Steffi Sesuraj (2026)

Steffi refused.

“For every feature you want to build,” Steffi explained, “I want you to ask: ‘Would I feel good if this person knew exactly how their data was used?’ If the answer makes you hesitate, we redesign.” Steffi Sesuraj

Her journey began not in a computer science lecture hall, but in a cramped, brightly lit legal library at a state university. Growing up as the daughter of two librarians, Steffi had learned early that information was powerful, but misused information was dangerous. She watched her mother navigate the early days of the internet, carefully teaching patrons which websites to trust and which to avoid. That childhood lesson became her life’s mission. Steffi refused

It was a radical shift. Suddenly, privacy wasn’t a legal shackle. It was a design challenge. The team started building “privacy by default” settings, simplified data download tools, and clear, cartoonish icons that told users exactly what data an app was using, in real time. She watched her mother navigate the early days

Steffi knew she had to change their minds. She didn’t march into the boardroom with legal threats. Instead, she brought a stack of index cards.

The backlash, when it came, was brief. The public, exhausted by corporate cover-ups, was stunned by the honesty. News headlines read: “Company Messes Up, Then Does the Unthinkable: Tells the Truth.” The stock dipped for a day, then soared as the company was hailed as a new gold standard for digital ethics.

Her big break came when a social media startup, reeling from a public breach of user location data, hired her as their first Data Protection Officer. The engineering team saw her as a “no” person—a roadblock. The CEO saw her as a necessary evil.