Elena Elkina

Activist, Artist, Entrepreneur, Global soul

I am a partner and co-founder of Aleada Consulting, a minority and female owned business - one of the first privacy and data protection consulting firms in Silicon Valley. I also co-founded a non-profit organization called Women in Security in Privacy (WISP) to advance women in the fields. In addition, I am a vegan chef, working on her next business venture to bring healing through food to our communities. Outside of my office, I am part of Burning Man community where we create, build, and inspire personal and cultural conversations around our shared humanity, creativity, and magic.

Recently I lost my grandparents. I am still dealing with the excruciating pain while trying to learn how to live without two people I loved the most. At the same time, this pain brought me new joy. I discovered a strong need to build and create. I am learning how to work with wood and metal to build art installations for Burning Man community. This year, I am creating an art piece for our Burning Man camp that will honor my grandparents. I am using this art piece to remember all amazing life memories I had with my grandparents and memorialize them in this art. I am making it positive and energy-charging, so it can spread joy and love to other people who need help with their own grief and need a spark to start living their life again.

I grew up in the “Soviet Los Alamos,” a former secret city in the Soviet Union called Arzamas-16 (currently Sarov, the Russian Federal Nuclear Center). I was two years old when my parents, who are software engineers, were sent to work for the Federal Nuclear Center to design an atomic bomb. During the 1970s Arzamas-16 was a wonderful place to live as the town was located in one of the most beautiful state parks. In the earlier history of Russia, Arzamas-16 used to be a monastery town known as one of the holy places of the Russian Orthodox Church, and gave Russia one of its greatest saints, St. Seraphim. Growing up in a city that was not on any map, surrounded by fences, patrolled by guards and watchdogs, with restricted movements of ins and outs made a significant impact on me personally and professionally. It made me appreciate what we often take for granted, which is a basic human need for a private life, for individuality, for freedom of expression, for creativity. Living behind the fence, I did not know if there was another way of living, but I knew there was something. That strong desire to find my lost self, or the self I never had, pushed me on a quest to find my way out. I wanted to leave a legacy and make a difference in the world — and I found my how in a privacy profession. Today, I find joy working with brave and daring companies, helping them build new emerging technologies and find their own individuality in the business space.