Corporations are increasingly focused on creating principles for the ethical use of data throughout its entire life cycle. For Sharon Zezima, general counsel and chief data ethics officer of Atlanta-based marketing technology company Acoustic, that is an addition to her role as general counsel.

Zezima, who is based in San Francisco, said she took up the role because she wanted to create policies that would resonate with the different business functions, rather than having to tell them flatly how to comply with a patchwork of data privacy regulations.