Marketing, Business Development and Alumni Privacy Notice

Last updated: May 2024

Introduction – Marketing, Business Development, and Alumni Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice describes how L.E.K. Consulting (“we” or “us”) Processes Personal Information that we collect from or about you and use when you register for and attend events and webinars that we may sponsor, access executive insights and other publications that we make available via our website, social media accounts, and other online platforms, sign up to one of our subscription services, fill out online or paper forms, or participate in the L.E.K. Consulting Alumni Network.

We depend on your trust to promote our brand, market our services to prospective clients, and maintain relationships with former L.E.K. personnel. We respect your privacy and are committed to treating your Personal Information appropriately. This Privacy Notice explains how protect Personal Information we Process in the context of our marketing, business development, and alumni relations activities. It also identifies the rights you have over your Personal Information and how to exercise them.

You can navigate this Privacy Notice using the table of contents below. Please review the glossary at the end of this Privacy Notice for definitions of important terms.

1. Important information and who we are

2. The data we collect from or about you

3. How do we collect Personal Information from you?

4. Use and disclosure of Personal Information

5. International transfers of Personal Information

6. Information Security

7. Data Retention

8. Your legal rights

9. Glossary
 

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This Privacy Notice aims to give you information on how L.E.K. Consulting collects and Processes your Personal Information. This Privacy Notice supplements our Cookies and Tracking Notice, which describes how our websites automatically collect Personal Information from you and what we do with it.

We do not typically collect data relating to persons under the age of 18. If you become aware that we have acquired Personal Information on any person under 18 years of age through any other method please inform us immediately via the contact details set out below. If we learn that we have acquired the personal information of someone under 18, we will delete it promptly.

Who we are

L.E.K. Consulting is made up of different legal entities which operate in various regions around the world. Our website describes where our offices are. L.E.K. Consulting’s legal entities include all those legal entities authorized to operate under the “L.E.K. Consulting” brand through our global network in the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific regions (the “L.E.K. Consulting Group”). When we mention "L.E.K. Consulting" or “L.E.K.”, "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Notice, we are referring to the relevant company in the L.E.K. Consulting Group responsible for deciding the nature and scope of our Processing of your Personal Information. We operate and share between the L.E.K. Consulting Group entities a global database of primary research sources as well as of other professionals, experts and information providers but will let you know which entity or entities are Processing your data in our communications with you. Please note that you may be contacted by more than one L.E.K. Consulting Group entity.

All questions in relation to this Privacy Notice, including any requests to exercise your rights, should be directed to the data privacy manager using the details set out below.

Contact details

If you wish to ask questions, make requests, or file complaints about how we Process your Personal Information, you can contact our privacy office at:

L.E.K. Consulting
Attn: Legal
75 State Street, 19th Floor
Boston, MA 02109
Toll Free Telephone: +1-833-535-0732
Email: dataprivacymanager@lek.com

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to make a complaint to regulators with jurisdiction over local L.E.K. Consulting’s Group entities if you are not satisfied with our privacy office’s response.

Changes to the Privacy Notice and your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the Personal Information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your Personal Information changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

Our communications with you and our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. This may include surveys sent by L.E.K. Consulting’s Group entities or on behalf their behalf by survey provider firms or other respondent information gathering software or tools. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the Privacy Notice of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect from or about you

Personal information means any information that we can use to identify or describe you, whether directly or when combined with other data we could reasonably access. We may acquire (through direct collection, by creating it, or from a third party), use, store and transfer within L.E.K. Consulting different kinds of Personal Information about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data includes personal information we collect directly from you like your professional title, first name, maiden name, last name, gender, job title, qualifications, and experience; and information that identifies the devices and browsers you use to access our Website as well as the information collected by your browser such as approximate geographic location.
• Contact Data includes postal addresses, email address and telephone numbers (fixed line and mobile numbers) both of a corporate or personal nature.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences as well as information that you may provide to us when registering for events we sponsor such as whether you have dietary restrictions due to your personal beliefs or health conditions and whether you require accessibility accommodations.
• Profile Data includes your username and password where you have created one; information about marketing and business development activities we have directed at you; information you provide us by responding to our marketing activities like accessing publications or signing up for events; any preferences you provide to us through feedback, survey or interview responses, or other interactions while navigating or interacting with our Website; Identity Data; and advertising profiles that collect information about how you use our Website, the content you access, and information that our service providers create to determine your potential interests and personal characteristics.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website or how you interact with us such as your responses to event invitations or downloads of articles or publications.

We also Process your Personal Information to create, use, and share Aggregated Data derived from your Personal Information but that can no longer identify or describe you either directly or in combination with other information that we reasonably have access to.

