EP 126 'Built for the Worst Day': A Life in Crisis Leadership with Craig Foster Chairman of The Asia Crisis & Security Group

BIO

Craig Foster : Head of Corporate Real Estate, Safety & Security, Crisis Management & Resilience at Grab

Craig is a member of Grab’s senior management team and leads real estate & facilities, safety & security, and business continuity teams that help keep Grabbers safe and productive. Craig has lived and worked in Asia since 1986 and has over thirty years of leadership experience across law enforcement, security risk consulting and corporate roles in the manufacturing, finance and technology sectors .

LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/craig-foster-0b85524

 About this episode:

🎯 Key Highlights & Insights:

• A Life-Changing 'Punt' into Policing:
   
  • Craig's spontaneous decision to join the Royal Hong Kong Police in 1986 became a 13-year adventure in cultural immersion, leadership, and transformation.
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  • His early doubts quickly gave way to deep purpose and a new home base in Asia.

• Firsthand Witness to History:
   
  • He played a key role during the 1997 Hong Kong handover, managing security for global leaders including the now King Charles and Tony Blair.
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  • He described juggling “three ceremonies” (British, Hong Kong, Chinese) amid diplomatic tensions and massive logistical challenges.

• From Badge to Boardroom:
   
  • Transitioning from police superintendent to corporate risk consultant was a humbling and eye-opening shift.
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  • Navigating crises in foreign cities like Manila and Bangkok required real-time problem-solving without authority or backup.

• 2004 Tsunami: A Catalyst for Change:
   
  • Craig’s deeply personal experience searching for missing persons in Thailand inspired the founding of ACSG.
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  • The tragedy revealed the power of collaborative intelligence—airline data, credit card tracking, and hotel coordination—to save lives.

• Building a Resilient Security Network:
   
  • Today, ACSG connects 450 members across 260 organizations, with live crisis chats in 21 countries.
•  
  • Its mentoring program and peer support model have shaped the region’s risk culture for two decades.

• Technology + Humanity = Resilience:
   
  • At Grab, Craig is helping integrate AI into crisis management: early warning, automated crisis activation, and post-incident lessons learned.
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  • But tech is just a tool—resilience still demands leadership, training, and trust.

• Embedding Risk Thinking into Business DNA:
   
  • He emphasizes that preparedness isn’t just a compliance checkbox—it’s a business value and a cultural shift.
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  • Many companies still operate in silos, resisting the convergence of cyber, physical, and operational resilience.

• Giving Back:
   
  • Now at a stage where "giving back" feels right, Craig wants to mentor the next generation of security professionals.

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

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Yoyo: 0:36

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. Would you be anywhere else if PO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education. Information and certification and amazing guests for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference where we can to our members' mental health and wellbeing. Our listeners are global. They're the decision makers of tomorrow and today, and I wanna thank you wherever you are for being a part of the Security Circle journey. So if you love the podcast, of course you do, and we're on all podcast platforms. Don't forget when you see that LinkedIn post to like it, subscribe or even just drop a comment and share. The LinkedIn Post. Thank you for your company today. So I have with me, uh, a kind of gentleman that you may not stumble across day to day. Delighted to have him on the Security Circle podcast. He's currently the chairman of the Asia Crisis and Security Group, known as the A CSG. His name is Craig Foster. Craig, welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. How you doing?

Craig: 1:39

Hi, yoyo. Thanks so much for having me. Good to be with you.

Yoyo: 1:43

Well, yeah, let's talk about the timeframes. Whereabouts are you in the world at the moment?

Craig: 1:47

So I'm based in Singapore, uh, and as the story may tell, I'm trying to see if I can meet your amazing speaker bar today, but I'm based in Singapore and you know, my story really is going to be mainly about Asia, where I happen to have lived and worked, uh, for the last 30, 35 plus years.

Yoyo: 2:05

I think it's going to be very interesting if we just go back to some earlier parts of your career because that will set the precedent for why you are doing what you are doing now and why it's been so successful celebrating its 20th anniversary. Let's go back to when you joined the police. A certain type of person joins a certain type of career. You join the Royal Hong Kong police and a lot of people would know that. Tell us what that journey was like into the police service.

