Executive travel
like risk management in general, the best course of action ultimately hinges on context. If, for instance, you get mugged, you should remain passive, knowing that your insurer will reimburse you later. If the situation devolves into actual kidnap, how you react depends on who you believe the criminals are.
Lagos: Venal gangs are the most likely culprit in corporate kidnapping.
many problems, Cairenes worry less about theft than Londoners). Having said that, Spivey does have some broad recommendations. For one thing, he advises travellers to be aware of what’s around them, using the so-called ‘rule of three’ as a guide. “If you see somebody you think might be watching you, maybe they are, maybe they’re not,” Spivey explains.
“If you see somebody you think might be watching you, maybe they are, maybe they’re not. If, half a mile away, you see him a second time, then you want to really be paying attention.”
12,500
The approximate number of foreign travellers kidnapped each year, even as just 10% of cases become public knowledge.
www.accountancydaily.co $15bn
The estimated size of the global corporate travel security market by 2031.
Transparency Market Research 42
“If, half a mile away, you see him a second time, then you want to really be paying attention.” And if, 40 minutes later, you spot your unwelcome companion a third time, Spivey stresses that you’re “almost certainly” being watched – or even followed. This straightforward piece of spycraft chimes with other ways to stay secure. One, it hardly needs saying, is to avoid wearing expensive watches in public. Another is to always pick a hotel room below the seventh floor: any higher, Spivey says, and rescuers may struggle to reach you in an emergency. Another common-sense tactic involves avoiding unnecessary detours, and telling colleagues of your needs in advance. The risk management expert, who cut his teeth in the British Army before working at one of the world’s largest multinationals, emphasises that because employers have a “corporate duty of care” over their workers, they’ll bend over backwards to help. On the other hand, they won’t be happy if they have to deliver your forgotten heart pills to an oil derrick off Mauritania, or extract you from Beirut after a weekend sipping arak descends into rioting. And if the worst does happen, and a hooded man really does accost you? It may sound obvious, but
In Lagos, to give one example, venal gangs are the most likely culprit. With that in mind, Spivey suggests not overpromising on ransom payments, while also trying to ingratiate yourself with captors through references to family. As the CPPS founder vividly put it, it’s easier to kill an object than a person. Ideologically motivated terrorists are obviously harder to cajole here – the best advice the anonymous ex-soldier has is to avoid being taken in the first place; for instance, by staying in trusted hotels and keeping abreast of rumbling political turmoil.
Can you hack it?
If many of these proposals seem sensible, both experts argue that travellers can do much to harm their prospects. Excessive drinking, it goes without saying, is probably a bad move in an unknown city. Visits to strip clubs or brothels are even less advisable, particularly when you factor in the potential for blackmail. “He’s not going to be targeted for money himself, because there’s only so much money he can give,” says the unnamed expert, presumably discounting the possibility that female executives could ever get into similar trouble. “What’s of greater value is what he knows about the company.” Unscrupulous rivals are certainly one danger here, though government action can’t be discounted either. That’s true in other scenarios too. Detained at the airport, and there’s not much an executive can do if the security services decide to take their phone or laptop for inspection. Given this, and especially with the US Department of Justice fingering Beijing for 80% of all economic espionage prosecutions, no wonder the anonymous expert says that safe “China-only laptops” are increasingly popular across global business. That’s arguably shadowed by the close links between physical and cybersecurity. Especially in tech-savvy countries like China, Spivey warns that the authorities may spy on unsuspecting businesspeople via their phones, and that investing in biometric or two-factor authentication is therefore a good idea. With the geopolitical weather not getting any brighter, it seems likely that such measures will only become more important in the future. Either that or corporate Zoom subscriptions will continue to soar in popularity. ●
Chief Executive Officer /
www.ns-businesshub.com
Santos Akhilele Aburime/
Shutterstock.com
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