The Security Circle
An IFPOD production for IFPO the very first security podcast called Security Circle. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and is an international security membership body that supports front line security professionals with learning and development, mental Health and wellbeing initiatives.
The Security Circle
EP 093 Godfried Hendriks- 'We Thank You For Your Service'
BIO
Godfried Hendriks MBA BSc CPP RSE (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1963), is active in the field of security and crime prevention since 1989. He specialized in retail security, retail robbery prevention, retail fraud prevention, retail cash management solutions and public private partnerships.
After managing a group of companies, he works as an independent security and management consultant, business & product development executive, trainer, (keynote) speaker and moderator since 2002.
He regularly published about the use of technology and innovative crime prevention in retail and public private partnerships. Godfried has presented on these topics and been a participant of expert panels on numerous occasions globally.
He is a member of ASIS International since 1992, active as a volunteer leader since 2002, and has served as the 2020 President of the Global Board of Directors. In 2021, he chaired the Global Board of Directors Nominating Committee, tasked with selecting candidates for the new ASIS International Boards of Directors Europe and North America. Godfried currently is a member of the ASIS International Ethics Standards Committee and advisor of the ASIS International Asia Pacific region.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/godfriedhendriks/
Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers
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Yoyo:Hi. Hello, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the international foundation for protection officers, and we're dedicated to providing meaningful education, information, and certification for all levels of security personnel, and make a positive difference to our members mental health. And wellbeing. Our listeners are global, so are our guests. They are the decision makers of tomorrow and today, and we want to thank you wherever you are for being a part of the Security Circle journey. If you love the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms. Spotify's currently trending as the most popular. Don't forget to subscribe or even better. Just like, comment and share the LinkedIn post. Thank you for your company. This man does not need much of an introduction because most people are going to know exactly who he is. Welcome Godfried Hendriks to the Security Circle Podcast. How are you doing?
Godfried:Pretty good. I hope the rain is not causing too much noise. It's raining cats and dogs now in the Netherlands. And so let me also, apologies for my accent, but there we go.
Yoyo:Hey, listen, don't ever apologize for that accent. I think it's one of the favorable ones up along with the Irish as well. But listen, raining cats and dogs, that's not a Dutch phrase, is it?
Godfried:No, no, no, I'm, I'm, I guess I'm, I've been doing business with, uh, with the U. S. and, and, and the U. K. for such a long time that I took over some of these expressions. Yeah.
Yoyo:Well, let's see what else we can get out of you today. Godfried, you are kind of, you know, you've been around for a bit now. We're going to talk about your future, but also let's talk about why security has been sort of intrinsically woven throughout your career and your voluntary career. Yeah.
Godfried:Oh, wow. Um, so, interestingly enough, I never chose for security. at least not deliberately, uh, as a petrol head, I decided to study mechanical engineering and, uh, saw myself in a career there with either petrol engines or maybe engines of planes or things like that. so then in my second job. I, I became a director of a company that had different divisions, but one of the division was to do with the security of petrol stations. I must say that this really fascinated me from day one and, uh, working with customers that, uh, operate petrol stations, uh, It started only in the Netherlands, but later on I worked with them in like all of Europe. And hearing the stories of people that got robbed, uh, like an armed robbery and, um, the after, after what happened to them, um, really fascinated me. So how can we help them to prevent that? That's the most important thing, not just to prevent it, but also if it occurs, how can they. Best react and so that's how I rolled into the security industry. And I started reading about robbers and robbery prevention and things like that. And then one of my American, uh, customers told me that, you can join ASIS or at that time, because this is 1992, uh, giving away how old I am, um, they said the American Society for Industrial Security, and I said, never heard of them. And this is. Before the day of the Internet. So I reached out there. There was a chapter in the Benelux, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg. And so I reached out to them and, uh, and I became a member. And then one of the first meetings I attended in Antwerp was one where Professor Martin Gill spoke about robbery. And, uh, his research into that. And I said, wow, this is great. And so I think I bought all Martin's book about this topic, read a lot about it. And later, of course, uh, knew him much better. Um, but I learned so much of that meeting and meeting likewise professionals. So, and this is the way I rolled into security and I never left.