Craig: 2:36

Yeah, it was a good punt, I have to say. Looking back, yo-yo, lifestyle wise, opportunity wise, it was a good punt. And let me start with a little bit of an amusing ditty. This was 1986. Uh, no mobile, no email, uh, and I actually had a friend in what we used to call the territorial army now called the reserves. He had already gone ahead to Hong Kong. Uh, and so I, I'd heard about his journey out to Hong Kong and I thought, you know, sounds like a good thing. I'll kind of check out of whatever plans I may have had locally in the UK and, and go and do this adventure for a couple of years. They were offering a three year, short service arrangement. So I went for an interview in London, went for a medical, uh, found myself surprisingly, at Heathrow, taking the longest flight I'd ever taken, uh, out to Hong Kong. And when I got to the police college, the police training school, first thing I did of course was ask for my, my, my friend from a previous life, only to be told that he'd already arrived in Hong Kong, started his training, but quit. And he was now at the transport office in Central Hong Kong working out his three month notice. So immediately my heart sank and I thought, oh, this has been a terrible decision. You know, here I am in Hong Kong, I've come all this way. I've given up on some other opportunities, and it looks like it might have been a bad call. Um. But as it turned out, uh, he also stayed in Asia and he went on to have a fantastic career in aviation. Uh, he's currently in Dubai, but um, it wasn't the most auspicious of starts, but I served a total of 13 years and it was a absolute adventure. Yo-yo, it really was from the experiences of being in a foreign culture. Having a leadership and management role in a foreign culture, being on the streets of Hong Kong in a uniform, you know, not fully understanding the context and the language. It was a hugely steep learning curve. But within a year or so, I got the bug. I knew that I was gonna enjoy it. And as it turned out later in life, as I said earlier, you know, I, I ended up meeting a lovely lady in Hong Kong. We had two sons in Hong Kong and we've moved on to other parts of Asia. So, you know, Hong Kong really has a special place in our hearts. It's our kind of third culture home, if you want to call it that. And overall, what a great lucky punt it was.

Yoyo: 5:05

Now you were there, weren't you? When Hong Kong was going through the transition to being handed back to China, what was that like? To be in that kind of flux where you couldn't surely be aware of everything that was going on.

Craig: 5:22

Yeah, so nine years of my nearly 13 year service were actually spent in a specialist diplomatic security unit, which I kind of put my hand up and was selected for, and then was trained actually by, uh, various special units. In, in, in the early years, and I was lucky enough to stay in that unit and get promoted. Um, so I ended up on the planning team, on the close protection side for the entire event. You know, an unprecedented historical event. No real similar event had happened anywhere in the world before. When you think of the, the, the, the significance of Hong Kong, the symbolism of Hong Kong, the relationship with emerging China and so on. And I spent two years firstly trying to prepare Hong Kong by traveling to other events. I was lucky enough to go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in New Zealand. I went to the APEC meeting in Manila and Subic Bay, Philippines, trying to develop a playbook for Hong Kong to manage this event because, uh, we'd never managed an event of this significance before. Fast forward to the actual days themselves. Um. I was responsible for the close protection of the now King, uh, Tony Blair, as was Prime Minister, uh, Janti Min Roji, the, the then leaders of the People's Republic of China, 40 plus foreign ministers, heads of the United Nations and, and other global organizations. I, I suddenly had 600 officers. Working under me in hotels, providing motorcades, doing searches. Um, and of course the tension, the, the, the, the, the sort of the pull on us as the central agency trying to make this event go at the time. Yoyo, you might. Recall that the relationship between the UK and China had not been as smooth, and so there was real fears that the handover ceremony itself would sort of stumble and there was a bit of suspicion. So really, three ceremonies emerged. The British farewell. Sort of a Hong Kong continuity, and then the Chinese, uh, you know, one, one minute past midnight, uh, ceremony. And we had to sort of juggle all of those competing emotions, including my own, uh, and, you know, basically focus on two things. One, I. Our mission to keep those, those dignitaries safe. Two, I think our, in our minds was probably Hong Kong, you know, and the people of Hong Kong and doing the right thing, uh, for the people of Hong Kong who were responsible to, to protect. So, you know, I actually found myself there on the balcony, uh, moments after the ceremony had finished watching the Royal Yacht, Nia sort of limp out, uh, with a bit of rain in, in Victoria Harbor. With very mixed emotions, very mixed emotions personally. But then luckily I had, you know, 40 other protectees still to take care of, so I just threw myself back into work and continued. And a few days went by before they'd all departed Hong Kong before it all began to sink in. And I could sort of, uh, try and take stock of it. But I was lucky enough to be right there with a front seat on a really amazing, unique historical event.

