Top 5 Benefits of Executive Security & Protection

October 4, 2019

 

What is Executive Protection?

Most people are aware that celebrities need security protection. Whether it’s seen in movies like “Bodyguard” or “Taken” or any one of several TV shows that show celebrities surrounded by security personnel, the idea that a person well known to the public would need protection from overeager fans or individuals intent on doing them harm for whatever reason is perfectly reasonable.

Executive protection works on the same theory. The CEO or other top executives of a company are often well-known because of coverage in the media, whether traditional or social media. These executives are also the lifeblood of their companies. If anything were to happen to them, it could affect the entire company and all of its workers.

Well-known CEOs and other executives face the same kind of threats that celebrities often face. Overeager admirers, disgruntled individuals who may disagree with the company’s policies on controversial issues or other entities that wish to steal company secrets are all potential risks to a CEO, other executives and even their families.

An increasing number of Fortune 500 companies, and even smaller, more regional companies, are recognizing the need for corporate executive protection programs. These programs anticipate and plan for all the potential dangers a CEO or other top executives might face whether it’s at corporate headquarters, during a business trip or even at their homes.

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What are The Benefits of Hiring Executive Protection?

While not every corporation or top business has an executive protection strategy, that doesn’t mean they should not be thinking about creating one. An executive protection plan offers personal security for the individual protected as well as for the company as a whole.

Here are just a few of the reasons why executive protection benefits both the individual and the company:

 

1. It Protects Shareholders’ Investment in a Company’s Top Executives

As noted above, CEOs are often widely recognized by members of the public who are fascinated by what they do, how they live their lives and even their families. This means that a CEO or some other widely recognized member of a company’s executive team is in the same kind of dangers as celebrities.

But there’s a second aspect to this that celebrities don’t deal with — the investor and business impact of something happening to a company’s CEO. The company invests a lot of money in their CEOs. They have high expectations for them in terms of the company’s growth, restoring prominence if the company has experienced hard times and acting as the company’s main cheerleader in public.

If, in the worst-case scenario, a company’s top executive dies because of a security or health incident, the reputation of the company and the company’s share prices can be deeply affected. Therefore, the board of any company needs to recognize that the company’s value can be dramatically affected by the safety of its CEO. So it’s fairly straightforward that a board needs to provide executive security to their top executives if they want the company to continue to thrive.

 

2. It Helps the Productivity of Top Executives

Think of all the time that it takes you to prepare for and then take the trip. There’s packing the bags, the calling for the cab, the waiting for the cab, the lines at the check-in counter, going through security at the airport — and that’s only on one end of the trip.

When you provide secure travel for a CEO or top executive, they can take much of that time spent waiting in lines and for cabs actually doing work or even taking meetings by phone or video conferencing. CEOs are extremely busy people and every second counts. They are paid a lot of money because their time is valuable. When you provide corporate executive protection security services for a CEO or other top executives, you enable them to use every second during their trip to do work for the company.

 

3. It Enables Safer Travel and More Travel

This benefit builds off of the previous one. When a CEO or other top executive knows that the travel will be safer and more protected, they are more inclined to make more trips, whether within the United States or outside. This will enable them to have more productive meetings with customers around the country, important employees in different regions, face-to-face time with government officials and investors in the company around the world.

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4. It Provides a Competitive Advantage

If your company’s CEO is more productive, travels more often to important meetings, and feels secure in the knowledge that they and their families are well protected, this will definitely give your company a competitive advantage. When your top people are performing at their very best, this benefits your company in numerous ways.

 

5. It Provides Immediate Help During Medical Emergencies

The benefit of having a trained and quality executive protection team traveling with your CEO during the business day or on a trip means that there is always a first responder immediately available if the top executive experiences a medical emergency such as a stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism, asthma attack or some other life-threatening emergency.

In many of these situations, survival rates depend upon how quickly an individual receives treatment. Quality security teams are trained in dealing with these sorts of medical emergencies.

These are just a few of the benefits of executive protection. As you can see, it’s not just your CEO or top executives that are protected, but in many ways, your company is as well. While some board members may be reluctant to spend the money, having an executive protection program in place is a smart business move on several important levels.

 

What Situations Require Executive Protection?

Not every situation may require executive protection — a CEO or top executive may not need the kind of individual executive protection necessary on a trip when they are working in their office for instance — but there are situations where executive protection is almost always needed:

 

1. Public Appearances

Whether it’s in your hometown or during a trip, any time a CEO or other top executive appears in public, there is the potential of a threat. For instance, if the executive is speaking at a conference, appearing at a business-related function or attending a cultural event, persons of interest such as disgruntled ex-employees, protesters or even potential kidnappers could do significant harm. These are situations where it’s always important to provide executive protection.