Because Aggregated Data is no longer considered Personal Information, we may Process it for any legitimate business purpose. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

Processing Sensitive Personal Information

We host events that may provide food and beverages to attendees. When you register for one of these events, you may choose to inform us of any dietary restrictions you may have. We consider this type of Profile Data to be Sensitive Personal Information and will use it only for the purposes of providing you with refreshments that are consistent with your dietary restrictions. When we share this information with our service providers such as caterers and venue hosts, we prohibit them from using information about your dietary restrictions for any purpose other than providing you with refreshments that are consistent with your needs.

If you fail to provide Personal Information

Where we need to collect personal data, for the purposes of communicating with you, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How do we collect Personal Information from you?

We use different methods to collect personal data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Marketing Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by use of our website, post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes Personal Information you provide when you:
  • engage, or enquire about, our services
  • request marketing information to be sent to you
  • complete contact forms either manually or on the L.E.K. website, including alumni registration
  • provide us with a business card
  • enter a competition, promotion or survey
  • provide feedback
  • send us email
  • complete an L.E.K. Leaver form (for firm alumni)
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive or collect personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
  • Technical Data from analytics and email subscription providers such as Clevertouch, DotMailer, LinkedIn, 9Lenses, BrightTALK, Salesforce Account Engagement (formerly Pardot), Salesforce, Google Analytics, New Relic and ShareThis
  • Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as LinkedIn, Companies House, Zoominfo, trade associations and publications or corporate or personal websites
  • Profile Data from Adform, a global digital advertising company that provides us with real-time programmatic marketing automation services
• Combining with Identity, Usage, and Profile Data. When you provide us certain types of Identity Data like your business contact information, we combine that information with data we have collected from and about the devices you use to access our websites and the content you interact with on it to learn more about which L.E.K. services you are most likely to be interested in. You can learn more about how we Process this type of information by reviewing our Cookies and Tracking Notice.

4. Use and disclosure of Personal Information

We use Personal Information Processed under this Privacy Notice and disclose it to third parties as described in the table below. If you live in a country that provides multiple legal bases for Processing, we will identify that legal basis in the table.

We will also disclose your Personal Information to: (a) third party service providers identified in the table below; (b) government agencies where required to do so by law; (c) our legal representatives and courts or other tribunals to establish, exercise or defend legal claims or threatened legal claims; (d) prospective purchasers of our business or assets; or (e) prospective acquisition or merger targets. We do not sell your Personal Information. 

We will obtain your informed consent to disclose your Personal Information to third parties not described in the table above.

5. International transfers of Personal Information

When we disclose your Personal Information to third parties such as L.E.K. affiliates and our service providers, we may transfer that Personal Information to countries other than the ones where we originally acquired it. Where required by law, we employ legal mechanisms designed to ensure that our recipients provide adequate safeguards to protect your Personal Information such as data transfer agreements that incorporate standard contractual clauses that regulators have made available for this purpose. For transfers within L.E.K. Consulting Group of companies, we also ensure each office complies with our internal policies regarding Personal Information.

6. Information Security

We use administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to prevent, detect, and respond to unauthorized or unlawful Processing of Personal Information and engage independent, external auditors to assess our information security practices against well known, generally accepted standards for information security management. In addition, we limit access to your Personal Information to those persons with a legitimate business reason for access who are subject to a duty of confidentiality and who have successfully completed appropriate training.

We have put in place procedures to deal with Personal Information breaches and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Despite these precautions, L.E.K. cannot guarantee the security of the information collected from third parties or transmitted through our website or guarantee the security of emails. Therefore, we assume no liability for any disclosure of information collected arising from the acts of third parties or other events, acts or omissions outside of our control including interruption of service or any issues related to the use of the internet.

7. Data Retention

L.E.K. will only retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including, where applicable, for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for Personal Information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements.

We keep basic information about you for six years after you cease to use our services or otherwise cease communication with us unless applicable law requires us to delete it sooner or retain it longer.

At the end of the retention period we may anonymize your Personal Information so that no longer links back to you and continue to use it for research or statistical purposes indefinitely.

8. Your legal rights

Laws applicable where you live as well as our own internal policies give you rights over how we Process your Personal Information. These rights include the right to:

