The Security Circle

EP 133 "No Smoke, No Mirrors": The Truth About Executive Protection - Direct, Honest, and on Point with Mac Segals Anti-Fluff Vibe

• Yoyo Hamblen • Season 1 • Episode 133

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Summary

🎙️ Podcast Bio Summary – Episode 133: Mac Segal

In this episode of The Security Circle, Yolanda is joined by Mac Segal, Founder and CEO of AHNA Group, for an unfiltered look at the world of executive protection. From South Africa to Israel to the corporate frontlines, Mac shares the lessons behind building a global security business based on trust, agility, and integrity.

Together, they dive into:

  • Why trust is earned through consistency, not theatrics
  • The myth of the "protector" and what the job really involves
  • How the EP industry gets in its own way — and how to fix it
  • Crisis response, last-minute problem solving, and high-stakes logistics
  • The value of being calm, competent, and quietly excellent
  • What young professionals get wrong (and what they need to hear)

This is the real deal — no bravado, no BS, just hard truths and smarter thinking in the world of protection.

BIO

Mac's company, AHNA Group is the culmination of over 30 years of Executive Protection,operations, training and consulting experience in the Security Industry. Specializing in Executive Protection and Security Consulting for corporate clients, Mac and AHNA Group bring real world knowledge, experience and expertise to all facets of their performance.

 

As a fixed asset Subject Matter Expert, Mac conducts security assessments and designs security master plans as well as routine and emergency procedures for business facilities, hotels and critical infrastructure the world over. Working extensively with Fortune 500 companies and UHNWI worldwide he possesses and in depth understanding of the challenges facing businesses and infrastructure in today's world. Mac has published many articles on hotel and general security and is a regular speaker at security conferences the world over as well as SME to governments, major television and print news outlets.

Mac leads training programs in Covert Executive Protection, Surveillance Detection, Hotel Security, Travel Security Awareness, Emergency Response Procedures and other topics. Mac has taught, non-security employees, managers, security professionals, government units and C suite executives as well as corporate employees

Born in South Africa, Mac has served in two militaries as well as government service, living in Africa, Europe, USA and the Middle East whilst operating around the globe. This facilitates him with an excellent multi-cultural understanding which allows him to provide tailor-made, relevant and practical security and safety solutions.


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

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a fab review. We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays. Hi, I'm Yolanda And welcome to the Security Circle Podcast, produced in association with ifpo, the International Foundation for Protection Officers. This podcast is all about connection, bringing you closer to the greatest minds, boldest thinkers, trailblazers, and change makers across the security industry. Whether you are here to grow your network, spark new ideas, or simply feel more connected to the world of protection and risk, you are in the right place wherever you are listening from. Thank you for being a part of the Security Circle journey. Your company today means everything.

Yoyo:

Well, I have with me a very special man, Max Siegel, founder and CEO. Back. Is that A H N A or A H N A? How do I say that?

Mac:

People just say A H N A. A

Yoyo:

H N A!

Mac:

Truthfully, it's the initials of my four daughters. That is where it comes from, because people ask me. Um, but colloquially known as A H N A.

Yoyo:

I love that. I wish I'd asked you before. Mac, welcome to the Security Circle podcast. How are you doing this morning? for

Mac:

having me. It's wonderful to be here. Well, listen, we

Yoyo:

only have the best of the best here on the Security Circle and all of the guests know that. I'd like to talk to you about how you kind of, like, let's take a little, like a little journey into how you got to where you are today.

Mac:

Um, well, the short version is, um, I've been in and around, uh, security for most of my adult life. Uh, I was in the South African military and then the Israeli military and then, uh, Israeli government and the private sector. Um, and, um, at some point, I guess, uh, over the recent years where there's been this massive consolidation, Um, in the security industry with some of the big players buying up a lot of the medium sized companies, um, I kind of identified a vacuum that was created and thought that there's room for medium sized, super client focused, very high end providers, um, and a lot of them had it. Um, so, uh, we opened on a group at the beginning of 2021, uh, and here we are four years later, having loads of fun.

Yoyo:

What kind of impact when the big providers buy up those medium businesses? I mean, they're really buying clients as well, aren't they? When they're buying businesses, they're buying those relationships. What kind of impact do you think it has on the industry? I think

Mac:

that like any shift in an industry, there's positive and negative. So obviously the big boys, it's like an aircraft carrier. They have huge firepower, massive capabilities and reach, uh, and financial backing. Uh, but like an aircraft carrier, they tend to move very slowly. They turn slowly. There's a lot of processes, corporate governance, compliance behind it. Um, and often some of the clients. Want a more agile provider, somebody who can make decisions quickly, can respond quickly, um, who doesn't need permissions or approvals, um, who aren't limited by these or those corporate policies, and can just get the job done, and are incredibly client focused. So, There's room for everybody, right? Some people want to shop at Walmart, and some people want to shop, you know, at a specialist store, there's room for everyone.

Yoyo:

I'm more of a Target kind of girl. Target,

Mac:

please.

Yoyo:

Target? Oh, you know. I cannot stay away from Target when I go to America. But you're right, it's horses for courses, isn't it? You know, when what you want is with a certain provider, that's where, you know, the decision leads one. You have Crikey. I mean, to look at you back, you wouldn't think you had 30 years of experience behind you. Certainly a culmination of, you know, experience for executive protection operations. What's led you down this road? Why executive protection?

