Srikant Mikkilineni
Director and senior counsel of global privacy and data protection, Vontier
Age: 39
Wife: Krystal Mikkilineni
Children: Ahsha and Alyla
Reasons he is a Forty: Srikant is director and senior counsel, global privacy and data protection at Vontier, a publicly traded global mobility technology company with over $3 billion in annual revenue, more than 150 global offices and over 8,500 team members. In 2022, Srikant ran for and won a special election to become a Clive City Council member. He is an alumnus and member of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, the leading national organization for leadership diversity among the legal profession. Srikant serves on the legal advisory board of the leading international privacy professional organization – the International Association of Privacy Professionals. He volunteers for the Chrysalis Foundation, specifically Men for Chrysalis, which strives to educate and encourage men to support women and girls in our community.
What are your goals in your role at your company? My goals at Vontier are to modernize data privacy and governance practices to help drive further success of the numerous business units by creating automated processes and making tools available through novel platforms. I look to standardize disparate business and disparate global regulatory requirements to create lean/agile privacy programs.
What are your goals for your community involvement? As a Clive council member, my goals include increasing community outreach and bringing more voices to strategic initiatives; increasing Clive’s capabilities in cybersecurity and privacy along with technology access for community members; and continuing Clive’s history of sustainability efforts and increasing investments in new areas of sustainability.
What's your biggest passion, and why? Continuous learning. I've always strived to learn something new every day, in both breadth and depth, in as many subjects as possible. My favorite subjects are technology (specifically computer hardware and networking), cars, building-design and current affairs. Continuous learning is essential to developing into the best version of yourself.
What is it that drives you? I am driven to help create the best communities possible for my kids, and everyone’s kids, to grow up in. More personally, I am driven by solving challenging, fulfilling problems for my clients/employers while being able to give my kids opportunities to create their definitions of success as they develop.
What are your future aspirations? In my legal/business career, I continue to champion initiatives around strategic partnerships with the businesses, expanding my chief privacy officer-like responsibilities or moving to a general counsel and/or strategic adviser position. For our communities, I will continue to work to enhance Clive’s reputation as an environmental, social and governance leader.
Three hobbies: Home design and smart-home/audio/video system design (e.g., home theaters); building computers and enterprise networks; working on hobby cars.
Fun fact: Srikant has always been curious. At 2, he tried sticking an apple in a VCR to see what would happen (it broke). About a year later he took the VCR apart and repaired it. He built his first computer at the age of 5 and his first subzero cryo-computer when he was 13.
One word to describe you: Pioneering.
What is your wish for the Central Iowa business community? For businesses to further invest in the development of their teams to prepare them for technology-driven transitions while also investing in Central Iowa’s position as a technology leader to further attract leading-edge companies and talent.
What's one piece of advice that you would give to a young professional? Find ways to give back to your community as early in your career as possible. Volunteer for challenging assignments and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t get caught up in existing processes, be an entrepreneur, create your own path by really listening to customers'/clients' problems and addressing them.
What is one issue you would like to see Central Iowa leaders address? Iowa was once known for high-quality education. We need to achieve this again so we can grow the next generation of talent/industry here in Iowa and further our ranks as a top state, as well as attract new and retain existing talent. This can be done by refocusing our community efforts on advanced public school education, especially STEM topics, education based in fact, and teaching critical thinking skills to reestablish Iowa as an education leader.
Anything else you haven't addressed that people must know about you? I’m actually a pretty introverted person and I'm a natural fit for the privacy industry as I’ve always been fascinated by the potential of data and understood the importance of data access and use even before the privacy industry grew to the industry it is today. It’s important to maintain control over your data because it’s what ultimately gives you your own agency, especially in the digital world.