Yoyo: 8:47

How did your time in the Royal Hong Kong police align with, say, British policing? Were there any notable differences that you could remember?

Craig: 8:59

Uh, we actually had an exchange program and a lot of officers went to do the command training back in the uk and UK superintendents were assigned to Hong Kong for two year exchanges. So, you know, lots of similarities. But then of course the obvious ones are language and culture. And then another very obvious one that maybe isn't so obvious is Hong Kong really is a vertical city. So what the, in the UK might be in, in the days when the police were visible, what might have been street patrols. In Hong Kong we're vertical up into the towers of public housing estates and up and down the corridors. So it, it was a military structure as well. We, we had a sort of a military ranked structure. Um, the expatriates were a small proportion of what was a 35,000 strong force. Um, it was a, it was a totally unique situation that of course today, as you look back today, and I think of my own sons maybe. There is no such organization that you could join today and have the experiences that I was lucky enough to have in Hong Kong. So it was a unique experience, a real adventure.

Yoyo: 10:09

And it's really given you a platform, hasn't it? Because from there you've gone on to other things. What was the most notable thing that you were able to transition into once you left the Royal Hong Kong Police?

Craig: 10:22

Yeah. So I think this story is so similar to many listening to your podcast who may have made that journey from uniform to, the commercial world. And it's a difficult journey. Uh, and you, in my case, I go from Warren card, superintendent of police. Carrying a firearm with a unit under my, you know, command sounds like an old fashioned word. It is, uh, suddenly to being a risk consultant, whatever that means, first, first challenge to work out what that means. Uh, flying off to other parts of Southeast Asia that I didn't know as well, where I had no authority obviously. Totally on my wits, you know, having to, okay, you thought you were good at that in, in the confines of the Hong Kong police. Now how good really you are? Are you in Manila? In Bangkok or further afield dealing with very different risk issues. As I know you and many others on the podcast will have found. Corporations sometimes deal with things more in house. There are issues that corporations try to deal internally that, that the police, you know, aren't involved in. So it was an adaptation. It's still ongoing. You could argue for all of us. Um, finding our value, finding comfort in the business world, uh, translating the skills that we have, which you've, is the basis of your question. You know, it's an ongoing journey. Uh, I. I've had some fabulous adventures and experiences in the corporate world and as I look back on a dark day, I might think, you know, do I wish I'd stayed in in the service? But you know what, I'd never have missed the travel, the variety, and the learning experiences that I've had in the commercial site.

Yoyo: 12:10

Yeah,'cause it's a huge amount of responsibility, isn't it? When you are solely responsible for, know the care and welfare on a global stage, not just a national stage. It's a huge responsibility. But you seem to like that responsibility, don't you?'cause you've never really shied away from taking accountability.

