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DS AdvisorySecurity · Risk · Crisis

Security, Risk & Crisis Management

Judgement for organisations that move people into risk.

Most organisations find the gap in their travel and crisis arrangements during the incident, not before it. I close that gap: governed assessments, deployable plans, and a senior security lead you can retain without hiring one.

27years
Military, corporate, humanitarian and executive security
1practitioner
The person you speak to is the person who does the work
48hours
Standard turnaround on a destination threat assessment
31000ISO
Risk method applied to every engagement

The gap

Most organisations do not have a security problem. They have an ownership problem.

The travel policy exists. The insurance is in place. Someone booked the hotel. What is missing is the person who reads the destination properly, decides whether the trip should go ahead in that shape, and is reachable at two in the morning when it stops going to plan.

That is the work. A named person who owns the judgement, and a system that holds after they step back.

“Nobody owning travel risk, no escalation path, no idea who decides at two in the morning. That is usually cheaper to fix than to survive.”

Who I help

Organisations that:

  • Send people overseas and are not certain the arrangements hold
  • Protect executives, principals or high-profile individuals
  • Operate in unfamiliar or higher-risk markets
  • Already pay for security and want an independent view of it
  • Have the policy, but nobody who owns the decision
  • Want practical judgement, not another document

What I do

Six areas of practice.

Everything is fixed scope and fixed price, agreed in writing before anything starts.

Where the work has been done

Delivered on the ground, not from a desk.

Every pin is somewhere work was delivered or service was carried out.

Operational footprint
--:-- UTC

Base

United Kingdom

Practice base. Working across UK and EMEA time zones.

Client work

Paris

Executive travel risk and journey management for principal movement.

Client work

Monaco

Event and executive movement planning, venue and route assurance.

Military service

Iraq

Operational service. Security planning and movement in a high-threat environment.

Military service

Afghanistan

Operational service. Leadership and crisis decision-making under operational pressure.

Client work

United Arab Emirates

Executive travel and event security, regional risk planning.

Client work

Pakistan

High-threat travel risk management and journey management planning.

Client work

Nigeria

Destination threat assessment and journey management, Lagos and Port Harcourt.

Client work

Hong Kong

Executive protection and corporate resilience through sustained civil unrest.

Practice baseDelivered work

Method

The working, shown.

Every assessment runs the same route: POSTT to structure the picture, ISO 31000 to score the risk, Admiralty grading and the PHIA yardstick so a judgement can be audited.

POSTT lens

Structure
  • PPolitical3/5
  • OOperational4/5
  • SSituation3/5
  • TTravel4/5
  • TTerrorism2/5

Every destination is read through the same five lenses, so two assessments can be compared rather than just read.

Risk register

ISO 31000
LOWSEVERE1234512345LIKELIHOODIMPACTR1R2R3R4R5R6
  • R1Express kidnap in transitSevere
  • R2Armed robbery, hotel approachHigh
  • R3Civil disturbance on routeModerate
  • R4Vehicle failure, no recoveryModerate
  • R5Medical event, limited careHigh
  • R6Device compromise at borderHigh

Grading & decision

Admiralty · PHIA
Subject
Executive visit, high-threat market
Source reliability
B · Usually reliable
Information credibility
2 · Probably true
Probability yardstick
Likely

Recommendation

MODIFY

Travel proceeds with route control, vetted ground transport and a revised arrival window.

Quality assured before release

Illustrative worked example, not a live assessment.

Engagement shape

Understand it, test it, then leave it running.

Most engagements move through three phases. You can enter at any of them, and the intent is always the same: the system should hold once I step back.

IPhase

Understand

Read what you actually have, then build what should already exist. Risk model, thresholds, decision ownership, vendor standards and templates people will actually use.

  • Risk model and scoring logic
  • Go, modify, stop thresholds
  • Roles and decision ownership
  • Working templates
IIPhase

Test

Prove it holds. Dry-run the trip, challenge the vendor, stress the leadership team against a scenario, and log where decisions slow or break.

  • Live dry-runs and vendor challenge
  • Tabletop exercise with injects
  • Communications testing
  • Gap analysis and improvement plan
IIIPhase

Support

Stay close while it beds in. Briefings, approvals, oversight and incident support, then a clean exit once it runs without me.

  • Executive briefings
  • Travel approvals and exceptions
  • Incident support
  • Monthly risk updates

Evidence

One survey, and what it was worth.

A licensed venue, newly refitted, with a security spend already in place. The survey is anonymised. The numbers are not.

Rated Amber overall. Every finding costed against the benefit of fixing it, so the client could decide rather than be told.

7critical
Findings serious enough to need action before anything else
£2,000to fix
Total cost of the recommended changes, training and equipment
£16,600avoided
Loss, claims, fines and closure risk the changes remove
8:1return
Eight pounds back for every one spent, paid back inside a month

How it starts

Four steps, no pitch deck.

    01

    Scope call

    Thirty minutes to understand the trip, the executive, or the gap. No charge, no pitch deck.

    02

    Fixed proposal

    Fixed scope, fixed price, agreed turnaround, in writing before anything starts.

    03

    Delivery

    The work, to the method, on the date agreed.

    04

    Decision brief

    A clear, governed output you can act on or hand straight to the board.

Next step

Thirty minutes to find out whether this is worth doing.

A scope call, not a sales call. If the exposure does not warrant the work, I will tell you that and you will have lost half an hour.