Welcome to Executive Protection page

Terrified, haggard and frostbitten, Karen McMullan refused to give police the details of her ordeal until she knew her husband Kevin was safe. Twenty-four hours earlier, men dressed as police officers had talked their way into the McMullan's home. Once inside, they held a gun to the head of Kevin McMullan, the assistant bank manager for Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and explained that he would help them carry out a daring robbery. To ensure his cooperation, they kidnapped his wife.

At the same time just a few miles away, armed men entered the home of another bank employee, supervisor Chris Ward, and conscripted him into their plan by taking his mother, father, brother and brother's girlfriend hostage. Per the kidnappers' instructions, the next evening McMullan and Ward used their security passes to enter Northern Bank's inner vault and packed up bags of banknotes. The cash was loaded into a white truck and driven away. Hours later, Karen McMullan staggered out of a Northern Ireland forest and into the first house she found.

Many companies pay lip service to the notion that employees are their most valuable assets, but few have actually done the math. In the case of Northern Bank, the use of the McMullan and Ward families in that December 2004 robbery cost approximately $50 million—and that is just the thieves' take. Add to that the public relations costs (worldwide headlines, inquiries by prosecutors and British intelligence), and the tab runs considerably higher.

The threats facing an executive vary widely depending on the size of the company, the industry it belongs to and the individual executive's profile. CSOs in oft-targeted sectors such as the financial services, pharmaceutical and energy industries, and those with executives based overseas, worry about kidnapping, carjacking, mail-borne explosives, biological agents and ecoterrorism. Threatening letters and e-mails and workplace violence fill out the list.

Given the range of risks involved, CSOs who have managed executive protection programs know that protecting an individual is a very different discipline from securing a facility. A top executive not only can't be locked down but, unlike a building with a single gate, there are numerous ways for an attacker to get to an executive, including through family members, as in the Belfast example. Executives will also rebel against onerous security restrictions. CSOs face the challenge of calibrating protection that serves their company's needs while also making that security palatable to the executives who have to live with it.

We spoke with security executives and protection specialists, including former and current agents from the U.S. Secret Service, and gleaned their advice on building an executive protection (EP) program. These tips apply whether you are spending millions to protect all your top executives or you hire the occasional security provider when your CEO travels. Following this advice can make an enormous difference in your executives' safety—and transform the executives' idea of personal protection from a barely tolerated hassle into a perk

11.  Bodyguard Careers- Executive Protection

BODYGUARD CAREERS is an informational site with the purpose of providing bodyguards with all the information and tools necessary to succeed in the executive ... Hits: 20 |  Rating: 0.00 |  Votes: 0   [Detail] [Send URL] Category:   Executive Protection