AI governance from inside the public sector is consequential work. You are contributing to whether these technologies are developed and deployed responsibly, and that is what makes it engaging.
What does your role at the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) involve?
The EDPS is traditionally known for supervising how the EU institutions handle personal data. What fewer people know is that the AI Act broadened that mandate: the EDPS is now also the authority overseeing how those institutions develop and use AI systems.
My work sits on the AI side of that. I track policy and regulatory developments around AI systems and assess what they mean for the application of the AI Act. I prepare briefings, speaking points and background research for senior management on the AI Act and its international dimension, and on the technology itself. I also coordinate the AI Act Correspondents Network, which brings together more than 70 representatives from EU institutions, and I represent the EDPS at events and on mission abroad.
What do you enjoy most about your work at the EDPS?
I value working in an area where technological developments at the frontier have a tangible impact on people, and where the objective is to ensure those technologies are developed and used responsibly. These are consequential technologies, with the potential to change how public administrations work and how decisions affecting people are taken. Much of what we do has no established practice behind it, as the EU institutions are among the first public administrations required to apply binding rules to their own use of AI. Contributing to how that practice takes shape is what I enjoy most.
What opportunities have you had at the EDPS to learn, develop new skills or take on new challenges?
The AI domain evolves constantly. Technical concepts, policy developments and regulatory changes can all move within the same week, which means staying current is part of the job rather than something you do occasionally. I find that genuinely engaging.
The main skill I have developed is technical literacy. I came to this from a policy background, but this work has required me to understand how AI systems function well enough to assess what they mean in practice, including the risks they raise for individuals and for society more broadly.
How would you describe the working culture and how does it impact your daily work experience?
Approachable is the word I would use. The EDPS is small enough that you know colleagues across the institution, and both managers and more senior colleagues make themselves available when you need them.
I particularly appreciate the environment in my own team, in the AI unit. Colleagues circulate news and developments they think others will find relevant, and there is a channel for lighter things outside work too. It sounds minor, but it means you start the day among people you enjoy sharing things with.
For someone moving to Brussels from another country, what would you say makes the city a good place to live and work?
Brussels is not a city that makes you fall in love at first sight. It does it slowly. Most people you meet here came from somewhere else, and in the institutions you work every day with colleagues from other countries and other backgrounds. That we all arrived from elsewhere turns out to be a commonality we all share, one that cuts across culture and background. Gradually people make this their home.
What I like most is that it does not ask you to give up where you came from. The city becomes a bridge between your own culture and the one you find here.
What makes the EDPS a distinctive place to work?
What distinguishes the EDPS is the nature of its responsibility. It is the authority that supervises the EU institutions themselves, which places a particular obligation on the quality of its work: an institution that sets standards for others has to be beyond reproach in how it applies them to its own output.
That translates into a high standard of rigour in what we produce, and into a clear sense of why it matters. For someone early in their career, working somewhere that takes that obligation seriously provides an excellent opportunity to learn what good work looks like.