Yoyo:What a story, and it's always lovely. Martin Gill's name, or Michael Gill as I called him very recently quite publicly which is quite funny, go to the ASIS and I've got to look him in the face and say I don't know how I got your name wrong, Michael. I mean, Martin. Um, but yeah, he is often brought up. In, the security circle podcast conversations, because not only is his network very intrinsically connected, but his legacy of all of his contributions have been very, very widely respected. And he's been a guest also tell you a little story. I started recording the podcast with Martin Gill. And I forgot to press record and I realized it was one of those cringe moments when I was like 15 minutes in and I'm and I it dawned on me and I was trying to hide it because he's in full flow. He's having a great conversation. I'm like, I've got to interrupt him and tell him forgot to press record. And so I did. And he was a consummate professional. And that's what people love about him. Very personal, very professional. In fact, People say the same things about you, Godfried. Is that because you're just a simply nice guy? or because you think, you know, there's a lot of value to networking relationships in the security industry?
Godfried:Well, hopefully both, but I can, I can't be the judge on that. Um, but I, I, I guess in the security industry, I have way more friends than I have enemies. So I think it's impossible not to have enemies. There's always things that happen. And, uh, so, but, um, yeah, no, I, I think networking. is very important because it gives you the answers to questions that you can possibly come up with yourself. And, and this is what I love about the security industry and what I love especially about ASIS. And that's the willingness to share and the willingness to support each other. And, um, so I mentioned work I did with this petrol station, uh, petrol station industry, which they call gasoline stations in the U. S., by the way. So for the listeners in the U. S., let us explain that.
Yoyo:Gas stations. Gas stations.
Godfried:Right. Right. There you go. And, um, so for instance, I, I worked with all the security directors of all the different brands. We all sat together and we shared modus operandi, you know, police was there, everyone was there, modus operandi, robbers, best practices, sharing everything, while their colleagues from like the commercial side wouldn't even be allowed to be in the same room, or like. Price fixing and things like that. And this is what I love. You saw in the security industry, we don't compete. We, we all have the same aim is to keep our people safe. That's why we work together. And within ASCS, that's even one step further, because as a fellow member, and even like one of the 34, 35, 36 thousand in the world, you almost have like a higher level of trust, you know, you know, if someone calls from ASCS, and I got a lot of calls, um, and emails and things like that with questions, And I always say, you know, 99. 9 percent I don't know the answer, but I do know someone that has the answer. And that's the perfect thing. And it's, it's like giving a present. There's someone on the other side of the ocean who has a, has a, has a difficult question. And I, uh, let me sometimes have to think, and, oh, I know, I know. And I connect them to each other and they can solve it. And that's such a great thing to be part of that. You know, you can, you can help for free.
Yoyo:Let me give you a classic example. In a year that I took out, I had the opportunity to speak to a business about an opportunity, but the part of that role was something I didn't know very much about around travel security. And I, and I kind of needed to do a bit of homework, and I think I know enough about travel security to talk my way through it, but I wanted to be better. I wanted to be a really good candidate, a really good applicant. So I went into ASIS Connects. I went into the forum where we can ask questions to the wider community. And I, and I, and I asked the question, Hey, listen, is there anybody here who's an expert on travel security? And I think, uh, about three or four or five people came back to me. I scheduled little meetings with them, like for, for coffee and Zoom. And, and got them to talk to me about the most important things I needed to consider. I went into that interview very knowledgeable, having done my homework, looking at, looking at how to respond to the kind of questions. That's where the community really delivers in a way that you don't expect it to. What have you used ASIS Connects for and how, how have you found it's kind of rewarded your contribution? Thank you.
Godfried:I must admit that I'm not very active, um, on Connect. And that's also because the, the segment, the, the, where I was active in security, like a retail security cash management, um, that is such a small part of the whole security industry that it's, it's like, There's not a lot of people with knowledge in that field, um, within, within ASS. There are, of course, but so very often, there's not very often that I can ask questions in, in Connects that I, that need answers on that specific topic. But I, sometimes I see questions of others. in that area and then I can step in and give answers. So definitely it is, and especially, and of course I follow it and especially those questions that are more like generic, um, they, they get a lot of responses because there's a lot of people that can help.