Mac:

Well, because I'm no good at anything else. If I ever had to get a real job, I'm not sure what I'd do. Um, yeah, it kind of was a, it was never really a conscious decision. Um, it was just kind of something that I fell into. Um, I really do not like, uh, the terminology of we're protectors, we're warriors, you know, I was born a protector. I, that, that, I, I, that kind of makes me uncomfortable. Um, I think who we really are are people who care about other people. Um, because that's essentially what we do. Right? What we do is not cool. It's not James Bond stuff most of the time. It's quite perfunctory and boring. It's certainly not rocket science.

Yoyo:

Well, thank goodness. Can you see how he gets treated in the movies? I mean, he nearly dies all the time.

Mac:

Exactly. Triple A rated. Um, but I guess that, that it really is, the people who do this, It is because you care about other people, the same, you know, as people who go into law enforcement or whatever. It's because you want to do some good and you care about other people, because we're glorified babysitters at the end of the day. We're gopher, chauffeur, providers. We're there to make sure of that. And I don't mean that in a condescending way. I mean it in Our job is to make sure that the client is happy no matter what that means if it means a certain kind of mineral water or an hypoallergenic pillow Right or to evacuate them from tsunami, but it's our responsibility and we are taking on that mantle to protect their physical well being, their reputation and their information.

Yoyo:

you're quite independent, certainly in thought and certainly in your approach to things. You don't tend to go with the flow with everybody else, do you? Why is it important to stand in your space, and own that and do it your way? Well,

Mac:

for noticing. Um, again, I don't think it's a conscious decision. I think it's People talk about, you know, my truth. I'm not sure there's a my truth. There's the truth. Um, there's your beliefs, right? Or your preferences. What I think the clients respond to is transparency, collaboration, honesty, and real integrity. Um, if you don't try to dress up the donkey like a racehorse, if you don't pretend to be what you're not, if you don't pretend to provide services where you can't, Right. And you just go, we're really good at this and that's how we can best support you. People make, I think a fundamental error in thinking that the clients are somehow not that bright, that the clients don't see through all the smoke and mirrors and nonsense, but they really do, they're exceptionally skilled and intelligent people. And when it comes to protecting their executives. Right. They're going to do their due diligence and they've seen it and they've heard it all before. So if you want to be taken seriously, you need to present seriously. And for us, that means, uh, my, my, my colleague, Brian Janssen, um, says that trust equals transparency and consistency over time. And if you want to build trust with the client, that's what you need to do. So you can blow smoke and mirrors and rip off the client once and fool them once. But it will be once and then you're done and that's not a way to build a business.

Yoyo:

So interesting that you mentioned trust because that's exactly where I was going to go next. I think the type of when you're protecting somebody and you're protecting somebody's important human assets, trust does factor in and you want that repeat business, right? And the client, I should imagine, feels a huge amount of reassurance knowing. That how things work. You almost tend to sort of operate symbiotically. That that's when it works well, isn't it? Rather than trying to get used to a new outfit all the time.

Mac:

100 percent correct. When our clients step off the plane, they want to see a face that they know. The EA, the PA wants to see a face that they know, who knows the rhythm of their trips, who knows the client's preferences, who knows the distancing they like, just is plugged into them. It makes their life easier. Our job is to support their success. And that success is often, um, expressed in business success, right? Most of our clients are future B. Honest and frank, you know, most clients, if I walk down the street with a client in Berlin, the COO of a fortune 500 company, most human beings don't know who they are. They're not going to attack them in the street. No one's going to kidnap them all. There's no snipers waiting to shoot at them, right? The threat is environmental. If there's a drug addict or a or civil unrest or an earthquake or a medical emergency. But those are the actual threats to most clients who are not recognized in the street. So our support is largely to support their success, if it's a business trip, if it's a vacation, to make sure that it's seamless. Right. Um, and that trust, as you said, if they get off the plane and they see a new face every time that to explain everything again, every time that that doesn't really work for

Yoyo:

them last year, we did see an evolution in the types, the types of attacks specifically for your type of client base when we saw the United healthcare CEO shot outside his building. That was quite unprecedented. I have to ask you, because I think this is directly, uh, relating to what you do, I think when you heard that, did you think, okay, this is going to be the sign of things to come, this is what we're always guarding against. Um, this is, this is where we have to be prepared.

Mac:

Yeah, I wrote an article on LinkedIn after that, uh, very unfortunate incident. Um, I think that everything we do has to be risk based. So, and I'm not going to comment on, on the UnitedHealthcare, uh, CEO. I wasn't part of his security apparatus or the company or the decision making. So I don't believe it's correct to Monday morning quarterback. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, yeah, easy after the fact, right? Um, however, I'm not sure that it moved the needle that much. It moved the needle in going, there are a lot of crazy people out there, um, who can do crazy things. However, it absolutely reinforces the need for good protective intelligence. Uh, that if, if, if you're in an industry or your CEO, if there's chatter, if there's emails, if they're being threatened, right? Well, then you need to step up your game. Um, you know, people ask me, well, if you had an armed EP agent, would it have helped? I don't know. I wasn't there. If you ask me my professional opinion, what may have helped is a good advance, right? Because an advanced agent may have noticed. Right. Um, the shooter lurking, maybe that could have, but when somebody pops up behind you and shoot someone in the back, you know, and let's face it, the average executive is not walking around with a four man team in a diamond formation, right? That's just not realistic, right? It's, it's a single operator, maybe two. Um, but corporate America responded as they do with a bit of a knee jerk panic, but that's settled back. And what I say to all our clients is it begins with a threat assessment. You cannot make a treatment plan before you've done a diagnosis. Do you have a disease? Are you under threat? Is there credible, probable and critical threats to your executives? Right? Yes. Okay. Let's look at that. No. Well. Then your posture is different, right? But just because this, um, uh, gentleman was unfortunately assassinated. And if you're the CEO of an ice cream company. Well, I'm not sure you're under the same threat level, right? So everything we do has to be risk based, and people lose focus on that often.

