Executive travel Business beyond borders
Corporate travel is stressful enough at the best of times. But wherever they go, executives must also be aware of their safety. Especially in developing countries, muggings, kidnapping or worse are always a potential danger. Not that business travellers are helpless in the face of these threats.
Working with experts in the fi eld, executives have plenty of ways to stay safe on the road. Andrea Valentino investigates, talking to Randy Spivey, founder and CEO at the Center for Personal Protection and Safety, as well as an anonymous and high-ranking corporate security expert.
hese days, ‘corporate security’ feels increasingly synonymous with cybersecurity. And why not? Data breaches cost firms an average of $4.35m in 2022, even as 39% of UK companies reported suffering from cyberattacks. Yet as one Ecuadorian executive recently discovered, the risks of doing business can extend far beyond having your online account emptied. On 26 June, the unnamed aquaculture boss was kidnapped at gunpoint in the industrial town of Durán, the criminals even exchanging fire with the executive’s security team before making off with their charge.
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In the event, this terrifying ordeal ended peacefully enough: just two days after he was snatched off the street, the executive was released
and reunited with his family. Yet if that incident is destined to quickly be forgotten (by the media if not the victim), the happy resolution belies just how many executives face similar trials while out and about. Though specific statistics are scarce, testament to how often kidnappings are resolved through the discreet payment of ransoms, work by Lark Insurance suggests that 12,500 foreign travellers are snatched each year, even as only 10% of incidents are made public. Yet if kidnapping is obviously a terrifying prospect, businesspeople are far from defenceless. Short of carrying a Magnum in their belt, there’s plenty they can do, from staying conscious of their surroundings to studying local politics. And even if the worst does happen, learned behaviours can still
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