LEAD Network Privacy Notice

Dated 17 June 2024

LEAD Network is a non-profit and volunteer-led organisation, run by and for our members, women and men. We value every individual for their unique perspective. With a focus on promoting gender equality, we strive for the advancement of women of every race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, educational background, national origin, religion, physical ability, and lifestyle.

Your privacy is extremely important to LEAD Network and we are fully committed to providing you with clear and transparent information about how we use your personal data. We will:

  • clearly specify our purposes before we process personal data;
  • ask for you consent to process your personal data (in cases where this is required);
  • take appropriate security measures to protect your personal data and demand the same from parties who process personal data on our behalf;
  • respect your right to access, rectify or delete your personal data;
  • only use your personal data for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes.

Please contact our Chief Operating Officer via email operations[@]theleadnetwork.net or at LEAD Network, Keizersgracht 241, 1016 EA Amsterdam if you have any questions.

Information we collect about you when you use our website or Member Platform

You do not need to give us any information about yourself to view the LEAD Network website. When you access the website, our webserver logs your Internet Protocol (IP) address (a unique set of numbers that identifies one or more devices on a computer network), browser identifier and the time of access.

We use Google Analytics-cookies on our website and do not use any other Google services in combination with the Google Analytics-cookies.

Our website contains links to other third-party websites, as well as social media websites including (but not limited to) LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Vimeo; however, we do not control the privacy practices of such websites. For further information, you should refer to the respective website’s Privacy Notice.

Our website provides access to some other services, including the option for individuals to become a Member or register for events (via the Member Platform) or to contact us for information on specific topics, including but not limited to, Volunteering, Membership, Education Programmes, Chapters, or Signing the CEO Gender Parity Pledge.

Our legal reasons for processing your personal data

We will only process information about you when we have a lawful reason to do so. When we process your information, we rely upon one of the following lawful reasons:

  • To comply with a legal obligation;
  • To perform a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract with you;
  • To protect your vital interests or those of another individual;
  • When it is in our legitimate interests or those of another third party, providing that these interests are not overridden by your own interests and rights; and
  • With your consent.

Special categories of personal data

Special categories of personal data are a category of information that is more sensitive and requires greater protection. None of the information we process falls into this category.

How we use your information for contractual purposes

When you register as a LEAD Network Member, we may need to process your information because it is necessary to provide a service. This includes:

  • Confirming that you have signed up for the service and to inform you of arrangements relating to that service.
  • Confirming that you comply with any registration/entry requirements and terms and conditions, including notifying you of any specific changes.
  • Processing payments or sending you receipts as required.

Examples of LEAD Network services include:

a) Creating a Member Profile

When you register as a Member of LEAD Network, we will set up your profile in the Member Platform using your email address as your username. We will use your information to provide you with access to our core Member services and any essential service messages by email. Any communications will be relevant, timely and not excessive. Your email address will not be made visible to other Members.

When you register to become a LEAD Network, we need to collect the following information about you. This information is essential for us to provide your membership:

  • First name
  • Last name
  • Company
  • Professional email address
  • How you discovered LEAD Network
  • Location (country or region)

Your account is web-based so when you log in, the system keeps a record of your Internet Protocol (IP) address (a unique set of numbers that identifies one or more devices on a computer network), browser identifier and the time of access.

We will then collect the following information about you at the point at which you activate your membership:

  • Birth date
  • Gender
  • Company name
  • Company type (i.e. CPG/Manufacturer, Retailer/Wholesaler etc.)
  • Job title
  • Functional area
  • Management level
  • D&I responsibility (within your company)

You may also provide the following information to within your Member Profile if you wish:

  • Profile picture
  • LinkedIn profile URL
  • Nationality
  • Personal email address
b) Event registration

You should not attend a LEAD Network virtual, hybrid or in-person event without first becoming a LEAD Network Member and therefore providing us with the personal data required to activate your Member Profile.

Upon registering for an event via the Member Platform, you will be asked to provide the following information:

  • First name
  • Last name
  • Email address
  • Company

This information will be used to send you a confirmation email containing the joining instructions for the event.

c) Responding to your questions, requests and support needs you raise in person or by telephone, email or letter or through our social media accounts.

If you contact us requesting specific information, we will respond to you using the contact information we hold.

We may compile anonymous statistical reports showing information like the number and type of query and how they have been resolved. Occasionally we will use information provided to develop case studies for learning and development purposes. We will be very careful to ensure that any information that could identify a person will be removed or changed to preserve anonymity.

d) Monitoring the effectiveness of our communications and IT systems.

