Kay Chopard | Executive Director
Kantara Initiative, Inc

Ms. Kay Chopard is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Kantara Initiative, a non-profit corporation. The Kantara Initiative is a unique global ‘commons’ that operates conformity assessment, assurance and grant of Trust Marks against de-jure standards under its Trust Framework program while at the same time nurturing ‘beyond-the-state-of-the-art’ ideas and developing specifications to transform the state of digital identity and personal data agency domains.
Ms. Chopard is the former President and CEO of Chopard Consulting based in the Washington, DC metro area and is the founder of the Women’s Leadership Institute, https://womensleadership-institute.com/. She has more than 30 years’ experience in executive leadership in government, non-profit, and business organizations in the DC area, where she has a reputation as a transformative leader who has led organizations through launch, transition, and sustainability to deliver game-changing results. She excels at building networks and collaborations that overcome systemic cultural norms and empowers diverse and inclusive teamwork. She has led several organizations including:

• Executive Director of the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA), serving as the first woman head of the oldest and largest prosecutor organization in the world. She led the organization to create a Women Prosecutors Section and a Metro DAs section, transformed the business model of the organization to diversify revenue and significantly enhance business operations.
• Executive Director of the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG), a non-profit organization developed in a public-private partnership to implement the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) in partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
• Deputy Executive Director of the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), where she led strategic planning, business operations transformations, and built the training and technical assistance portfolio for the State Administrative Agency (SAA) members.
• Acting Division Chief and lead program manager at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for 10 years, creating sustainable national training programs for state and local prosecutors and judges, the National Traffic Law Center, and a Judicial Fellowship program, managing staff and a multi-million-dollar federal agency budget.

She is an attorney and has served as a prosecutor and maintained a private practice. She is admitted to the practice of law in the state of Iowa and to the U.S. Supreme Court bar.
Ms. Chopard also serves on the Board of Directors of the Women in Identity US and volunteers in the leadership of the Women in Identity UK. She lectures internationally and has authored several articles and white papers on racial and gender diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as a variety of criminal justice issues including use of technology in the courts and legal policy around privacy and security in the use of court technology.