Yoyo:

I thought it was a worrying turn of events, certainly when you think, you know, you must have a lot of high value assets that you're protecting and thinking. You know, these are the links that you have to consider some people will go to and how risky is the behavior of your, you know, client. Uh, and, and are they very open with you about where that risk increases as well? Uh, Mac, I know that's a double barreled question, but are they very open and transparent with you about any kind of increased risk to their safety?

Mac:

Most of our clients, um, have their own in house teams. So, um, most of our clients are, um, in a situation where they have embedded in house teams, and then we're providing the local support, the global support, additional support. That kind of Intel usually stays within the in house team. They don't share with us all the threats they get. They don't share with us the Bolo lists, not our business. If there's something that we need to know in a specific location, so we're going to, I don't know, we're going to London and maybe there was something related to London, the team, the internal team will then say to us, hey, you need to know this, but they're certainly not going to give us, nor should they. Uh, in terms of opposite, give us access to all of the information about their clients. There are smaller clients who we do protective intelligence for. So the off the honor resource center, we do our own protective intelligence around our clients. Digital vulnerability assessments, geolocation operationally, right? Uh, like for example, we're up in the world economic forum, right? So we're monitoring chatter on the deep end, the dark web on the web within X radius of Davos. If anything gets posted about any of our clients that are up there. So we do that internally. The clients share only what they wish or comfortable to, and any expectation differently is mistaken. It's not correct. It is not your business. The clients teams are professional. Right, they're often public companies, they will share exactly what it is they think you need to know. That's it.

Yoyo:

No, that's great. It's a good insight, to be honest with you. Do you think that your military background has kind of shaped the way you think today? And what's it like being in two different militaries? I have to ask you about that.

Mac:

Um, firstly, no. Um, I don't, I'm one of those people that I don't think that having a military background, a law enforcement background necessarily gives you, uh, uh, an advantage, uh, in the executive protection world. Um, in the, um, PMC world, sure. You want to be a private military contract, uh, in high risk, um, environments? Sure, you have military background, you were a SWAT commander, that is very valuable. Um, but for the average EP detail, the fact that you were an underwater ninja knife fighter All the respect to you, but that doesn't mean you're going to be a good EP agent. Um, the whole hard skills, soft skills debate, obviously, yes. Everybody, you need to have the hard skills in case you need them. You need to know you have to have the soft skills because 99 percent of what we do is soft skills. Um, I can tell you in 20 years of boots on the ground EP, I never had to raise a hand to anybody. I certainly didn't need a weapon of any description. Um, not saying that it can't happen. But that is not most of the time. Um, what is needed? Um, so I don't think it shaped particularly the way the way I think, um, two militaries very different. Um, in South Africa, when I was in the military, um, South Africa really wasn't under any threat. Uh, by that point, I was one of the last conscripts in, in South Africa. So, it, it, it was just because I was conscripted, it wasn't cool, it, it, it didn't do anything really interesting. There wasn't really any threat. Um, at that time, the military were being used pretty much to, um, reinforce the police. Uh, in the townships and things, something which I certainly did not want to have any part of, so made sure that I didn't land up in any of, you know, those kinds of units. So basically, it was just passing time. Obviously, in the Israeli military, that's a little bit different. Um, you know, the realities, uh, over there are, are different. So it was two very different experiences.

Yoyo:

As a CEO, It's quite important, isn't it, for the benefit of the business to, to look ahead and do a little bit of horizon scanning. What lays ahead for your type of business in, in industry? Where do you see it going?

Mac:

So I think that in our industry, like any industry, if you're not going forwards, you're going backwards, right? So if you're just doing what you've always done, um, you're going to be left, you know, left in the dust. Um, threats evolve. Right. So all the discussions about AI, deep fakes, drones, um, you know, digital vulnerabilities, um, the vulnerabilities that come from smart devices, smart cars, right? IoT devices that are hackable. So that whole threat landscape, uh, changes the whole world of TSCM, right? So now I can wear my glasses, my Apple glasses, my meta glasses, whatever, and record you and see you and hear you and, uh, that AI interfaces. What's coming, etc. Um, the threat landscape changes. Um, EP will always be EP. No technology is ever going to replace the human being because you're going to have all the technology in the world, right? But if the doors open, you know, it gets closed. If somebody breaches that door, you need a human being to go and respond. You're not going to have some automated, you know, rail gun to shoot people. You need a human to go and plug the leak. Um, but I think that you have to evolve. You have to keep up with technology, whether it's applications, whether it's communication devices. Um, there's many things. The industry, the industry has got a long way to go, uh, to get out of its own way. Um,

Yoyo:

So I have to ask you, how does the industry get in its own way?

