Women Who Inspire Us
Education

Tara Lemmey

Tara Lemmey is founding partner and CEO of Project Lens, a think tank for individuals and technology policy. Prior to Project Lens, Lemmey was the executive director and president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to protect civil liberties, privacy and freedom of expression in the area of computers and the Internet. Her work focused on bridging the gap between public policy and technology, and creating a cooperative environment between government, advocacy groups and the private sector.

An experienced entrepreneur, Lemmey was the founder of Narrowline, an online advertising and market research firm, and is currently on the advisory boards of Metasound and eNutrition. In addition, she has been an ecommerce advisor to the U.S. Postal Service and Cybercash.

In the nonprofit arena, she is one of the founders of TrustE, a nonprofit organization advocating privacy on the Internet, and is currently on the group's board. Lemmey was recently named one of the 10 most important people to the future of digital music by Spin magazine for her efforts to protect the rights of consumers.

Prior to joining EFF, Lemmey was a founding partner of one of the first commercial online content providers, digital://threads, the Internet publishing company that issued Buzznet. She was an advertising executive at Young & Rubicam, where she managed the Unisys, Xerox and Holiday Inn accounts. She also worked at Goldberg Moser O'Neill, where she led the advertising team for Symantec, Xircom and Rolm. Earlier in her career, she was communications director for the United Way, an associate producer at Lifetime television and one of the early employees at People Express Airlines.

At EFF, Lemmey has played a major role in the Federal Trade Commission's Internet privacy hearings. She has also participated in the White House Framework for Global Economic Commerce and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Lemmey is a graduate of Rutgers University, where she studied communications, theatre and computer science.