Yoyo:Yeah. Absolutely.
Godfried:Yeah. And it's, it's nice. The example you give is, is great. Of course, you, you experience it yourself, how people are willing to assist you. That's great. And I, I always use the example of my friend, Joe Mashakov from, uh, from, uh, New York upstate, uh, who needed an investigation done in a small town in Germany. So he had a multi, multinational. Uh, customer that needed this and they, they didn't know how to, so they, they reached out to him. He reached out to me and I just reached out to, uh, to a good guy in Germany. And within a week they had done the investigation, presented the report, which made him the hero of his, of his customer. And it's just, you know, this is the strength. And what I also very often hear is like, people need to write a sort of manual of a whole policy and like starting scratch there. They can cost you weeks, maybe a month of work. And if you reach out and say, okay, guys, this is what I'm looking for. And there's always someone that will said, okay, I'll anonymize. That's a tongue breaker for a Dutchman. I anonymize, um, The, my, my policy and I share it with you. And so you have a, like a flying star there that can save you weeks of work. So yeah, I love that.
Yoyo:It's so funny that you mentioned that anonymize is a tongue twister for the Dutch, when we can barely say any of your words with any type of competency, because there's just not enough vowels in your words. Godfried
Godfried:No, no. I, I I know Dutch is, um, is a difficult language and the biggest complaint that, uh, expats have who live in the Netherlands is that they never get to learn Dutch because everyone speaks. More or less English. we always say we speak globish, you know, we have a limited vocabulary, but we do understand things. And so the moment someone hears you're not from the Netherlands, they'll switch to English. And so they never get to, to learn it. By, the way, it is, uh, for us, so confusing. So, um, we're from the Netherlands. But I live in a province that's called Holland and we have like North and South Holland. So Holland is part of the Netherlands. And then you guys in the Anglo Saxon world call our language Dutch or call us Dutch, which is basically Deutsch, which is like German. So it's really, really confusing, but here we are. Yeah,
Yoyo:it is. Whoever said the Europeans had it all sorted out. Um, but yeah, I was, uh. I'm not even going to go into Brexit. Godfried, when you look back at your career, and you look at all of the things that you've done, And clearly you're not unique in the sense that security tends to find people, people don't find security. and it finds people in the most extraordinary ways. You started off in the gas stations, the petrol stations. It's a good job we translated that for the Americans just in case they didn't know what we were talking about. and then what kept you in this industry and what kept you, hooked into starting a voluntary security career as well?
Godfried:Yeah, well, I, I must admit, I, I became kinda addicted to reading research about, uh, robbery and robbery prevention. And I even, at one moment, I did, I did an MBA at Henley on Thames. And so I, at one point, I even thought about doing a doctorate. And um, so it's a bit disappointing, I never got to finish it. So I started it, I, I learned everything. Um, I just. to make that step to start writing. And we had a professor who always said read, read, read, but don't forget to write, write, write. Well, obviously that's where I went wrong because I couldn't stop reading and I couldn't get myself to start writing. But so I, I became really fascinated with that topic. And at a certain moment, you know so much about it that you speak on conferences about it. And, and of course, never to the clearly never to the level that Martin Gill has in this field because he has spoken to, to the perpetrators, but, but that's where you can learn a lot about it. And so it became a fascination and I, I gave training to people working on petrol stations. We developed a special training, this is going to be a difficult one in translating, so If, if you look at robbers sometimes or almost always they have been at the location they're going to rob and sometimes you see them and we, we have video images, we go back and sometimes you see them walking around, looking where the cameras are, looking at security devices, things like that, but sometimes they're just there to buy a pack of cigarettes. You don't see anything, but still somehow. In their brain is planted that this might be a good place to rob. And if you read literature, research, you'll see if, like, for instance, Martin asks a robber, why did you decide on this location or that location? Very often they have like answers like, well, I don't know. It just looked easy or it looked difficult or things like that. So. I kind of turned that into a sort of a training, part of a, a program. Of course, I took best practices, but also developed it a little bit further, and I call that and, in English it would say, it, it would sound like, Consciously. Influencing the subconsciousness of a potential robber.
Yoyo:Catchy title.