Mac:

Well, yeah, I'm probably

Yoyo:

you let me there you let me that

Mac:

I did I did and I'm gonna be me and people know me So I guess You know, a lot of people say it's an industry of alpha personality, right? In truth, I believe it's an industry of mostly beta personalities dressed up as alpha personality, right? So it's people parading around, chest beating, puffing themselves up, you know, pretending to be big guys or tough guys, et cetera, but actually not so much, right? Like it's a

Yoyo:

show. Yeah. Like it's a show almost. Yeah.

Mac:

I said it to IPSP a few years ago. I said, you know, leadership is bestowed, not declared. So if you want to know if you're an industry leader, turn around and see who's following you. The fact that you declare on Facebook or LinkedIn that you're an industry leader, a thought leader, an SME and a chief cook and bottle washer. Doesn't mean squat, right? If you're a leader, we'll just stop announcing it to the world and just lead by example, just be a good CEO, be a good provider, be a good contributor to the industry and stop tooting your own horn and being a social media celebrity. I mean, if that's who you want to be, that's cool. That's a legitimate business model. Right. But, you know, if you want to be a serious executive protection provider for high level clients, well, you can't do that while you're being, you know, a social media celebrity at the same time.

Yoyo:

Got that. Yeah. And both are legit.

Mac:

I'm not, I'm not dissing anybody, but just make, make a choice. Right. What do you want to be? Um, you know, the egos in the industry, um, get in the way. Um, they get in the way of cooperation of collaboration. Um, and if people could just show that, um, we all have pasts. Right. We all have careers. So whether you were military or MI5 or Secret Service or a bouncer at a club, it doesn't matter. It doesn't make you more or less qualified. The fact that you were a fine dining chef in Gordon Ramsay's restaurant doesn't mean you'll do well as a short order cook in a burger flipping truck, you know, on the side of the highway. It means that you're good at cooking fine dining, right? Kind of, the fact that you're good at one discipline, or you were super good in the government sector, doesn't mean you understand how it works in the corporate sector, and vice versa. But instead of just clinging mud at each other, right? Just leave all that at the door, and sit down around the table, and say, what can we learn from each other?

Yoyo:

It sounds like, you know, there's a lane and everyone has their own lane to a degree. You don't have to cross over, you don't have to go into each other's lane. You specialize, don't you, in corporate protection, so you're not chasing, you know, celeb type, high profile, social media, uh, crazy people. And then that go on to social media and tell everyone what hotel they're staying and look at my amazing ring. Uh, and you've also told me that you shy away. I don't want to say shy away. You've made an executive decision to not go for very high risk because there are special organizations that do that type of thing, which would include, you know, the, having a country extraction team on standby. And, and yet that's massively like who sleeps at night when they've got to do a job like that. Um, But the corporate lane's got lots of variety in it, hasn't it? Give us an anonymized use case of just how valuable and purposeful what you do is for anyone who's listening that's thinking this guy sounds like the real deal.

Mac:

Yeah, well if they think that then I've obviously fooled a few people. Um, so again, so there's no war stories about oh my gosh this guy came running with with a baseball bat at our client because that doesn't happen, right? But the value that we bring. So I'll give you an example. Um, the clients in a country, it's around, uh, four in the afternoon. They're meant to be wheels up at 10 p. m. at 2200 on the corporate jet. Um, before that, they needed to make a very, um, confidential conference call, which would have been made from the lounge at the FBO. Um, On, on, on, on A VPN or a wifi hotspot. It was all set up and at about six o'clock, the EA pings me and says, um, small problem. The corporate jet had a, a, a technical issue. It's turned around and gone back. Um, but we have to be in Paris for a meeting tomorrow morning. Right now it's four hours before wheels up, and she just looks at me and goes, fix it. All right. Now, this is a country where there are not a lot of private aircraft. So I made a couple of calls. There was nothing available to be charted. So we managed to get the client a first class ticket on, uh, the national carrier to the country that they had to go. Um, but then was the, which she said, He's fine. So we've got the EA and the client. Okay, so the first class ticket. Now you go, yeah, but he's not going to go through the commercial airport, right? We don't want him walking through the airport. But the FBO is only for private aircraft. Okay. So we reach out to our client, our contacts at the FBO who we know. Because we provide local support because we really are local experts speak to them and said, Hey, we need a solid. We need a private lounge also because he had to make this phone call. So he needed complete privacy. We need a private lounge for an hour. We got that. And we also then set up with the FBO to take the client from the FBO, you know, in a Mercedes to the plane, you know, five minutes before they close the door. Right. So we could facilitate the best solution we could at the last minute for that client. Why could we do it? Because we have the contacts. Because when you say we provide service in a country, it doesn't mean you then go on to Facebook and write, does anybody know someone in Lagos for this weekend? That is not duty of care. And that goes on way too much. Right in our company. We say we can support it's because we've been in that country literally hundreds. We know everybody we are set up We can fix everything. We know the vendors. We know the cars. We know the drivers, but I'm not gonna send my client off to Belize To be picked up by some vendor That I got from a buddy on Facebook last week. That is insane, quite frankly, and I don't understand why it happens.

