Richard is the co-founder and Managing Director of ELIAS Partnership, an independent advisory business focusing on data rights, data protection and data governance. ELIAS is approved by the Bar Standards Board to instruct barristers directly which means ELIAS has enjoyed six years of collaboration on the regulatory data challenges presented by the GDPR with Dean Armstrong KC. Dean is the leading legal authority on Digital, Cyber and Blockchain law in the UK, and is joint Head of Chambers at 36 Group in Grays Inn, London.
In 2015, Richard was a founder Member of the Board of Regents at the Loyalty Academy and is one of over 500 Certified Loyalty Marketing Practitioners (CLMP) in 41 countries around the world. Since 2008, Richard has also been a Partner at the Customer Strategy Network (CSN), the same year he was responsible for the launch of the loyalty programme which celebrated Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture.
ELIAS Partnership has experience of advising on some of the most challenging aspects of the GDPR, from facial recognition technology in retail to international data transfers in a post Schrems II world and the use of crypto assets. ELIAS also acts as an outsourced Data Protection Officer for a specialist healthcare diagnostics business and a technology company in the gambling sector. More recently, as the Data Protection Authorities across Europe emerge from their Covid induced hibernation, ELIAS has been actively engaged with the ICO on the interpretation of legitimate interests, special category data and the appropriate use of the “substantial public interest”.
Richard’s current work has a heavy focus on the lawful and unlawful use of personal data rights in the professional sports, arts and entertainment sectors. This involves advisory work to individuals who want to ensure the brands and businesses that wish to process their personal data are appropriately compensating them for the use of their data rights. A new asset class for personal data is emerging and here opportunity knocks for loyalty marketers.