Godfried:Yeah, it was, one of the ways that I saw, this is really the best way that we can keep as many people safe as we can. And, um, so this kind of and I work with the police, and the justice and security, ministry in the Netherlands. And I guess we were really successful. We, I only played like a very minor role, but all in all, the whole industry was successful in reducing robberies at petrol stations. And then also, and then I started working with, the same operations in other countries in Europe and working with providers of cash management systems that reduce the amount of cash in the till so it becomes less attractive for robbers. So it, you roll from one thing and the other and it's so fascinating. And then if it's successful, it's rewarding. to keep doing that.
Yoyo:It's fascinating, your comments about the psychology and consciousness of criminals, because when they go into an area and they say something like, well, they're processing, this looks easy. We do the same, but we look at how vulnerable an area can be. We're also assessing it in the same way. Crikey, I've just seen that purse, hanging out the top of that woman's handbag. How easy is that for someone to steal? That's cool. Yeah. You know, or the guys left the till open and turned his back and gone and got a burger on the grill. How easy is it to burgle that place? So in a sense, we have the same thoughts and processes because we are trained, aren't we, to try and think with the same mind as a criminal. But I think we think differently. We think about, we have gap analysis brains, we, we see risk, we see vulnerability. How's that helped you in your career?
Godfried:let me first tell you outside my career, it can be very irritating, especially to my wife, because you always see things happening and, sometimes you even tend to get involved, warn people or things like that. So yeah, it's, it's sometimes also a nuisance to have that, but, uh, yeah, I don't, I'm not sure if it helped in my career, but, it's just. Part of, part of what you do and what you are, and you can't switch it off. You always have it.
Yoyo:So how long have you been an ASIS member now?
Godfried:So I became a member in 1992. Oh,
Yoyo:10 years then.
Godfried:It was funny. In 2020, when I was the President of the Global Board of Directors, I was invited by the West African Young Professionals to speak on like a conference of them online. So I said this and yeah, I'm a member since 1992. And then One of the guys said, do you realize that many of us weren't even born then? I was like, all right, this is one of these moments where you're like, okay, I'm really getting old now. So yeah, but it was good. And being a member, and of course I was one of the youngest members. And then. There's all these seasoned professionals that are so willing and able to share their information with you. So I learned so much in, in that, in, in these days. And then. In 2002, when I sold one of my companies and started as, as an independent security consultant, Edward Emder, who was then the chair of the Benelux chapter, later, of course, the first non, North American president of ACS International, asked me if I was willing to give something back to the organization. I was like, Oh, that's fine. Uh, how much time will that cost? And he was like, you know, maybe a few hours every month. Okay, that sounds reasonable. After 10 years, it's time for me to give something back now and now. And then in 2020, when I was the president, it was like two or three days a week, you know. Okay, but all, all self chosen punishments.
Yoyo:So, hang on, I've got to take you back to the global, global director, global what's, so how did that happen? I mean, you've worked your way through the steering committees. Let's talk about your voluntary career and how that's developed and what attracted you to taking each, responsible position, with such, passion.
Godfried:Yeah, so I became a board member then of the Benelux chapter as Edward asked. And then very quickly, Peter French, um, who was at that time, the RVP, the regional vice president for like Northwestern Europe. So Benelux, France, Ireland, and UK at that time. And he, uh, he needed an ARVP, assistant regional vice president. And if I was willing to do that, of course I did that. So then I moved through the ranks following Peter. So when Peter became the SRVP, I became the RVP. And then when he moved to, uh, to the, European advisory council chair, I became the SRVP and then,, at a certain moment I became the Global SRVP, which at that time was like taking care of all the world except The U S which was like a daunting task. And I, I mentioned, um, Joe Masciocco earlier and he was my co chair at that time. So Joe Masciocco was the U S and I was the rest of the world. And I said to him, we, it would be great if we could like restructure this a little bit. And so he took on the Americas and I took on the rest of the world. So have a more evenly distribution. And we also changed With HQ, of course, at that time and supported by the board, which we kind of changed the model because in the past, there were regions, but regions were only formed by existing chapters. And so when ASS wanted to grow in a country where there wasn't a chapter, it wasn't always clear who was responsible for that. So we made a whole new structure where it was immediately. clear who was responsible to develop additional chapters. And, so then that went well, then certain moment, a few of the board members and president, past presidents asked me to throw my name in the hat for a board position. I was like, Oh, wow. Do you think that's something for me? Uh, yeah. So, okay. I became a board member and then, Before, you're elected, uh, selected for the, uh, the executive committee and then in 2020 I was the, the president globally, which was, uh, fun.