Yoyo:

No, I mean, what a great use case to explain just how crikey, like, it's been, it almost made my hands go sweaty thinking, did he manage to get there in time? It's got to be a bit like that, but are you used to it or do you love those moments where you're like, right, well, obviously he's up, let's get down. Well,

Mac:

we, we, we love those moments. I mean, sadly, or not sadly, I mean. Right. So the company is now truly global, right? We have a company in the U. S., in Europe, in Dubai. So I don't get to do the operational stuff anymore, right? I'm now a business person. I, I, I, I'm a support function for, for the unbelievable leadership team that, that we have. Um, but yeah, we, we kind of And look for those moments because I'll give you another use case again, and it's not a hero story, but so one of our extremely, extremely experienced agents was with a client in London. She was invited to a very, very exclusive members only club for lunch. Um, and when they went the day before for the advance, she was told that she will not be able to attend the lunch because she's not a member. Her husband is a member. And they said, yes, your husband's a member, but you're not. Um, so she said, well, can I join despite the ridiculous amount of money that it costs to join? And they said, this is a six month vetting process, right? And she was really upset because she really wanted to attend the lunch. Anyway, our guy went in, spoke to who he had to speak to, went back to the client that evening and said, it's okay. We can go to the lunch tomorrow. I just have to accompany you in, which is what happened. She said to him, you know, Thomas, do I want to know how you did that? And he went, probably not, right? Not important. Um, and he didn't bribe anybody. He didn't do anything. He just knows how to socially engineer people and speak and solve problems, right? Like he always says that, you know, no, it's just a step on the way to yes. Yes, I yeah, no, so we can't do that. Oh, yeah, I completely understand. You can't do that. So could we maybe do this? No. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah, you're completely not How about that? And you just keep going, right? But we are problem solvers, right? And we are always calm, and the answer is yes. And you're driving down some back street in Abuja, and there's two guys burning tires with AK 47s in the middle of the road, and the client gets a little stressed in the back of the car. You on the front right turn around and go, Sir, this is totally normal, no reason for panic. We'll fix this, right? While your brain is on fire, thinking, I hope we don't get shot right now, right? But you know that our driver knows how to speak to them, and we'll give them what we need to give them, and they'll move the roadblock out of the way. But our job is to fix Everything, right? Just don't bore the client with the details, just get it done, right? Without breaking any laws and without doing anything illegal or unethical or immoral, of course.

Yoyo:

Yeah. Because that's important, isn't it? Doing it the right way.

Mac:

Absolutely.

Yoyo:

I should imagine if you're not, you're always looking over your shoulder thinking, oh, you know, you don't want, you know, anyone tapping you on the shoulder saying.

Mac:

Well, more than that is if you do something nefarious to solve a problem for your client and you get caught. Well, how does that reflect on your client? Right? Oh, so and so's EP detail bribed a customs official. I don't know what. Right? But anybody thinks that's a good idea, right? It really needs to re examine, you know, how they're thinking. Because part of your responsibility is to protect your client's reputation. Right. So by doing something which is unethical or illegal to solve a problem for your client, you're exposing them to reputational risk and reputational damage. So you're actually not fulfilling your duty of care. Um, I can't think of many. Instances where we've ever had to say no to a client. I can think of one where the tour guide wanted to take the client to an area where we said, we're not comfortable taking the client there because I wouldn't go there without a military escort. Right? So I said, despite what the tour guide is thinking, because he wants to impress you and get a big tip. Right. We, we are not comfortable taking you there and we think it's a terrible idea. And the client said, Hey, you're the local experts. You know, I said, you can see what you want to see from other locations. In the city, but going to the spot that he wants to go to the risk is just way too high. Um, but that's what, that's why we're there. That's why you have a local expert because somebody sitting in a GSOC back in Silicon Valley, right? When you're in, I don't know, Tel Aviv, their assessment of risk from what they're seeing on their AI driven platform doesn't always reflect the reality on the ground locally. And that's why you need local support.

Yoyo:

It's very valuable. I can tell actually, in fact, who would have thought the corporate, you know, protection would have been so nefarious in the sense of, you know, a lot of moving parts. It's got to be really important for, for the agility to be there. So now that makes a lot of sense in terms of how you choose to operate as a business, uh, uh, keeping that agility so you can change all the time. Right.

Mac:

You have to and you can't limit your agents, right? I remember when I opened the business, one of the hardest things on the business end was explaining to the bank. That the credit cards need to kind of be unlimited, which of course they didn't want to do at the beginning because it's a credit card. So we said, okay, make it like a debit card. Like we'll put a deposit against that. But if the client looks at the agent and says, we need a helicopter, we were going to drive from London to Edinburgh. We'd rather fly to organize it. And the client needs, you know, the, the agent needs to charge 20, 000 pounds to his credit card. You can't say no. You can't say I've got to get approval, right? You just need to do it immediately. And if you can't, the client's going to go, right, we're going to find someone who can support our needs. Right. But as a business, as a small business, when you're starting out, right, or you're in some fancy hotel in the middle of Iceland skiing somewhere, and the team looks, you know, team lead looks at your age and goes, Oh, you can you just take care of our rooms and build it back? And it's 25 or 30, 000 euros for their rooms. And you're like, Oh, my gosh. Right. And when you're a new business, you don't have a lot of cash flow. That puts you under massive strain, but if you can't solve it, you shouldn't be playing in the big leagues, right? If you don't have the legs, then work with smaller clients. But if you want to play at the top of the market, you need to be able to provide whatever it is the client needs without hesitation. So

Yoyo:

now that you know what you know, what would you go back and change and say to younger Mac setting up his business years ago?