We monitor whether our electronic communications are received and opened. We also use your IP address to analyse the number of users who are accessing the IT systems at any one time and the types of devices being used. This information helps us to make improvements to our systems and communications. We would not normally use IP addresses to identify individuals except if this is deemed to be necessary to investigate problems or potential misuse of the system.

e) Understanding Member needs and monitoring the nature and level of engagement.

We need to understand how our Members engage with us to help develop and monitor our strategy and develop our services.

f) Gathering Member insights and seeking feedback about our services.

We regularly invite Members to participate in surveys to help us understand their needs and experiences with LEAD Network. For example, if you attend one of our events or participate in one of our education programmes, we may ask you to provide your views on this experience which we will use to improve this service. For example, we often use Microsoft Forms so we can gather your feedback electronically. We will use your email address to send you a link to the survey and you can choose whether to respond. You can provide this information to us anonymously but if you would like us to contact you about your feedback, you can provide your name and contact details.

g) Recognising the contribution of LEAD Network Volunteers.

We like to recognise and honour the efforts made by our Volunteers. For example, we hold an annual Awards Ceremony and invite Members to make nominations. We will use the information provided to prepare a shortlist and select the winners who will be contacted by email.

h) Auto-assigning you to relevant Groups in the Member Platform

To ensure that you get the most from your membership, we will use information provided by you to assign you to specific Groups that may be of interest or relevance within the Member Platform. For example:

  • Your Location determines which Geographical Chapter Group you are assigned to.
  • Your Functional area determines which Functional Chapter Group you are assigned to.
  • Your Birth date determines whether you are assigned to the NextGen Chapter Group.
  • Your Company name determines which Partner Company Group you are assigned to, and whether you are given exclusive access to the DEI Content Library.
  • Your Company name, in addition your internal DEI responsibilities determines whether you are assigned to the DEI Community Group

Marketing and service communications

We use our Member Platform (powered by Hivebrite) to send email communications.

With your permission, we will use your email address to send you the latest news and information about LEAD Network that we believe may be of interest to you and in accordance with your stated preferences.

By looking at your role and Member Profile as well as any other relevant personal information you have provided, we can identify news, events and services from LEAD Network that are most likely to be most relevant and will meet your needs as a Member.

From time to time, we will send service communications. The purpose of these may include:

  • Informing you of planned system outages.
  • Reminding you who to contact in case of a problem.
  • Checking that your Member Profile is accurate and up to date.
  • Providing you with information and course materials for a programme you are enrolled in.
  • Informing you of changes to our Privacy Notice or Member Platform Terms of Use.

When we send you any communications, we monitor whether you have opened the communication and clicked on any included links. This will enable us to track and analyse your level of engagement/interest in the communication we are sending you and will provide us with further insight on what type of communications are most of interest to you.

If you agree to marketing, and later change your mind, you can opt out at any point, by amending your preferences in your Member Profile. Alternatively, you can email operations[@]theleadnetwork.net. Please note that you may still receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences, but this will stop as soon as our systems are updated.

Other lawful reasons for processing information about you

We may need to process information about you to comply with a legal or statutory obligation. This includes but is not limited to:

  • auditing, compliance and administration practices; and
  • to maintain records of amendments to consents and to create suppression lists to ensure people who object to processing are excluded from the relevant processing activity.

When we share information about you

We will not share any information you have provided without your consent, unless there is a legal or other legitimate reason to do so, or it is necessary to provide the service you have requested.

Where it is necessary to share your personal information, we will limit the personal data that we share to the minimum required to provide the service and the provider will only be able to use personal data for the specific purposes for which it was shared.

Providing personal data to third parties

Service Providers

We may share your personal data with the following third-party service providers, but do not, under any circumstances, share it with other companies or organisations, unless we are required to do so by law:

  • Career Angels – for the purpose of providing Chapter Members with access to a localised career development programme.
  • Hivebrite (Member Platform & Mobile App provider) – for the purpose of hosting and managing our Member database, sending Member communications and facilitating event registration.
  • HubSpot (Partner Relationships Platform provider) – for the purpose of managing our Partner database & sending Partner communications.
  • Independent coaches – for the purpose of providing Switzerland Chapter Members with access to a localised coaching programme.
  • Independent photographers / videographers – for the purpose of capturing photos & footage at LEAD Network events.
  • Kingmakers – for the purpose of providing Poland Chapter Members with access to a localised Mentoring Programme.
  • Mentorloop – for the purpose of facilitating the LEAD Network Mentorship Programme.
  • Utopia – for the purpose of delivering the LEAD Network Inclusive Leadership Development Programme.
  • vFairs (via K3.0 event management agency) – for the purpose of providing Members with access to the LEAD Network Annual Conference Platform and Mobile App, through which personal data (i.e. First Name, Last Name & Company) will be made visible to other participants for networking purposes.

