The prestigious PICCASO Privacy Awards 2025 brought together leaders, innovators, and visionaries from across the data protection, privacy, and security landscape to celebrate excellence in the field.
Hosted by Matt Johnson, the evening recognised the most impactful contributions to privacy, data governance, and responsible innovation over the past year.
The awards, held at JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, on the 11th November honoured individuals and organisations driving positive change, promoting trust, and ensuring data ethics remain central to modern business practices.
Highlights from the Evening
The event opened with a powerful speech from Emma Martins, PICCASO, who remarked:
“Be proud of yourselves and each other. I am certainly hugely proud to be a part of this community”
What made the evening especially memorable was the mix of attendees: from SMEs and large multinational companies, to law firms, technology providers, recruiter networks and thought-leaders in the DE&I, AI ethics and children’s data safeguarding spheres. The breadth of categories alone speaks to how privacy has evolved—it’s no longer just a compliance task, but a multi-faceted strategic imperative that spans culture, technology, governance, recruitment, communications and beyond.
2025 PICCASO Privacy Awards Winners
Rising Star: SME – Innocent Paul, CEO, CoreDefense Limited
Rising Star: Large Company – Olivia Brown, Data Privacy Adviser, Asos
Outstanding DPO: SME – Liz Smith, Data Protection Officer, DataGuard
Outstanding DPO: Large Company – Ernst Oliver Wilhelm, Data Protection Officer, GFT Technologies SE
Best Privacy Culture Improvement Award – Veolia Data Protection Team
Best Privacy Programme Award – Qover SA
Bridging the Privacy and Security Gap Award – Thibault Meunier, Cloudflare
Sustainability and Privacy Initiative of the Year – Admiral Group
Data Governance & Record Management Programme of the Year – Portman Dentex
Law Firm of the Year – Stephenson Harwood
Most Innovative Platform/Software of the Year – The Guardian
Industry Network of the Year – Privacy Space
DE&I Leadership Excellence Award – Ito Onojeghuo, Head of Training and Consultancy, ALLNET Law
InfoSec Team of the Year – Capgemini Invent UK
Privacy Champion of the Year: SME – Eleonor Duhs, Bates Wells
Privacy Champion of the Year: Large Company – Natasha McAllister, Cognizant and Anne-Claire Dubois, Sony PlayStation
Compliance Champion: SME – Luke Beckley, Chief Compliance Officer, Hope4
Compliance Champion: Large Company – Odvar Bjerkholt, Principal Lawyer, BT Group
InfoSec Champion – Ira Goel, Founder and CEO, Gira Group
Cyber Security Team of the Year – NCC Group
Responsible AI & Data Ethics Initiative or Leadership: SME – Trilateral Research
Responsible AI & Data Ethics Initiative or Leadership: Large Company – Carly Thurgood, AI Privacy Governance Manager, Pax8 Inc
Safeguarding Children’s Data Award – Dolores Martyn, XpertDPO
Compliance Team of the Year – Dornan Engineering Ltd
Author / Creator of the Year – Serious Privacy Podcast
Inspiring Communications Award – Data Privacy Simplified
Most Innovative Recruiter of the Year – Jide Chinsman, ECB Star Group
ISO 27001 / ISMS – Team of the Year – Flo Health
Privacy Team of the Year: Public Company – Wales Accord on the Sharing of Personal Information (WASPI)
Privacy Team of the Year: Private Company – Boundless
A Night of Celebration and Collaboration
For winners, the recognition provided by PICCASO serves not only to underscore past achievements but also to shine a spotlight on where the industry is heading: more connected, more integrated, and more human-centric in its approach to data.
What This Means for the Industry
- Elevating privacy culture: With awards for ‘Best Privacy Culture Improvement’ and ‘Privacy Champion’, there is a clear message that culture and individual leadership matter just as much as technology and policy.
- Bridging domains: The ‘Bridging the Privacy and Security Gap’ award highlights the converging nature of privacy and security functions—an area where many organisations are now investing heavily.
- Ethics and AI: The inclusion of ‘Responsible AI & Data Ethics Initiative’ recognises that as AI systems proliferate, governance and ethics are central, not optional.
- Sustainability & social responsibility: A nod to sustainability and children’s data safeguarding reflect the growing recognition that privacy is part of wider ethical and societal concerns.
- Recognition across sectors and sizes: From SMEs to public companies; from software platforms to law firms—the awards show that privacy is relevant across all sectors and organisational sizes.
Looking Ahead
As we reflect on the 2025 winners, the focus now turns to how these leaders will influence the coming year. Organisations will watch for how these winners continue to push boundaries, implement new innovations and elevate privacy from a regulatory necessity to a source of competitive advantage and trust-building.
If you were inspired by this list of winners, now is the time to ask: how can your team make a difference in the same way? What can you learn from the leadership, programme design and ethical frameworks referenced by these winners? The next twelve months will no doubt offer many opportunities for growth, innovation and recognition.