Mac:

I would say. Have more working capital, right? That, that, you know, it takes a while to get on your feet, but there was a time in our second year, in the middle of our second year where we were growing really rapidly. Um, we support a lot of clients at the world economic forum in Davos every year because of COVID, the West got pushed from January where it traditionally is to make. So suddenly we had a lot of travel for our clients and we had Davos, which is a big capital outlay and you're on paper, the business was doing amazingly well in the bank, didn't have, you know, 10 cents to my neck. And it was massively stressful because you need to pay for vehicles, apartments, flight tickets, hotels, et cetera, right? You get paid, even if your client is paying you 30 days. It's really 45 to 60 days because when you finish a detail, it takes you, in the best case scenario, 10 days, 2 weeks to get the invoice ready by the time you get all the invoices from your vendors, blah, blah, blah. You have to format it, upload it to the client's Ariba or SAP system, whatever it is. Then the client has to approve. Said invoice, they might have questions. What's this charge? What's that charge once they approve it? It's then 30 days that you're going to get paid Meanwhile, you need to pay your vendors. You need to pay for your tickets your hotels and everything else, right? uh, and that kind of dissonance between The accounts payable and accounts receivable puts you under massive massive pressure So having like having some working capital in the bank having like a three month run rate As a cushion in the bank is a much better place to be than just bootstrapping everything.

Yoyo:

That was so stressful, isn't it? Just having the burden of those impending funds coming in.

Mac:

Yeah. And you, you, you know, and again, with clients, you can't, you can't push too hard when you're working with a trillion dollar corporation. Right. And you also can never. You know, there was during the first year, I was really stressed, one of the clients and CSO is a friend of mine, um, and they owed us a lot of money. And the, just their accounting was just dragging on. And I said to him, look, this is putting me under like massive financial strain. This was like year one. And he said to me, yeah, but you can't say that to the client because if the client thinks. That half a million dollars is going to sink your company. Right? Then you're clearly too small. Right? If you're getting stressed about 200, 000, when you're talking to companies worth hundreds of billions. Then they're like, you're too small. But if you can't hold, if you can't survive a couple of months without our 200K, I'm not sure that we can rely on you as a vendor, right?

Yoyo:

I mean, that's big, that's big numbers, Mark.

Mac:

Yes. It's scary, scary as hell. But again, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to play in the big leagues, you know, you, you, you, you got to have the legs and you, you, you need to have, um, You know, kind of quite a sturdy call. Um, but it was a decision, right? So there are many, many models within our industry. So there are many companies who 90 percent of the income is from subcontracting. Right. So there are small outfits, a subcontract for all the big boys, absolutely legitimate. You can build a fantastic business that way, right? Our model, we went direct to client. We decided we didn't want to be subcontractors. We want to own the relationships with our clients. It's a longer process. It's harder to get on boarded with mega corporations. It's not a simple process, but then you own that relationship, right? You're not dependent on some other company to use. Um, but I think for, for, for young companies coming up, I, I, I, I, I mentored some people and I tell them, choose where you want to be. If you want to be a Toyota, right, then, you know, sell Toyotas. And if you want to be a Lamborghini or. You know, we decided we want to be a Bugatti, right? We decided, like, our business strategy was, you know, what Enzo Ferrari said when he ripped the rearview mirror out of his Ferrari. He said, what's behind you doesn't matter, right? You want to be so far ahead, right? That the buying decision is easy. But when you want to be there, your market is small. You're in the 0. 0001 percent of the market, right? So it's harder to sell a Bugatti than just to sell a Toyota. Right. But you've got to sell a lot of Toyotas to make the same amount of money selling a Bugatti. And they're both absolutely legit business models. But I say to companies, just decide who you are, what you are, right? Choose a market segment that you're targeting, right? And then develop your products and services to answer the needs and the pain points of that market. But don't be a licorice waltz. It doesn't work. Be a jack of all trades. Oh yes, we do high ender EP for Fortune 10 CEOs. Yes, but we also do guarding for 8 bucks an hour. You're like, really? How can you possibly be good at all of that at the same level, right?

Yoyo:

Yeah, agreed training's quite important to you, isn't it? Because you lead a lot of training programs. Is this your kind of way of giving back and trying to shape a mold, uh, you know, people and companies before you decide to ultimately move on, uh, into, I don't know, um, the nice for time and place somewhere. What's, what's your, what's your methodology around? Why is training so important?

Mac:

So, so training, right, so I mean, obviously training for in house training is always important. Sustainment training for your agents, et cetera. That's all we're talking about in terms of offering training to others. So I love teaching, or always have. Um, unfortunately the last couple of years I haven't. Had a lot of time, um, because for me to take kind of a week out of running the business to be focused on teaching a course for 10 or 12 hours a day, uh, has become challenging. Um, yeah, for, for us, I mean, when we ran our own training courses, et cetera, I can tell you that financially there was nothing in it for us. Basically, it covers cost. We're not a training. There are companies. Um, who are really strong and good at training, um, and best left to them. When we do it, it's really, you're right. It's to give back. It's to, to fill the gaps that we sometimes think exist, um, between what a lot of the, uh, fundamental training courses give. And then there's this kind of dissonance between that and what the job actually looks like, um, in the field. So, for example, when we ran our COVID course, we ran it at Amsterdam a couple of years ago. Um, the scenarios that we, we used were all taken from examples that have happened to us, to my leadership team, right? We, we thought about things that happened to us during our careers. And then kind of reenacted that. So for example, I'll give you an example. There's, uh, the, the principal, right? The VIP is walking and he's got a two person team in the middle of Amsterdam. So the one person's kind of trailing him. It's, it's low profile protected, right? The other guy's out in front and we had a role player, um, a female actually come along with a bicycle and fall over in front of the client, right? Distraction. Yeah. So it falls over and she's like, ah, so now I'm watching and the agent behind. You see, he wants to go help the lady, but he remembers he was taught in the course that, okay, it could be a distraction, you can't leave the principal, right? But then, the principal, uh, in this case was me, did what a principal would do, and I turned around to my agent, and I said, go and help her for God's sake, what's the matter with you? Right? Yeah. Oh, whoa, crap, what do I, what, uh, I'm going to help her. So those are the scenarios that actually happen, right? Um, you know, when the principal loses the detail, right? When they forget to tell you that actually they're not going to the restaurant that they booked because the EA decided we're going to go have a falafel. And then you've got your entire advanced team waiting somewhere and they just don't come. And then I know we just went across the road from the hotel. He's like, Oh, wait a minute. But so it's kind of all this real life based training, right? Um, you know, it's like, how do you do that? We, we had to forgive the example, but we had, um, the client was that we were at a nightclub at a bar, right? And the scenario was. It was the wife of a Russian oligarch who's having an affair with a Silicon Valley tech guy, and they met up in Amsterdam, right, for the weekend. So there is a risk, right? Um, and then there's one of the guys in the course was really straight laced, ex, you know, uh, military. And the, uh, female instructor, um, who was playing the, you know, the, the female VIP, you know, I said to her, Make the agent uncomfortable. So she started flirting with the agent, and he didn't know, he was absolutely straight laced, and he didn't know what to do with himself, right? And she's flirting with him, and I came up and said to him, how do you not get fired, right? Right? So her partner, the tech guy, supposedly, was at the bar getting a drink. She's kind of, you know, fluffing up this agent's hair. Right. He's freaking out. Right. And I'm like, this stuff happens. Right. How do you deal with it? Right. And then while that's going on, you have, you know, a role player come in and steal her bag and you're like, whatever you play. But yeah. We try to provide, like, real world based training, right? Not just Hollywood stuff that actually 99. 9 percent of the time is never going to happen.

Yoyo:

That core training is so important. And I can relate when I used to do my detective training when I was in the police. And they teach you about the importance of evidence. And even now, because that's being drummed in. How to protect evidence every time I watch a TV drama and maybe someone's been murdered or whatever. And I'm like, you're walking all over the crime scene. In your brain, you'd be so trained. It's just, you know, it's life evidence than anything else. And I guess that's what you're trying to do, isn't it? You're trying to put in that core discipline so that those agents in those circumstances are always thinking, you know, the protection element's got to be there first. The rest is just fluff and,

Mac:

it's the protection, the service. So, you know, there's the debate, do you carry bags? Right. Of course you carry bags. Right. If the client comes out of a shop and they've got five shopping bags, of course you're going to take them. Yeah. Like, what do you mean you need your hands free? For what? Right? If suddenly a ninja parachutes off the side of the building and, you know, you can just let the parcels go if you do need your hands, you just open your hands and gravity will take care of the parcels for you. Right? Or if somebody runs into your clients, you can actually use the parcels as an offensive way. Like, it's a ridiculous discussion. I'm going to say this as well. And I'll probably get some, some flack for it, right? So, you know, the young upcoming agents in the industry are trying to get high, right? And they ask for advice. And the advice I give to them is mind your, what, what, what some people call your neck, mind what you put out on social media. So I said, so I got a CV from a guy. So CV looks nice. So I do a bit of due diligence on him. I look up on Facebook and Facebook and one of the groups. Um besides all these videos about range day and his guns and everything else, right which makes most of our clients super uncomfortable Um, he had posted in one of the groups, you know, what are the best shoes to wear for ep? Right now, I thought to myself, okay, young man, you want me to entrust you with a fortune 500 CEO to make life and death, possibly decisions or critical decisions in the field, but you can't figure out which pair of shoes to wear by yourself. Right. So, so what does it tell me about you? Now, you can ask your buddies in the industry. Hey, you know, what shoes do you wear? Right. Of course, people are more experienced than you, but don't put it on social media, please. Because it doesn't, you know, tell me that you are independent thinker capable of critical decision making, right. If you can't figure out pretty much how to get dressed.

Yoyo:

Ah, these kids, how are we going to learn them, eh?

Mac:

Yeah, exactly. it's, I do fear a little bit for the, the, uh, um, future of the industry. Um, and I don't mean that in, in, in a nasty way. It's, it's, you know, one of my, my, my close friends and colleagues, right? Um, when he teaches COVID close protection, for the first time they're on the field, he won't let them use their phones. Right. And they're like lost. He's like, just communicate, look at each other, watch each other in the team, you know, hand off the client, you know, move around. But what happens is they're so distracted by their phones that a herd of elephants could walk past and they wouldn't notice because they're so busy texting each other, turning left, turning right, sitting down, standing up, coming out, going in. But they're not watching from where the threat will come. They're just completely absorbed in the device. Um, and when you take it away, then they're a little bit, oh, hell. Right? Because back when, when, when, when we were young, as they say, you know, we used to just work. You just, you had eye contact with your team and you just kind of. It's like on a football field. You just know he's moving there. So I need to move there. You know, the fullback made a run down the wing. So the wind is going to drop back and cover for the fullback. You just instinctually kind of know that. And I think a lot of that skill set has been lost because of this. It's incessant communication all the time.