 

2. Home Security

If your CEO or your top executives are well known, they also need to feel safe in their homes. The safety provided, however, needs to allow your CEO and their family members to feel comfortable and relaxed and not on edge. A quality executive security service will provide the appropriate measures, whether they be the presence of security personnel or state-of-the-art security systems, that allow your executives to know they are protected but still feel relaxed in their homes.

 

3. Cybersecurity

The information and knowledge that your CEO has about your company’s business activities give it a competitive advantage and are often the number one thing that other companies wish to access. For that reason, protecting computers and data plays a significant role in executive protection. Quality security services provide physical monitoring of your top executives’ computers and other electronic devices such as mobile devices or tablets.

This is especially critical when a company’s top executives are traveling especially overseas. A lost or stolen computer that ends up in the wrong hands can be devastating to a company’s bottom line.

 

4. Family Members

Often, the family members of a well-known individual can be as much at risk as that well-known individual themselves. Even if your family member has no connection to the business whatsoever, that will not make any difference to a kidnapper or another individual who would target a family member thinking they could obtain ransom money, information on company secrets, access to the company’s facilities, passwords to data systems or other items of interest.

Executive protection for the families of top CEOs is critical. Quality security firms can make sure this happens unobtrusively so family members can live their normal lives while being protected from any possible threat.

 

5. Traveling Abroad

These may be the most dangerous times for the company CEO or any other top executive, particularly if they are traveling to a part of the world where their security will always be at high risk. The situations normally include possible kidnapping attempts or theft of important corporate information, but sometimes the political situation in the country can change quickly and what appeared to be a safe situation one day is a dangerous one the next.

Quality executive protection teams take all these factors into account. They cover all aspects of travel and plan for every possible scenario involving a top executive and their electronic devices.

 

What Should you Look for When Hiring a Security Company for Executive Protection?

If you’ve decided to offer executive protection to your CEO or other top executives in your company, it is important to note the qualities you want in the executive security company that will give you the results you desire. Not all security companies are created the same. Quality security companies share certain fundamentals:

 

1. They Have Proactive Rather Than Reactive Security Plans

The best security firms offer protection based on a proactive process of threat analysis and how to mitigate those threats. You do not want to work with a security firm that employs a “wait and see” strategy and only deals with dangerous situations when they arise.

A proactive security program uses risk analysis and the mitigation of risk to find just the right level of protection. They understand all of the risks, threats and vulnerabilities and then examine them piece by piece to develop a plan to deal with them. Only when these potential threats have been properly evaluated will the company develop a plan to deal with every situation.

This will reduce risks in situations where the threat level is high and may make security more tolerable in the situations with the threat level is low or nonexistent.

 

2. They Have a Staff of Experienced Professionals

No doubt we’ve all seen the teenage mall security guard who is expected to provide security in that environment. Or the opposite — the security guard who is well into their 60s and still expected to handle every situation.

Executive protection requires a different kind of security. A quality executive protection firm will employ former law enforcement personnel, veterans or other individuals who have worked in highly trained security environments. These individuals are already experienced in providing executive protection. You don’t have to worry about “breaking them in.” They are experienced professionals who can provide the level of executive protection that you need.

 

3. Their Security Professionals Do Not Get Starstruck

Top security professionals are often called upon to provide protection for a wide variety of well-known individuals such as athletes, celebrities, politicians or well-known CEOs. Top security personnel are not starstruck. They are there to do a job. They will not ask for autographs or selfies. They will not get flustered while looking after an important individual. Their training allows them to spot the difference between a legitimate threat and a fan who means no harm.

The quality security firm that provides executive protection employs people who know what they’re doing and for whom it is important to do a good job.

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Contact Vigilant Tiger for Executive Protection Services

In today’s threat environment, a company does not have to be located in Chicago or Los Angeles to be vulnerable. Any executive, regardless of where they are located, is vulnerable if the security in their corporate headquarters or their individual security is insufficient. It’s relatively easy for anyone who pays attention to news media or the Internet to discover where an executive will be traveling. If executive protection is insufficient, someone may attempt something threatening.

Vigilant Tiger is one of the top executive protection companies in Colorado Springs. We pride ourselves on being able to anticipate all potential threats and dangers a CEO or any other executive could face. We hire experts in every field of security we cover. Working with Vigilant Tiger for executive protection means working with a member of our team who excels in CEO security.

If you’re interested in talking to us about an executive protection program for the top people in your company, we are ready to help put that program into action. You can call us at 719-313-2950 for more information. You can also contact us online and let us know how we can reach you as well as some details about your security needs. A member of our team will contact you.

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