Craig: 12:29

No, I think I do. I think that is, a driver of mine. And you fast forward yoyo to. 2004. I, I'm a risk consultant for a regional risk firm. You know, ironically, as I look back now and it's, it is quite ironic to some of today's headlines, our tagline was mitigating the risks of globalization. Uh. We're in a, we're in a period now where globalization appears to have, uh, possibly paused. Uh, whereas we were a risk company in Asia at a time when globalization was just beginning. Companies were looking for opportunities to invest in China, in India, in Indonesia, and other parts of the region, and we were there to help them navigate. Um, but, you know, another formative event, um. Where I found myself in a similar situation to your, to your point, uh, having to step up was the 2004 tsunami. And this brings us to the foundation of the Asia Crisis and Security Group. I was a consultant at the time and I was engaged by a client to go and try and locate a group of missing, uh, employees. They were a young group from Hong Kong, from different countries, and they'd been on PPP Island at the time of the tsunami. I was able to locate several in phase one, and that was, you know, that was an encouraging phase. I found them. I was able to feed and water them, give them some, uh, immediate cash and help'em to arrange flights home. I. Hmm. Uh, sadly I ended up looking for one who was missing and another colleague of our own from our own company who'd been holidaying in Thailand, who was also missing. And I found myself in the second phase, which was checking morgues and hospitals, uh, bulletin boards, looking for signs of, uh, in this case a, a missing girl. Uh, that was very difficult. Um, those memories are, you know, quite hard to remove from anyone who's, who's dealt with death. They'll, they'll recognize the smell and they'll, they'll recognize some of the difficulties in, in, in that. I mean, I, I find myself at a, a Chinese temple and I walked around the side of the temple and the sort of 300, uh, body bags. And I go, you know, I just kind of think to myself, okay, well do I open them all? Or you know, where do I start? Where do I finish here? Um, the third phase though, yo-yo was possibly the most difficult because, uh, with all good intentions, her parents were sent out. Um, and of course they were sent out from the US with some high expectation, even though this was five days later. And the reality should have been dawning really, as a parent, of course, you probably wouldn't allow those thoughts to enter. So they arrived with quite high exp expectations that, you know, there might be a successful resolution. And unfortunately, I had to then explain to them what I'd done in the previous five days, what was happening. And then we repeated that journey through morgues, through hospitals, Chinese temples, where bodies had been stored. This was in Phuket, Southern Thailand. And that was the most difficult, what to say, how to help them with their grief, you know? And nothing I could do was anywhere near sufficient. And that's the part that probably emotionally I remember most is my inability really at that time to convey, uh, how sad I was and how, you know, how I felt about that, to be honest.

Yoyo: 15:52

So I'm gonna come back, but it's worth just reminding everybody that this was at the time the most powerful earthquake in the region ever recorded in Asia. It was known as the Boxing Day tsunami. It was in 2004. It killed an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries and cause major disruptions primarily because of those 30 meter waves. Sorry. Big difference. 30 meters. I don't know that many countries could really thrive after being hit by a 30 meter wave. So this was a very significant incident and it kind of reset things for you, didn't it?

Craig: 16:33

Yeah. So whilst I was there, doing my thing, um, and trying to help clients as a consultant, particularly this particular scenario that I described, a group of corporate, security, uh, leaders centered in Hong Kong decided to come together and help each other. And partly, you know, engaged through me on occasion, but they basically said, listen, we need each other's help here. Some of you work for airlines, other of you work for credit card companies. Some of you may be involved in hotels. We've all got missing people. We've all got limited resources. How about we come together and see if we can help each other? To, uh, you know, to get through this and help, help find, uh, any, missing persons. So that was the, actually the beginning of the Asia Crisis, crisis and Security Group, they realized that there was huge benefits in mutual aid. They literally were able to check airline manifests. They literally were able to triangulate the person's last credit card spend through the relationships and the contacts that this group was able to bring up. So fast forward today, this is our 20th year as an organization. Since that tsunami it formed formally early in 2005. Um, we have 450 members, which really represents pretty much everybody who's doing security risk management in Asia Pac. They represent 260 different organizations. It's an amazing network. We are not really flying a flag of nationality, uh, or of background. Uh, we really plot pride ourselves on our kind of lean approach to how we run the organization. Um, we've got live chat groups running on 21 countries right now. We've got webinars we run, we ran one at. Short notice about the recent tensions between India and Pakistan. We activate during crisis and we, we look to help each other, um, during those really challenging moments. Uh, we've got a mentoring program and we come together like many organizations do to host sort of learning and sharing events like the one that's coming up in a couple of weeks here in Singapore.

Yoyo: 18:54

I remember that time really well. We had friends living in Indonesia and we know that obviously Indonesia's a very big country. It's takes a lot of long, but Bande Aceh in the top of Indonesia was one of the worst hit areas. And so just getting messages through to friends to say, are you okay? Are you, well all you know. And they, to be honest with you, it was phenomenal how that particular country rallied around. They all went to blood banks. They all did their best to do their little bit to help. It's, it's terrifying, isn't it? When you live in another country and you're trying to check in on the welfare of loved ones. Are we though, as a humanitarian community globally, are we getting. Better at that than that particular incident.'cause there were significant learnings from, you know, country and community responses for that tsunami, on boxing day. Are we learning globally to deal with these incidents better?

