Collin J. Hite, Hirschler Fleischer, a Professional Corporation
Collin Hite is a partner and the practice leader of the Insurance Recovery team in Hirschler Fleischer. He handles insurance recovery and coverage litigation nationally in the areas of business interruption, cyber/data breaches, construction, business torts, products liability, director’ and officers’ liability, employee dishonesty, intellectual property, environmental and bad faith matters. He also regularly conducts audits of insurance programs for Fortune 500 companies to middle market entities. He routinely speaks and writes on corporate insurance issues, including a regular column with Virginia Business magazine.

Mr. Hite previously founded and led the insurance coverage practice at McGuireWoods LLP for ten years. Before that, he was insurer-side counsel at Sands Anderson. He was also an assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Florida. Mr. Hite earned a B.A., cum laude, from Boston College and a J.D. from Southern Methodist University School of Law.

Edward R. McNicholas, Sidley Austin LLP
Edward R. McNicholas is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of the international law firm of Sidley Austin LLP and a global coordinator of its Privacy, Data Security, and Information Law practice. His practice includes litigation and counseling relating to privacy and data protection, the law of the Internet, social media, and national security surveillance issues. He has been repeatedly recognized by Chambers both in the US and globally for his Privacy and Data Protection practice.

Mr. McNicholas previously served as an Associate Counsel to the President of the United States, where he advised senior White House staff regarding Congressional and grand jury investigations and worked on various complex civil litigation issues.

Mr. McNicholas is a frequent speaker and has written extensively on various privacy and other information law topics for numerous trade publications. Many of these articles are collected at http://www.sidley.com/infolaw. He is a graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, summa cum laude, and Harvard Law School, cum laude. While at Harvard, he served as an editor in the Supreme Court Office of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation from law school, Mr. McNicholas clerked for the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Harriet P. Pearson, Hogan Lovells US LLP
Harriet Pearson is a Partner at the global law firm Hogan Lovells. She advises clients on privacy and cyber security matters such as security incident response and remediation; cross-border data transfers; data risk assessments and mitigation strategies; policy development; transactional risk allocation; and legislative, regulatory and self-regulatory processes.

Ms. Pearson joined Hogan Lovells in 2012 from the IBM Corporation, where she most recently served as Vice President, Security Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer and led global legal, policy and compliance programs for privacy and data protection, cyber security and social media. One of the first and longest-serving Chief Privacy Officers in the Fortune 500, Ms. Pearson is an internationally recognized corporate privacy and data security pioneer. In 2007, the IAPP presented Ms. Pearson with its highest honor, the Vanguard Award, awarded annually to “the individual professional who best demonstrates outstanding leadership, knowledge and creativity in the field of privacy and data protection.” In 2012, the Executive Women’s Forum presented her with its Corporate Practitioner “Woman of Influence” award for her work in cyber security, privacy and risk management.

Ms. Pearson co-chairs the Georgetown University Cybersecurity Law Institute, advises the ABA President’s Task Force on Cybersecurity, and serves on the advisory boards of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Future of Privacy Forum. She previously served on the CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency and was a founding board member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

Ms. Pearson earned a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law (Order of the Coif) and a B.S.E., cum laude, from Princeton University. She resides in the Washington, D.C. area and is admitted to the D.C. Bar.