Pádraig O´Leary, PhD

Pádraig O’Leary, Ph.D., is CEO and Co-Founder of TrustWorks and serves as the company’s Global Data Protection Officer. His work combines privacy operations, AI governance, data strategy and software engineering.

Before TrustWorks, Pádraig was Head of Data at Banked and Co-Founder and CEO of Emotion Reader, an emotion-analytics company acquired in 2018. His earlier career included academic and research positions at the University of Adelaide, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, the University of Limerick and Lero, where he published research in software engineering and process modelling.

He brings a research-led and operational perspective to building privacy and AI governance programmes that connect legal, security, engineering and business teams.

• Ph.D. in Computer Software Engineering, University of Limerick
• Former Assistant Professor and academic researcher in software engineering
• Published researcher affiliated with Lero and the University of Limerick
• Global Data Protection Officer at TrustWorks

• Executive profiles published by The Org and CB Insights
• Guest on the Masters of Privacy podcast
• Research profile and publications indexed by ResearchGate and the University of Limerick
• Featured in TrustWorks interviews and industry discussions on privacy operations and AI governance

• Speaker at Privacy Symposium 2026 in Venice on the DPO’s role in the next phase of EU data governance
• Winner of the Google Cloud AI Booster Program 2024 with TrustWorks
• Expert panel member on AI at FutureScope 2018
• Recipient of an Irish Research Council New Foundations Grant
• Accepted the 2024 PICCASO Award for Most Impactful Data Privacy Product on behalf of TrustWorks
• Moderator and speaker at TrustWorks and ADPO privacy events