Craig: 19:56

Yeah, great question and I think every major event, covid included. Probably concludes with that very same question, and probably a fair bit of positive intent. But then, um, human nature seems to want to quite naturally focus on perhaps more positive things, more growth stories. Particularly business, uh, and inevitably that moment fades. And so there, there is a moment when perhaps risk management is front and center and people want to be better prepared and people want to put in place better plans and structures. But to be honest with you, in the corporate business cycle, it doesn't last that long. Memories can be quite short, uh, and it takes perseverance as much as anything else. And to your earlier point, uh, your storytelling abilities, um, to be able to, to maybe change that dynamic, uh. And convince a corporation to deeply embed these processes. And you know, that's today, that's sort of become resilience, part of resilience, uh, personal and professional and corporate. Um, and so maybe today post covid given global. Uncertainties of the current situation that we're living and working in. I think companies do recognize resilience as being a strength for their business, being able to bounce back quickly, being able to recover from shocks, maybe being first back to market. These things attract businesses, but they don't quite know what that means. They don't quite know what the ingredients to being more resilient might be. Uh, and of course, being more resilient is going to be. An all hazards question, yo-yo. And that means that, you know, people like myself who, who perhaps have experienced in the physical domains would need to be much closer to my cyber counterparts, to, you know, to business continuity counterparts and still, despite many decades of talking about. So-called convergence. Uh, it, it, it, it hasn't really happened. Uh, and it's only in very few companies do teams come together formally. Most of the relationships are a bit like where I work now. They, they're strong, but they're informal. And so, uh, corporations have their own fiefdoms, their own structures that sometimes work against the strong desire to do the right thing, not just for their employees. But also for the communities that they serve, but also, of course, to strengthen and protect their businesses

22:37

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Yoyo: 23:20

As professionals in this space. It's critical, isn't it, that we. We take as many of the learnings, the learning opportunities as possible because each of these big incidents, they give us the fruit of how we need to deal with things going forward. After the tsunami incident, you are forming your own coalition, what happened next in terms of incidents that you rallied around and how did you go from strength to strength?

Craig: 23:55

Yeah, I think there's two dimensions. We definitely have, had plenty of opportunities for activation, whether it be the Mumbai terror attacks, whether it be a growing number of natural phenomenon in this part of the world, typhoons, earthquakes. There's plenty, plenty of those examples that I think would've sustained. The benefits of the Asia Crisis and Security Group, but I think we've also grown as an organization in terms of, um, our ability to share, uh, our ability to benchmark with each other. We have a very successful mentoring program. You know, we're looking really at other ways. Peace time, you might call them as to how we help each other be successful. It's as simple as that. And, and you know, we found that the relationships, the network, which, you know, slightly overused phrase, but of course. Even in a digital world, I would argue we have a, we have a, a predetermined tendency to want to connect. Yeah. It's genetic in this part of the world. Uh, face-to-face connections, relationships remain very, very important. This organization, we, we virtually insist on face. We don't have a mandate, but we virtually, we, we lead with face-to-face connectivity. We really value coming together to know each other, to develop relationships. I. Uh, and then of course to share and discuss common problems. So I think it's, it still delivers the early insight, the ability to benchmark, the ability to hook in and share and support each other in events. But there's a much deeper thread now in terms of personal development. Mentoring, knowledge sharing, um, you know, thinking forward about how we should add more value for our businesses.

Yoyo: 25:53

How, and this is a very tough question, and I've asked some of the best crisis experts, global crisis experts in the world, I've always said, what's coming up next? What's on the horizon? Scanning piece, Craig?

