Rachel Nyswander Thomas is Chief Operating Officer of the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), the leading global initiative fighting criminal activity and increasing trust in the digital advertising industry. She oversees TAG’s work in setting industry standards, facilitating the sharing of threat intelligence, and promoting brand safety, as well as its business operations. She serves concurrently as Chairwoman of the Brand Safety Institute’s Board of Advisors and as an Executive in Residence at Progress Partners.Rachel has spent her career studying, creating, and implementing digital policy in the business, non-profit, and academic sectors. Prior to joining TAG, she served as Vice President of Advocacy & Accountability at the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), advocating before Congress and federal agencies on behalf of thousands of business and nonprofit organizations. She served concurrently as Executive Director of the Data-Driven Marketing Institute, facilitating academic research on how the use of consumer data shapes industry, society, and the economy. Before joining DMA, Rachel led data privacy compliance for The McGraw-Hill Companies, auditing worldwide publishing operations and managing a global corps of 80 Privacy Officials in more than 40 countries.Rachel earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University. She is a Certified International Privacy Professional and was among the first in the advertising industry to become a Certified Brand Safety Officer. Her scholarship on cybersecurity public-private partnerships has been published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Thomson Reuters Press.

Since 1999 I’ve been working on the front line of digital advertising in an industry-facing capacity first at Yahoo! and later as President of AdMonsters. I’ve consistently built industry consensus from senior leaders and driven innovation through collaboration. I’m a frequent speaker, panelist, and chair at conferences including Digiday, IAB, dmexco, AOP (UK), Admangerforum, AdMonsters and corporate-operated events. I serve as an advisor and investor for advertising and marketing technology firms and am an active partner at AtlanticLeap. Recent clients include DigitasLBi, The Guardian News & Media, The Media Trust, Adbrain, Adform, Orange/FranceTelecom, along with many others.