We will never share your personal data with third party service providers without a Data Processing Agreement in place and we only work with those that are compliant with EU laws and regulations.

LEAD Network Volunteers

We may share basic personal data (limited to First name, Last name, Company, Job title) with LEAD Network Volunteers for the purpose of:

  • growing membership at Partner Company and Chapter level;
  • supporting the delivery of LEAD Network education programmes and offerings;
  • enriching the member networking experience; and
  • increasing virtual, hybrid and in-person event registrations and managing attendance.

How long we keep information about you

We will retain your personal data as long as is necessary to provide the services to which you have subscribed, or where we have another legitimate and lawful reason to do so. In addition to the retention periods highlighted in relevant areas of this notice, we may need to retain some information to comply with our legal obligations.

As the reason for retaining certain types of information varies, retention periods can vary significantly. Please contact our Chief Operating Officer if you require any further information on specific retention periods.

Transfers of data out of the EEA

We may transfer your personal information to third-party data processors who are based in countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). We use some US-based companies that provide services such as IT, communications and data analytics service such as Google Analytics. We only use US-based organisations that are self-certified as adhering to the EU-US Privacy Shield.

We will not transfer your information to any processors based in other countries outside the EEA unless there is a European Commission adequacy decision for the specific country to which the data is transferred, or where we can be certain that there are adequate safeguards provided for your information and individual rights standards that meet the GDPR requirements. Please contact our Chief Operating Officer if you require any further information relating to international transfers.

Security

We take the following security measures to reduce misuse of and unauthorised access to personal data:

  • We make use of secure connections (Secure Sockets Layer of SSL) to encrypt all information between you and our Member Platform when entering your personal data;
  • We regularly evaluate our security measures.
  • All Employees, Contractors and Volunteers that have access to personal data are requested to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
  • The number of Employees, Contractors and Volunteers that have access to your personal data is kept to an absolute minimum; only those that need the access to be able to provide you with the service your data was provided for, have access to it.
  • Employees, Contractors and Volunteers have no right to copy or use your personal data in any other way than for the purpose the data was provided for.
  • All Employees, Contractors and Volunteers are obliged to secure their workstation(s), laptop(s) and phone(s) with a password and must not store any of your personal data on local drives, in hard copy, or within personal cloud storage.
  • All Employees, Contractors and Volunteers are reminded of the importance and basic principles of GDPR compliance.

Your rights in respect of your personal data

Your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation include:

  • Right of access – You have the right to see the personal information we hold about you. This is called a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR). You can log in to your Member profile at any time to view the information that we hold about you. You can also request a copy of any other personal information that we hold by writing to our Chief Operating Officer.

  • Right to rectification – If we do hold information about you, you can ask us to correct or amend any inaccurate or incomplete information by contacting us in writing at the address below. We will either make the requested amendments or provide an explanation as to why we are not making changes.

  • Right to object and right to restriction of processing – If you object to processing, we will restrict the processing of your information for the purpose to which you are objecting whilst we review your objection.

  • Right to erasure – You have a right to request the deletion of your information in advance of our standard retention periods. We will delete this information unless there is a lawful reason for the information to be retained.

  • Right to data portability – This right has been introduced to make it easy to move someone’s personal data to a new service provider. The personal information must be transmitted in a structured, machine-readable and compatible electronic format.

  • Rights regarding automated decision-making, representation and compensation – You have the right not to be subjected to a decision that is based only on automated processing, including profiling.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact our COO using the contact details provided below.

While we hope to be able to resolve any concerns you have about the way that we are processing your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority if you believe your data has been processed in a way that does not comply with the GDPR or have any wider concerns about our compliance with data protection law.

How to contact us

We hope that you have found this information helpful but if you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Chief Operating Officer who will be pleased to help you.

Chief Operating Officer
LEAD Network
Keizersgracht 241
1016 EA Amsterdam

operations[@]theleadnetwork.net

(Note: in the event of COO absence, your enquiry will be escalated to our Chief Executive Officer)