Yoyo:What were your objectives when you were moving up from being an AVP to being offered a presidential role? What did you go into and believe you could make happen? And what would you say were your legacy? I mean, the restructuring is legacy. It's great. What else did you feel that you left a legacy with?
Godfried:Well, at the start of the year, um, so let me answer your question completely. So I didn't have any aim or whatever. It's just like you roll from one thing in the other and then for one moment, you're there just to give back. I think for me, the main motivation is, okay, give back, work together on making the world a better and a safer place. I think that's the main objective. And at the start of the year, when I got the question, what do you want to leave? I was like, I don't think there's a necessity to leave anything specific because we had a whole strategy. We worked on the strategy for like years and it was just a matter of implementation, keeping the strategy up to date. And, you don't. It's not that you're suddenly important or, uh, influential or whatever. You're just bearing the torch. If I feel more like being the ambassador for the organization for a year, I think that's the main thing. But one of the things that I am proud of, is that together with, with Peter O'Neill, after some of the turmoil in the U S in 2020, we started this, diversity project with, with the diversity. First we made this statement about the things that happened to, with the, with the killing of George Floyd and, um, as an organization. of security professionals that we wanted to, be vocal about this, supporting law enforcement, but at the same time, you know, getting, making sure or giving information to get it, get the bad apples out. And so when we formed that DE& I, Diversity, equity and inclusion task force that later became a separate community. I think those were a necessity at that time. And that's one of one of the things I'm proud that we achieved that year. But it was a crazy year because I had planned to travel all over the world, you know, every continent. And then, of course, I've been to the UK twice. I went to, DC once and then COVID hit and then the only thing I did was, travel around the world virtually, which was great because I was able that year to attend, over a hundred meetings virtually in all many chapters all around the world. So like one afternoon I could be in a call with a chapter in Europe. And then, at night I could be in a chapter of the Jamaica chapter, which is really great because It wouldn't be possible to visit so many chapters, when I really to travel instead of virtual. So I always say my claim to fame is being the first virtual president of ACS.
Yoyo:That's really awesome. Congratulations. and I think we all adapted what you've demonstrated is resilience, adaptability, agility, and a lot of us changed how we do things. In fact, it seems now, doesn't it? Now that the zoom teams floodgates are open, it seems ridiculous to travel a hundred times around the world to attend meetings, even though Godfried, it is a pleasure to meet you in person. It's not necessarily needed to do everything that you need to do. Lots of things changed, didn't they? With COVID.
Godfried:Agree, agree. Yeah, I, I have, I've done so many flights to London, you know, where I got up at four to get the first flight, first with the train to the airport, and then the first flight to London and then the tube in the city. And then we would have an hour meeting, maybe we would have lunch together, and then I would go back and arrive 11 in the evening. And, would be happy to do so, but just for, for the fun of. Meeting people and seeing people and it is a necessity to see each other once in a while and especially informal time I think is really important where you can chat about other things than security just to, to know each other. My wife always laughed and she said, you earn money with, having lunch, dinner and chatting about, soccer or football, formula one and music. It's like, oh, that's my life.
Yoyo:Yes, Formula One. You recently went to, Zandvoort, right? But then you would, because Zandvoort, for Formula One fans, is obviously in the Netherlands. I've been there. I've walked along that beautiful beach. It's one of those white, sandy beaches with lots of dunes and dune rushes, dune grass. And it's quite windy. And it's quite exposed to the elements. And I think that beach is one of those beaches that no matter what the weather is. It's just really beautiful when it's grey and moody and the sea is almost grey blue and the wind, you can see it's chopping the tops of the sea as it's curving over. It's a beautiful place to be but Zandvoort has challenges with the wind doesn't it in Formula One.