Craig: 26:07

Yeah. So lemme tell you what we're trying to do about that, that would help me and make me much smarter, which isn't difficult. Um, we are, um, first of all, we've launched a global security operations center. Many of the, of your listeners probably are, have one or no or no of those. So we've got 24 hour, seven day a week scanning. We subscribe to a range of. Um, inputs, you know, we, we realize that, uh, you need to have a broad canvas of sources. Um, so we tap all those in the public domain and we subscribe to a number of others. But right now we are in the midst of a project where I work now at Grab, uh, in Singapore, but covering the whole of Southeast Asia to power that up with technology. And we're looking to develop a technical platform. AI will be part of the engine whereby we can get early alerting, uh, and then we can also get automation around activation of crisis teams. We can get all of the recording of those crisis events in terms of the meetings, the actions, the follow ups, automated, and also at the backend, we want to have an automated process to gather and share. The lessons that we've learned,'cause time and time again, yo-yo, we find that we've learned something in a typhoon of the Philippines and we found that it's not been shared with Vietnam. And you know, the, even though we're one company for some reason, the sharing again tends to fade after the immediate immediacy of the event. So my insights no better than yours. Um, uh, the, you know, I think even. The phrase vuca, volatile, uncertain, et cetera, is being overtaken by something even stronger. Um, but what we are doing is definitely doubling down on scanning and we're trying to use technology, uh, not to do it all for us, but to make it more systematic so that we don't miss stuff, uh, so that we troll. So that, and, and these learning models, large learning models, of course can, can self improve. All the time. They can be, they're much better at human at, at seeking out new sources, um, you know, reminding us of, of, of things. And, and of course under stress, stress. This was the benefits previously of the old crisis plan, if you remember to get it out, which very few people did. Uh, but it was a checklist really in essence. What, what hadn't we thought about every 30 minutes. Technology can do that in an automated sense, can run the crisis meetings for us and can remind us, can draft us, you know, draft, uh, communications for us, et cetera, et cetera. So we're really dive, we're a tech company, so we're really diving down on how we can automate certain aspects of that.

Yoyo: 28:59

Is it all about information or is it more than just, you know, information data? Craig, I.

Craig: 29:07

Information you could argue is the start. But if you're not prepared, then all you are is better informed. Mm. Not a bad place to be. But the next question is, okay, what's the impact to our organization and what are we gonna do about it? And so that's the full continuum, if you like, from alerting through incident through crisis, perhaps either on severity or because you've mismanaged the incident through to recovery. And so, you know, you need to understand your dependencies. What is it that the company values? Where are the critical vulnerabilities in your organization? Uh, so to your question, the, the early insight, the early alerting is, is, is powerful. But then you have to have the processes, the muscle memory, the DNA of your leadership teams. Which really comes only from training to be able to then, uh, deal with the incident, recover quickly, get back to business, and, you know, possibly even gain a competitive advantage if that's the right thing to do at that time.

Yoyo: 30:12

How much of your organizations. Vision and communication is around preparedness for corporations because I'm finding things like disaster recovery and continuity. They're not something that organizations tend to prioritize focusing on, are they?

Craig: 30:34

No. And there's almost two camps here. Yo-yo, at least from my experience, there are organizations, particularly in the financial sector where they have. Pretty much regulatory compliance, uh, demands on them to have certain plans and conduct so many training exercises and basically, test annually. Not many other organ organizations beyond the financial services area would, would have that, rigor. So yeah, it comes back to leadership. It comes back to having a bit of advocacy within the organization. It comes back to the ability of people like me to be able to be that voice of risk, um, at the executive table. And to be, honestly, to be able to explain, uh, that it is possible to plan and prepare, because many assume that it's just not, we just have to weather it out. It is possible, um, to recover in, in such a way that we would position ourselves well in terms of looking after our own employees, looking after our customers and our partners and the community, perhaps even more broadly, really powerful outcomes for the future of our business. Um, and that, that creates a business value. I mean, unfortunately, that's a valid question within the corporate. Because we are running a business. And so that last piece, um, although it's not necessarily what gets me up in the morning, it's the question I need to answer in the executive office. It it, it's important to have that and'cause that will drive the, the amount of engagement, perhaps the amount of funding that I can secure to do what you've described, which is to really. Embed a culture of resilience at this organization whereby it's not an add-on, it's not something in the cupboard for a rainy day. It's literally how we do business.

Yoyo: 32:30

congratulations on the 20th anniversary. That's pretty special. You've got a growing membership right now, within the region. What sort of things do you have planned? Now coming up, for 25, 26?

