The Engage team and partner network
Engage is senior-led and team-delivered. Every client engagement is led personally by a senior practitioner, supported by a named partner network for specialist work that sits outside the core Data Protection Officer (DPO) scope.
Lead practitioner
Julian Gage, Founder and Lead DPO
15 plus years in privacy program leadership.
Prior in-house privacy roles at Coinbase (US-listed crypto exchange, scaled privacy program through public listing), Robinhood (FinTech, retail brokerage, privacy operations across product and growth), Amazon (multi-jurisdiction privacy at scale), Medtronic (medical devices, HIPAA and GDPR coordination), AbbVie (pharmaceuticals, clinical and patient data), IKEA (retail, EU GDPR), and Hopin (events, COVID-era privacy build).
Former IAPP Netherlands Chapter Chair.
Certifications: CIPP/E (Certified Information Privacy Professional, Europe), CIPM (Certified Information Privacy Manager), CIPP/US (Certified Information Privacy Professional, US), CIA (Certified Internal Auditor).
Speaker and panelist: IAPP events, OneTrust PrivacyConnect, US-ASEAN Business Council, Data Protocol Privacy Engineering.
Named partner network
For specialist work that sits outside the core DPO scope, we bring in named partners so clients get full coverage without paying for a permanent in-house bench.
Breach and incident response
Nicholas Clayton brings regulator-side incident experience. Available on standby for clients on DPO Premium tier, with priority 24/7 response. Handles 72-hour GDPR Article 33 notification work, regulator communications, and post-incident remediation.
External legal counsel
We coordinate with privacy law firms across EU, UK, and US jurisdictions for matters that require attorney-client privilege, litigation support, or complex cross-border data transfer counsel. Specific firms vary by jurisdiction and matter type.
Surge capacity for enterprise deals, audits, and M&A
Cleared senior practitioners available for short-burst work where client volume spikes. Use cases include enterprise vendor questionnaire campaigns, investor or acquirer due diligence, regulatory audits.
Cybersecurity coordination
Vetted vCISO and penetration testing partners for clients who need privacy and security expertise jointly.
How the team model works in practice
You get one named lead practitioner as your day-to-day contact, not a rotating consultant pool.
For specialist work (breach response, legal advice, M&A), the lead practitioner brings in the relevant named partner with you involved in introductions.
If the lead practitioner is unavailable (holiday, illness), a named senior practitioner from the partner bench covers urgent matters with a 4-hour response SLA.
No junior hand-offs. The work stays at senior level.
Every engagement is covered by professional indemnity and cyber insurance.
Why this model
The trade-off in the outsourced DPO market is well-known: large firms offer scale and team redundancy but assign work across a wide consultant pool, often at junior levels. Small solo consultants offer senior expertise but create single-point-of-failure risk.
Engage's senior-led, team-delivered model addresses both. You get senior expertise on every engagement, plus a partner bench for continuity and specialist depth.
External references
IAPP certifications: https://iapp.org/certify/
EDPB guidelines on DPOs: https://edpb.europa.eu/our-work-tools/our-documents/guidelines/