Godfried:Oh, incredible, incredible. But I live, a few miles from the beach and I can see the dunes from my house. I live in a penthouse in Augmar, just north of Amsterdam. So I can, when I look outside, I can see the tops of the dunes. So I can see the sea. I'm not high enough to see the sea, but it's too far away, but I do see the dunes. And like. What I said when we started, our conversation, it was raining so hard and we had hail this, this morning. It's like crazy, but sometimes, you know, within 10 minutes, you can have the sun back out. And that's what you see with these races too. The weather is so unpredictable, but it makes it nice too.
Yoyo:I think of all, I've been to Silverson a few times when I was in the British police force, the police service that I was in managed, the ground there. So I had quite a lot of exposure, but I think if there's any, race I'd love to go to, it'd be a nighttime track, potentially Abu Dhabi. it's a long way to go. It's aspirational, but it's always my favorite one. And it's the last one of the year, of course. Who are you, as a Dutchman, who are you, uh, vouching for to win this year then, Godfried?
Godfried:Well, I must say, you know, I watched Formula One since I was like 16 years old. So that's like a very long, long, long time. And I've always had favorites and non favorites, let's say it that way. And, uh, clearly now we have a Dutchman, Max Verstappen driving, of course, it makes it more interesting for us. and of course I support him and, and his team Red Bull Racing. Visited them, as you know, uh, uh, a few months ago. In my
Yoyo:hometown. Yeah, in your
Godfried:hometown. And we missed each other. How could we do that? But, I like, I like many teams and, and the history. Um, and so. You, you just have sympathies and antipathies. And so like, I like Lewis Hamilton and I like George Russell, but I'm not very fond of Toto Wolf,, and the brand Mercedes is not, maybe it's because I'm a BMW Porsche fan that I don't like Mercedes, but you know, so it's difficult. And, and sometimes you have like. I love Philando Alonso, but I don't like the strolls, so it's,
Yoyo:yeah, it's political, isn't it?
Godfried:Yeah.
Yoyo:I miss, Vettel. I had a very good pal of mine from school in Cornwall, actually, who was always in the top classes. It turned out he was only the, strategy lead for Red Bull when David Coulthard and, um, who was, who was, who was racing with David Coulthard
Godfried:the Dutchman Robert Dornbus was there in the very first year, very first or second years. Yeah.
Yoyo:A bit further along and basically my pal Neil said to me because he said he had the anxiety. He said there's going to be a new driver. He's going to put Button and Lewis Hamilton to the test. And this name is Vettel. And he said, if anything you're going to do, get behind this driver. He is really talented. Of course, he went on to win three world championships, didn't he? And I think for. I think Ferrari does definitely have a reputation for killing the passion and aspiration of a lot of independent thinking drivers. And I think this happened with Vettel. So I do actually worry that, Hamilton will struggle. I think the egos will clash.
Godfried:Yeah. Yeah, I'm afraid to, but you never know. You never know there. it's sometimes things can happen. And especially, I don't think next year will be revolutionary, but 2026, of course, with the whole new rules will. Yeah. I saw Vettel, Vettel win a race in Zandvoort when he was 16 or 17 years old. And I had the same with my pal, we were sitting on, on, and we were watching was like, this is going to be great. This is going to be great champion. And indeed he did. But of course he was also lucky to be at the right time at the right team at the right time, because I think there's many potential champions that were just unlucky to be at the wrong time. Yeah. At the wrong time. Yeah. Wrong team. I mean,
Yoyo:Look at how McLaren has stepped up with their car this year that so much so that both their lead drivers, Lando and, Piastri are in contention for significant points. Yeah. And I like the fact that they've got a handle, obviously Toto, I do love to watch Toto Wolff being interviewed and when he loses his shit, I find it really funny when he does things like throw his headphones down, he's a very passionate, very involved, he's very tall and very handsome. So I forgive him. Very quickly, but I am not a Mercedes fan, but I respect him professionally. I think these teams have an exciting second half to go through as we now see Lando in contention for more. Yeah, but I miss Gunter Steiner this year. I just like it when he drops the F bomb and I do watch Drive to Survive. I love the way Drive to Survive has brought in lots of new Formula One.
Fans.
