Dr. Irena Georgieva is the founder and manager of PPG Lawyers. She is an attorney with more than fifteen years of experience in data protection and public procurement matters.

In the field of personal data protection and information security, Irena has extensive experience in advising her clients on some of the hottest topics nowadays – response to data breaches and cyber-attacks, complaints from data subjects, impact assessments, privacy by design, online store activities, data protection due diligence in M&A deals etc.

In the field of public procurement, her strength are the appeals against decisions on the announcement of procurements and the selection of a contractor, preparation of offers and communication with contracting authorities.

Irena graduated in law at Sofia University, Bulgaria (Master of Laws, 2003) and also has a post-graduate qualification in accountancy from the University of National and World Economy, Bulgaria (Software Accounting, 2005). She obtained a doctorate from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and defended her dissertation in public procurement law (PhD, 2015). In 2021 she became also a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM), accredited by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

She is a member of the Sofia Bar Association and the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), an academic member of the University of Groningen and a member of the Council of Women in Business in Bulgaria. Irena speaks Bulgarian, English and German.

As a data protection expert she is co-author of the Bulgarian chapter in ‘E-discovery and Data Privacy: A Practical Guide’, editors: Catrien Noorda, Stefan Hanloser, Chapter 5.3 (Bulgaria), 2010, Kluwer Law International.

As a public procurement specialist, Irena is author of the monographs ‘Hocus-pocus: look, but do not see!: A comparative analysis of the transparency rules and their failure to fight corruption in the Bulgarian public procurement system’, 2015, University of Groningen and ‘Using Transparency Against Corruption in Public Procurement: A Comparative Analysis of the Transparency Rules and their Failure to Combat Corruption‘, 2017, Springer International Publishing AG.

Further, Irena is author of numerous professional publications in the specialised and general media. She participates as a speaker in various trainings, round tables and discussions in her fields of expertise in Bulgaria and abroad. In 2019 she has also organized the first ‘International Conference on Public Procurement’, held jointly with the New Bulgarian University.

Some of the recent and current cases on which Irena has worked are:

• Advising an IT and telecom company regarding the launch of a database project including personal data, drafting DPIA, legal advise on the app usage and functionalities, coordination of the project in several countries in and outside the EU, incl. the US, comparison of the practice of different data protection regulators, etc.
• Drafting and submission of a data breach notification for a multinational American based company with a subsidiary in Bulgaria, communication with the Bulgarian data protection regulator, advise re documentation needed for the regulator etc. The file is closed without administrative and financial consequences for the client.
• Preparing risk assessment report re information security and data breach incident of a local IT sector company.