technology experience as a front-end developer, application architect, and CTO to her legal practice as a privacy and technology attorney. She advises global organizations on matters including privacy program design, data retention initiatives, incident response planning and privacy tabletop exercises. When working with clients she focuses on mitigating risk and protecting the future growth and profitability of the organization. She has served clients of all sizes--from small organizations just entering their growth phases to large global organizations with mature operations and existing privacy programs. Her industry experience includes technology, telecommunications, business-to-business services, energy, and logistics, among others. This background gives her a unique technical understanding not just of the business and compliance goals of her clients, but also of the implementation of data privacy and security protections. Her technical work designing and developing software resulted in a deep understanding of the applicable technology, project management and agile development processes, as well as experience collaborating with technical project management and development teams.

While an attorney at Akerman LLP, she was a founding member of the firm’s Data Law Practice and lead architect of the Data Law Center web application that provided advice on data breach notification compliance. After leaving Akerman, she was a partner and head of corporate in the boutique firm Losey PLLC, where she counseled multiple clients on GDPR compliance, data breach response, and policy development. As a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of InFront Compliance, which is an assessment platform designed to help organizations manage both internal compliance and third-party risk, she set the software requirements and managed the development of the application.

CEB Advising Founder Cheri Bessellieu is a highly specialized privacy and technology lawyer. She offers multifaceted expertise gained from direct substantive experience working with outside and internal clients. With domestic and international in-house experience, she brings a pragmatic approach to navigating complex privacy issues. 

As the global privacy landscape continues to evolve, Cheri keeps her finger on the pulse of privacy laws and regulatory developments and applies technical knowledge to help her clients solve legal and policy issues surrounding personal data processing. Known to exceed customer expectations, clients consistently praise Cheri’s strong privacy law experience along with her results-driven “roll-up-your-sleeves” approach and timely delivery of first-class work product.

Prior to launching her private practice, Cheri oversaw privacy at the ad tech company MediaMath, Inc. as Associate General Counsel, Privacy while the GDPR and CCPA came into effect. She was responsible for ensuring the company’s privacy compliance while enabling business innovation. Similar to her client engagements today, she helped the company navigate privacy laws, regulations, and self-regulatory guidelines. Cheri worked with business teams to identify and mitigate real-time legal risks and define technical requirements for compliance with relevant privacy laws and industry best practices. She also contributed to key CCPA industry guidance and legal frameworks through her participation with self-regulatory groups. 

Cheri began her legal career at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, where she gained a broad range of corporate transactional and litigation experience counseling clients in a variety of industries regarding evolving privacy, data security, intellectual property, corporate transactional and commercial issues. She partnered with leadership in the Technology & IP Transactions Group to build out the privacy function as a regular part of the services. Cheri’s time as a Secondee to Panasonic Corporation in Osaka, Japan brought an international dimension to her portfolio, with first-hand experience translating intellectual property, privacy, and other aspects of U.S. law to global clients based outside the US.  

Cheri holds a JD from Fordham University School of Law and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. She is admitted to practice in the States of Georgia and New York.