Yoyo:and we're talking about an organization there that saw money potential that saw an increase in revenue through brand and through merchandising and saw that the whole of Formula One needed a younger, more engaged, certainly American. Fan base and it's worked when you see the American attendance now, it's phenomenal. So whoever thought about that was definitely a disruptor. And, but I think it's worked, but there's, we're going to come on to next generation, this kind of is a segue into that. Sometimes older generations are less inclined, aren't they? To accept younger generations. Bit of a snobbery in Formula One with existing stalwart y kind of fans and criticizing, Oh, you're a drive to survive fan. I've seen it on social media.
Godfried:And
Yoyo:I just think, Oh, we have to be better than that. I think we have to be like, okay, so you want to understand why they use soft tires, hard tires, medium tires. Let's explain, let's share our experience. It's not always like that, is it? And we can relate that to the security industry as well, which I think is a little judgmental of next gen sometimes because of its lack of experience. And so those two are intrinsically linked.
Godfried:Yeah, oh, absolutely. And I always remember, the moment when, someone like that was very dismissive against a young professional and said, you know, I have 25 years of experience. And then there was another other older guy who said to him, No, you don't. You have 25 times one year experience because you think you know it all and stop learning. And I think that's how it is. And I think most. The most dismissive people have stopped learning themselves and feel threatened. and those that, are more knowledgeable also about how to coach, how to manage people, they are never dismissive. They're always supportive. And it's there's no stupid questions. You have a question and we'll help you. We'll give the answer. and that's the way to go forward. and. Fortunately, in the security industry, I feel most people are supportive. And of course, there's always some probably not use the word. So I don't use the word, not spoil your podcast. There's always some people that, uh, that misbehave. And, but I think all in all, we are better than that as an industry.
Yoyo:Listen, I've seen friends, I know the Dutch word for arsehole, it's asials. So yeah, it's fine. Yeah, got any more?
Godfried:I don't know. I don't know. No. Just sometimes you have these things you, it's of course all anecdotal, but it's those things that you remember, you know, when, when, when we, we are still cavemen that share information by telling stories. And we remember the stories. We, don't remember the exact, slide or the exact lyrics on the slides, but we do remember the story. And within ACS, we had so many great keynote speakers also where you remember things. When you see them, you remember what they said and how influential that was.
Yoyo:Yeah, because you remember what they stand for and, I almost remember every single ASIS seminar I've been to. I can't always attend all of them, but they've had some of the most compelling speakers. Dr. Samia Puri, for example, at PwC, I remember that way back in, I think, 2018, um, I was just like wide open, wow, okay, geopolitics, it's a thing. From that point on, I was very receptive to learning about how geopolitics affects global security and the security of global issues. So yeah, Godfried, I know that you are, you've explained that you're kind of like stepping back so much, maybe being a little bit more, I like to use the word choosy of the work you do. So I know you can't, like me, I think I can't sort of step away, shut the door and Work, move away from it all and, and I think this is because your security community is more than just a community of security professionals, it's a community of friends, isn't it?
Godfried:Absolutely. Yeah. And that's also something like, I don't want to, I don't want to cut the ties and say now I'm retired and I leave. Yeah. Um, so I'm just like. Doing less and less work, which, which is easy and, but still be involved with the community and see where we can support, where we can contribute. That's a nice thing to do. And like GSX, in two weeks, really looking forward to seeing friends there. we have a run together now Lee Oughton, has started this with like a way larger group. So it's, it's, really good. I'm really looking forward to it. And then all the educational things, of course, but also all the, um, the events where you just have a, have a beer or wine together and, and keep up with friends. So that's, that's what I don't want to miss.
Yoyo:I know you like the red wine, Godfried.
Godfried:Oh, yes. Yeah.
Yoyo:I think that's when I first met you and we were drinking red wine. Godfried, thank you so much for your service to ASIS and to the security community. Thank you for everything that you've done. And I know from everybody that I know who knows you, they would want me to say that, to say thank you for your contribution to voluntary service.
Godfried:That's very nice. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks for having me. It was fun. And like you said, a half an hour moves by as quickly as it can.
Yoyo:That's the plan. Godfried, thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle Podcast.
Godfried:Thank you.