The shocking killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan on December 4 has corporate boards and executives asking hard questions of their security teams.
Workplace violence driven by disgruntled employees or job-site disputes is unfortunately too common in the United States. Deliberate targeting of CEOs for assassination, however, is relatively rare. In the 1970s, ideologically driven groups, including Italy’s Red Brigades and Germany’s Bader Meinhof Gang, perpetuated kidnappings and killings of business executives. Corporate leaders today are more likely to see shareholder meetings disrupted by extremist groups with tactics designed to produce outrage and publicity, not casualties.
But in a year of febrile politics, rising popular frustration with institutions, and two separate attempts to assassinate President Trump, the risks to executives in just about any industry cannot be minimized. The presence of an estimated more than 400 million firearms in the United States, combined with easy access to personal location data, schedules, and life patterns only adds to the danger.
“C-suite executives of every Fortune 1,000 company are valuable assets that need to be protected,” says Dale Buckner, CEO of the security firm Global Guardian. “In an age of increasing political and social division, where so much information is available through the internet and social media platforms, anyone with the potential to commit violence has an alarming level of access to the location of residences and the whereabouts of your personnel when traveling or participating in corporate events. This gives those with the inclination to commit violence a much easier path to follow through.”
Given this, what framework might C-suites and boards use to balance competing interests of need, efficacy, and cost to ensure executive protection? How does a company strike the right approach in preventing the low likelihood, but very high consequence of an attack on a CEO?