Yoyo:

Yeah, you could be right. You know, I guess what can't, yeah, what is going to be ahead when you think that there is such a leaning on technology nowadays, or are we going to end up just using that more and more in, in all of the things we do in the future? Can we ignore it?

Mac:

I think we're going to use it. Um, but I think it is. Absolutely. I think we have to embrace it and use it, but it's one I want to give a talk at ACES called human tech, right? It should be technologically enhanced humans, right? Because at the end of the day, as I said, I've got to evacuate the client if there's an earthquake, right? Maybe one day a drone will do it for me or a robot, but in the foreseeable future, it's still going to be a human being who's going to grab the client and say, so we've got to go. Yeah. Um, even if I'm putting into a driverless car one day in the future, but it's still a me. Who's going to grab him and save him. Um, so I can have all the technology in the world to help me do that, right? And even the decision at the end of the day, right? And any agent who's been in one of those situations where do you evacuate or don't you, right? You've got a split second to decide whether you're going to spoil the client's day or not. And you better be right. And there are so many factors in that, you know, window that you instinctually take into account and then decide. Do we need to move or do I just take a breath and let whatever this happening pass, right? Um, and it's going to be a long time until technology can do that for you, right? Um, so we have to embrace it, but you cannot remove the human element and you cannot be completely reliant. It's the same way as the people who like, Oh, you know, you can have checked GPD, do your risk assessment. I'm like, well, you can have CheckGPT help you with your risk assessment, right? You know, it's like people are like, yeah, just putting these, this data into this algorithm and it will tell you your risk. Yeah. I'm like, yes, but no, right? Because there's pieces that sitting down and interviewing a stakeholder are going to reveal that the data is not, and the data is only what the client chooses. To put it, but when I'm sitting with the client, I can read between the lines, I can extrapolate, right? I, the client will often share with me more than they might be willing to share on some spreadsheet. Right? And

Yoyo:

at the moment, technology isn't intuitive in the way that a human can be or a good human can be.

Mac:

Exactly right. And that's why, just to say I'm doing a risk assessment, you know, on chat GPT or with some app. Hmm. It's not there. Not, not yet.

Yoyo:

Agreed. It's just an assistive tool at the moment, right now, isn't it, to get basics? Get basics, get a starting point.

Mac:

It's a starting point. It's something to remind you what to think about. You know, I asked Chet GPT to write me a, uh, you know, a ton of hotel consulting. So I asked Chet GPT to write me You know, uh, hotel security assessment, right? Honestly, it was a pretty good document, right? Yeah, it was as a foundation. It's a pretty good document. Yeah. Right. Was it completely comprehensive? Did it take everything into account? No, it didn't. But it was a great, like you said, a great assist.

Yoyo:

Saves time as well when you can do all the basics like that. Yeah. And I, I love asking it questions where I think I've got everything. And then I'll say, have I missed anything? And it will come back with a few things.

Mac:

I'll say it's funny. So one of the people in my company who's not a native English speaker, right? Emails has suddenly gotten fantastic. And so on one hand, it's great. Because suddenly the grammar's right, and the spelling's right, everything's right. But, as his counterpart in the company, who's from the same country, said, Yeah, but if I write like that The clients know it's not me because the clients know me and they know that English is not my first language and I sometimes write a bit funny, but he said, I feel like if I use that, it's not actually me communicating with the client, right? Because the clients will under, it's like, you see people who've written articles before on LinkedIn and then suddenly there's this article and I'm like, you didn't write that I've read 10 of your articles. I know how you write and now you sound like a friggin Harvard professor. Right? Right.

Yoyo:

But this is where he's using it wrong because he should be asking his assistive technology once it's been written perfectly to then adapt it to somebody of a seven, like for example, just to prove a point. I did something once I said, uh, now rewrite, with the grammar of a nine year old. That's great. With the grammar of a nine year old. Right. That's how you make it smart because then they're like, they wouldn't know the difference. And I think how we use assistive technology is most important, I think. Um, yeah, good fun. Oh, great talking to you, Mac, honestly. Um, one last question. The majority of our listeners globally for the security circle are in a security leadership role. They will be CEOs, they will be security directors. If, anyone's listening and they have a CEO that's relatively high profile'cause they're in a Fortune 500 business. But this CEO, uh, does have a, sort of a broader global. presence, not necessarily super high on social media, but it's important for them to be visible to the outside world, but they don't have any protection right now. What would you be asking those, in a leadership role to be considering in terms of, should I now be thinking that this man or this woman might need some more protection?

Mac:

Um, it's an excellent question. The first thing is that, There's two stages, there's a strategic threat assessment, or what we call a risk threat vulnerability assessment. So strategic and once you have the strategic, uh, RTBA, uh, TVRA, whichever way you like to, to construct the letters, once you have the strategic overview of the corporation, of the company as a whole, then once you have that risk, the strategic risk, you can Uh, get down to the operational risk. Okay. So the overall risk of the company looks like this. Do I need to do TBRAs on the CEO, on C suites, on the corporate headquarters, on the residences? Um, the way we approach things like that is what we call discover, design, deliver. So first we discover. What the thread is, what the picture is, then we design the mitigation for that, and then the deliverables. But you have to start with an understanding of risk. Without that, you're flying blind.

Yoyo:

I think that's a great start and a great end. Thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle Podcast.

Mac:

Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Yoyo:

Oh, you're welcome.