My grandmother always says that “the head and the tail are the most difficult,” meaning that beginnings and ends take up a lot more energy and effort than anything else in between.

Think about it: We now take the European Union and its institutions for granted, but it took decades of what were international negotiations at the time to build the EU. The euro has been in our pockets for 15 years—so now that I think about it, some teenagers have actually never used pre-euro national currencies—and threats of member states leaving the Eurozone are met with a mixture of disbelief and alarm.     

To bring this back to a more privacy-related context, I think back to a few years ago when the notion of European harmonisation was at the same time a buzzword and a far-fetched aspiration—in equally nerdy parts. For every student looking to start a career in this now hip field that is privacy, there are data protection professionals who were asked one or both of the following questions at least once in their pre-Snowden careers: “No, seriously, what do you do for a living?” and “Data protection … ?”

As I embark on a new personal journey that is going to keep me on my toes probably until the end of my days—they say it’s the most difficult job in the world—with a heavy heart I also say goodbye to the IAPP, which gave me the amazing opportunity of starting IAPP Europe, now an established point of reference for European privacy professionals. So, as I wait for my new beginning as a mother, I want to take this short letter as an opportunity to make my last day as IAPP Europe MD less difficult: Thank you European data protection nerds… I mean professionals!