1. Know what categories of Personal Information we Process; the specific types of Personal Information we have acquired from or about you; where we acquired it from; what we do with it and who we disclose it to; how to contact us; and where applicable the legal basis for our Processing. This Privacy Notice provides the relevant information.
2. Receive copies of your Personal Information that we retain in commonly used human and machine-readable formats.
3. Object to or opt out of Processing your Personal Information for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice.
4. Give prior informed consent to any Processing of your Personal Information not previously disclosed to you in this Privacy Notice.
5. Correct any Personal Information that we hold that is no longer accurate.
6. Ask us to restrict our use of your Personal Information to:
   1. The specific purposes we identified when we first acquired it; 
   2. Securely storing your Personal Information where you believe that we have violated applicable law but do not want us to delete it; 
   3. Where you need us to retain data to exercise legal claims you may have or defend against claims that may be brought against you; and 
   4. Where you have chosen to object to our Processing of your Personal Information and we are evaluating the extent to which we will fulfill your request.
7. Ask us to transfer your Personal Information to you or a third party of your choice information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
8. Withdraw your consent to any Processing activities that we have engaged in with your informed consent.
9. Not face discrimination for choosing to exercise your rights.
10. Request deletion of your Personal Information subject to exceptions provided by applicable law.
11. Authorize a third-party representative such as but not limited to your legal counsel to exercise your rights on your behalf.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your Personal Information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your Personal Information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that Personal Information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We will respond to a legitimate request in the timeframe allotted under applicable law.

9. Glossary

INFORMED CONSENT
Any freely given, specific, and active indication that you agree to processing of your personal information after receiving information about: who we are; our intended use cases; how long we will retain your personal information; any third parties who will process your personal information as part of our use cases; and how to withdraw your consent at any time.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Any data that identifies or describes you, your communications with others, your movements and surroundings, and your behaviors online and in the real world. Data are personal information if identifies you directly, such as your name or contact information, or indirectly when combined with other information that we have or can reasonably access, such as the answers you provide to survey or interview questions. Where applicable law defines personal information (also known as “personal data” or “personally identifiable information”), any data that meets such a definition is also personal information.

SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION
Personal Information which, if misused or lost, may expose you to increased risk of harm due to their nature or require us to notify affected individuals, regulators, or the public. Examples of sensitive personal information includes certain identifiers like government ID numbers and bank account credentials information about your finances; criminal history; racial or ethnic origin; political opinions; religious, philosophical and other deeply held personal beliefs; trade union membership; genetic data; biometric identifiers like your fingerprints; and data concerning your health, sex life, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

PROCESSING
Any action we take that affects your personal information whether manual or automated. For the purposes of this Privacy Notice, processing includes acquisition of your personal information; inviting you to join L.E.K. Expert Platform; creating and maintaining your L.E.K. Expert Platform profile; inviting you to participate in our market research activities; sending you surveys or setting up interviews; conducting interviews and collecting survey responses; analyzing your responses to our research questions to create work product; handling your privacy requests such as to correct or delete your personal information; and disclosing your identity to our clients if they request it and you give your informed consent to the disclosure.

LEGAL BASIS
The steps we have taken under applicable law to ensure that we are processing your personal information lawfully. In most places, our legal basis is your acknowledgment of this Privacy Notice and, where relevant, the L.E.K. Expert Platform terms and conditions. Where applicable law where you live provides for them, we rely on these legal bases instead:

• Exercising our contractual rights and performing our contractual obligations where you have agreed to join or are considering whether to join L.E.K. Expert Platform and participate in our market research activities.
• Our legitimate business interest in identifying individuals who have expertise that is relevant to our market research needs, inviting them to join L.E.K. Expert Platform and participate in surveys and interviews, and conducting market research activities for the benefit of L.E.K. Consulting and our clients. When processing your personal information under this basis, we conduct risk assessments to ensure that our interest is legitimate; that we need to process your personal information to achieve it; and that we have appropriately considered and where necessary mitigated the impact to your interests, rights, and freedoms.
• Where we are required to process your personal information by applicable law.

THIRD PARTIES
Internal Third Parties
Other companies in the L.E.K. Consulting Group acting as joint controllers or processors and who are based in those offices specified in our website and provide IT and system administration services and undertake leadership reporting.

External Third Parties

Market research companies, whether as suppliers or programmers used for the hosting and administration of the database including the collection of data on our behalf and including the administering of surveys or other research and interview tools or information collection methods.

• Banking and payment and clearing service providers may be required by us to process honoraria payments to you where these apply.
• Service providers acting as processors based in any jurisdiction who provide IT and system administration services.
• Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers who provide services to us and, in certain instances, our clients.
• Tax authorities, regulators and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

ANNEX A
L.E.K. Consulting Group entities who may process your personal information include:

• L.E.K. Consulting LLC
• L.E.K. Consulting LLP
• L.E.K. Consulting GmbH
• L.E.K. Consulting S.A.R.L.
• L.E.K. Consulting Sp. z o.o.
• L.E.K. Consulting Australia Pty Ltd
• L.E.K. Consulting India Private Limited
• L.E.K. Consulting Limited
• L.E.K. (Brasil) Participações S.A
• Hi Mum Said Dad Ltd

Please note that this list is subject to change from time to time and that there may be instances in which we share personal information as described in this Privacy Notice with associated entities of the entities listed.