Jill L. Nissen, Esq.
President & Founder
Picture Jill Nissen

​Jill Nissen is an accomplished legal, policy and strategic business advisor with 30 years of experience helping technology companies navigate complex legal, business and public policy matters. Working in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., she has helped shape and address emerging issues at the intersection of technology, privacy, AI and emerging technologies, children’s online trust and safety, education technology, intellectual property and digital media. Jill serves on the Advisory Board of the Future of Privacy Forum and is a member of the EdSAFE AI Industry Council, where she serves as Co-Chair of the Transparency Working Group and helps lead industry efforts around practical AI transparency standards in education.  Jill has been selected by industry, NGOs and government to participate in high-level policy groups and multi-stakeholder initiatives, including being appointed in 2009 as one of 30 experts to the congressionally established Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG), on which she served from 2009–2010.  She also served on the Board of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) from 2008–2010.

Jill founded Nissen Consulting, P.C. in 2011 and today provides legal, policy and business strategy advice to technology companies, executives and senior management, including ClassDojo, Girls Who Code, Khan Academy and other education technology organizations. Her work spans privacy and privacy-by-design, AI and emerging technology, children’s online trust and safety, product development and review, public policy and stakeholder engagement, and strategic business matters. She advises clients on evolving federal and state privacy, student-data, AI and online-safety requirements—including COPPA, FERPA, state student privacy laws, age-appropriate design requirements and emerging children’s online-safety frameworks—and helps translate those requirements into practical product, policy and business strategies. Her current AI work also includes advising on AI transparency, responsible AI practices and emerging legislation affecting children and education, and contributing to industry standards and policy initiatives. Jill was selected by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to serve as a Fellow from 2017–2018 and as a consultant from 2018–2019, helping lead CZI’s education privacy strategy and policy efforts. 

Jill previously provided senior-level global privacy and product counsel to companies including Salesforce and Sojern, advising privacy, product and executive teams on complex data, advertising, mobile and location privacy matters. She served as Acting Chief Privacy Officer at Gigya from 2012–2014, advising company executives on global privacy matters and privacy-by-design and serving as a liaison to consumer privacy and online safety organizations. Jill also established and served on Gigya’s Privacy and Safety Advisory Board, bringing together leading privacy and online safety experts from the Future of Privacy Forum, Stanford University and ConnectSafely, and helped create the SocialPrivacy™ Certification Seal, which served as an industry trust framework for responsible collection and use of social data.

Prior to establishing Nissen Consulting, Jill served on Ning’s management team as Vice President and Chief Policy Officer and previously as Chief Intellectual Property and Policy Counsel.  She established and led Ning’s global policy and government relations function, developing its strategy, vision, internal and external protocols, and innovative best practices across global policy matters including privacy, children’s online safety, DMCA, content regulation, user-generated content, Section 230 and libel/defamation. Jill also managed Ning’s Policies & Abuse function, supporting a platform with more than 42 million registered users and 2 million social networks, and developed policy, operational and technology solutions for illegal and harmful content in coordination with executive and engineering teams, law enforcement, government agencies and organizations including NCMEC. She also acted as Chief Privacy Officer, setting company-wide privacy strategy and advising on national and international privacy, COPPA, product development, data practices and advertising.

Jill later served as Director of Business Affairs at Lucasfilm, providing legal, strategic and business advice to executives and senior management across the company’s online and digital initiatives. She advised on privacy, online safety, user-generated content, intellectual property, digital strategy and business development; managed complex contract and licensing negotiations; and served as the primary lawyer for Lucas Online. Her work included advising on the relaunch of StarWars.com and user-data strategies and establishing strategic social media initiatives, including the official Star Wars™ presence on Facebook and YouTube. Jill also acted as Chief Privacy Officer across all Lucasfilm divisions.

Jill also spent seven years at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she practiced in both the Corporate and Technology Transactions groups and served as a Senior Associate. Her practice focused on privacy, intellectual property, licensing and commercial transactions, with specialized expertise in Internet, media, entertainment and technology law. Jill advised clients on new business models, content distribution and rights, copyright and DMCA matters, online contracts and e-commerce, privacy issues including COPPA, and other Internet law matters. She structured and negotiated complex domestic and international technology transactions, including strategic alliances, joint ventures and other partnering arrangements, technology acquisitions and transfers, mergers and acquisitions, and licensing and commercial transactions. Her corporate practice also included advising executives and boards on strategic and legal matters, including corporate governance and fiduciary obligations. Jill began her legal career as a legal assistant at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C. while attending Georgetown University Law Center, where her work included drafting legal memoranda and briefs, preparing congressional testimony and legislative histories, and analyzing  proposed regulations.

Jill served on the Board of HandsOn Bay Area from 2006–2011 and on its Advisory Board from 2011–2013. HandsOn Bay Area is a nonprofit that creates, manages and leads volunteer projects benefiting hundreds of Bay Area nonprofit organizations, including Bay Area food banks, The Salvation Army, Ronald McDonald House and other community organizations.

Education

J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 1997
  • Articles Editor, Law and Policy in International Business 
  • Symposium Panel Chair: “Customs Regimes as Barriers to Trade” (1997)
  • Jill L. Nissen, Achieving a Balance Between Trade and the Environment: The Need to Amend the WTO/GATT to Include Multilateral Environmental Agreements, 28 Law & Policy in International Business (1997).
  • Studied abroad in Heidelberg, Germany and Florence, Italy (Summer 1995).

B.A., Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1993   
  • Dean's List
  • Member Kappa Alpha Theta sorority
  • Special Olympics Coach
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Memberships and Admissions
Jill was admitted to the California Bar in 1997.  She is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and all California state courts.   

Jill is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Email: [email protected]