Craig: 32:45

Yeah, so we run, I mentioned face-to-face earlier. I mentioned the fact that we run regular webinars. I also mentioned that we are always ready to activate and have a call. You know, the recent call about India Pakistan was really more to share amongst each other. Well, what, what's your posture at the office? What's your posture about travel? You know, has anyone got any unique insight? And for us, there'll be numerous members dialing in from India. Or even, you know, in this case, perhaps Pakistan. So we get ground truth. Yeah. We're not just listening to a consultant in London who's tried to read the, the latest, summaries from the media. We run at least four events a year. This one coming up at the end of May is pretty special. It's our anniversary event. We actually, uh, partnered with Isma. I think you, you've heard of Isma and a few of your listeners have probably also heard of Isma, which is the Chief Security O officers organization. They are joining us for this event and they, they're having a panel so that our members who are growing their careers can listen to top tiered C-suite level security leaders. And that session is all geared around, you know, how have they been successful, um, you know, what's their corporate journey been like? And, you know, to sort of convey some tips to our audience who are generally regional or up and coming security managers, uh, about how to grow their careers and how, how to, how, how those individuals who are currently CSOs for major corporations can be successful. We've then got a big gala dinner. Uh, which we hope to have a bit of fun. We're pretty, pretty much a fun organization. It's social, uh, I mentioned the importance of relationships. So we're hosting that outside of an office environment. We really have decided to pause, to reflect, to sort of celebrate the fact that this organization without any funding. Without any structure, without any institutional anchor has sustained itself and grown, uh, by just delivering real value to its members really over, over 20 years. It's an amazing story that is just sustained, really thanks to the individual contributions of a few heavy lifters, that that is definitely the case, but it would only, it's really, it's by members for members. And if it wasn't delivering value, folks wouldn't be signing up. Uh, we happen to have a very low annual fee to help keep us going. Um, and we are very, very keen to keep that low. So the entry point is, you know, is achievable for, um, all of our regional members. Um, so we're doing something right. Yoyo,

Yoyo: 35:26

I think certainly across the security community, it's very broad. It's, you know, one end right through to the other. It's all encompassing. And I think what works really well is the, the fact that we are able to come together as community.'cause ultimately. As humans, when we are so potty about something like security, we tend to like to be with other people who are equally as potty as us. Right? I think it's a really good combination. I think it's lovely that you've made it work, and not withstanding the fact that you've been a heavy lifter yourself in leading this initiative, do you feel like a huge responsibility on your shoulders?

Craig: 36:04

Kind of, but I've reached that point in my working life where I feel a strong compulsion to sort of give something back. And that's, you know, that's been sort of growing. I wish it had, I mentioned to you previously when we chatted, I wish it had dawned on me far earlier, but maybe it's just a stage of life thing where you realize how, you know how lucky you've been. You realize that there's been a number of people along the way that have given you incredible support. Mentoring and guidance often at times when you really needed it. And, you know, I'd like to give something back because I've taken much more than I've given. Uh, I, you know, and I, I'm in that stage where I, I just feel very comfortable. It feels like the right thing to do. Um, so yeah, I'm very happy, I'm very privileged to be in this position. And, uh, most members, of course, are up and coming and, uh, the, the demographic of the A CSG is young. Tech savvy. So again, they keep you on your toes. You know, I, I, I can't, I, it's not just a, a darkened bar with a couple of, you know, gray graying expatriates. The organization is very diverse and, um, you know, we have to make sure that our gender is basically timely and relevant. Uh, otherwise there's many demands on folks time. So. Uh, I'm looking forward to the anniversary event. We, we will sort of reflect and celebrate, uh, but we're also very keen to continue to sort of evolve AI in the security world is another key topic for our event. You know, where does it fit in? We've actually called it AI for security dummies, uh, which I think's pretty apt, pretty apt. Um. And, uh, so we, we, we, we we're very keen to, to be forward looking, uh, and, and sort of, you know, there's a bit of a growth agenda that we try and introduce to our programs as well. So it's gonna be a great day followed by a really, um, a really positive and high energy dinner. I.

Yoyo: 38:02

Well look, that's about it Craig. Thank you so much. What we'll do is we'll provide a link to the website, which includes all the details around the mentoring program, how to connect with other members and events that you've got coming up. Certainly in the next sort of year or two, well done on making something really work outta something quite so tragic. Now, Asia doesn't tend to have a lot of very, very large incidents, gratefully you are not being called to action quite so often, but you are there, you are connected, and you are sharing information, and that's just, that's just great for everybody involved. Craig, thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle podcast.

Craig: 38:43

Thanks for having me.