Good morning. After the murder of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan, demand for elite personal protection surged. One of the biggest beneficiaries has been Montreal-based GardaWorld, whose high-end security arm now counts more than 200 billionaires among its clients.
Below, we step inside the rarefied world of executive protection – where bodyguards run emergency drills, monitor vitals and manage every detail – at a time when the risks facing corporate leaders feel more immediate than ever.
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The Crisis24 armored SUV carrying transferred principal, Sara Treleaven, burns rubber as they practice attack on principal drills and escapes.Susana Raab/The Globe and Mail
Not so long ago, conspicuous private security was a rarity on Bay Street.
At investor events, off-site meetings and galas, high-powered executives were more likely to be flanked by communications specialists than thick-necked bodyguards.
But there’s been a not-so-subtle shift of late – with a marked increase in dark-suited security personnel at high-level corporate events (if you attended RBC’s recent investor day, you’ll know what I mean).
You can trace this shift to the early hours of Dec. 4, when a masked gunman shot Brian Thompson, chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, America’s largest health insurer, as he was heading into his own investor event at a hotel in midtown Manhattan.
I had a feeling this would be a watershed moment for personal protection, and I was right.
Canada’s own GardaWorld is one of the world’s top players in private security, with more than 130,000 employees worldwide and a stock market valuation north of $14-billion.
Chances are you cross paths with GardaWorld workers on a near-daily basis – a security guard on patrol at your local mall, perhaps, or a team picking up cash from the bank in an armoured truck. The Montreal-based outfit also provides security in some of the world’s most dangerous nations, including Haiti, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is in the grips of a brutal civil war and where Garda has no fewer than six offices.
One of Garda’s fastest-growing segments is executive protection. Its Crisis24 Private Strategic Group (PSG) was created several years ago by the company’s founder and CEO, Stephan Crétier, with the goal of bringing together personal protection, medical monitoring and high-end concierge services – what Crétier (himself a billionaire) calls “the head-of-state experience.”
Crétier says Crisis24 now has 200 billionaires on its roster – and in the days following the Thompson assassination, executive on-boarding increased fivefold.
Here, the reporter Sara Treleaven, is given a code name, “November ST”, her briefing sheet is pulled up on a screen and her agents are briefed on weather, current threats, and the daily diary with GSOC in Boca Raton, Florida, showed on the screen.Susana Raab/The Globe and Mail
It’s not hard to see why.
Jeff Marquart, Crisis24’s managing director, says the murder has shocked CEOs into assessing their own risk – and just how much the public might have it out for them.
Marquart would know. He’s protected some of the world’s most powerful people, managed security operations in 40-plus countries and co-authored a sort of bodyguard’s bible called Just 2 Seconds, which analyzed more than 1,400 incidents involving at-risk individuals. For one thing, there’s simmering anger about the ever-widening wealth gap (a chasm, really, that’s only getting wider under Donald Trump and his merry band of steal-from-the-poor-give-to-the-rich miscreants).
Then there’s the folk-hero treatment of Thompson’s alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, now awaiting trial at a prison in Brooklyn. “People who might’ve considered doing harm but doubted their ability to pull it off,” says Marquart, “will now be encouraged.”
But for the few who can afford it, help is at hand.
To find out what clients can expect from Garda’s top-of-the-line private security, we sent freelance writer Sarah Treleaven to Charles Town, W. Va., to get the VIP treatment – if that VIP were in mortal danger.
Here, reporter Sara, experiences an active assailant assault drill, wherein her protective detail, Arthur and Jamie, work in tandem to evacuate their principal and disarm an active shooter.Susana Raab/The Globe and Mail
In her story titled Clear and Present Danger, Treleaven explains Crisis24 as “smart protection for the decline of the Western world, less for acute danger than potential for inconvenience. One agent described the business model as ‘70 per cent concierge, 30 per cent security.’ It’s an amazing concept: Someone who knows just how you like your latte will also protect you with his life.”
Over the course of one action-packed day, Treleaven’s martial-arts-trained protective detail took her on a high-speed chase in an armoured vehicle, taught her how to dive from one SUV to another (since 70 per cent of “attacks” happen during loading and unloading from a vehicle) and saved her from a gun-toting assailant.
It’s a wild story. And it offers fascinating insight into the trade-offs inherent in 24-7 security.
“To maximize protection, agents need to understand a full picture of a principal’s life,” she writes. “If they’re married but have three mistresses, that’s important information. It’s reasonable to assume…that agents sometimes know more about an individual they’re protecting than even some close family members.”
As Canada’s economic resilience is being tested, our country must turn to an often-overlooked asset, Adam McCauley and Steven Wang write. Canadians living abroad – estimated at more than four million – represent an untapped reservoir of talent, experience and global influence that could help us shape our country’s future.
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Global markets sank as the rollout of steep U.S. retaliatory tariffs deepened fears over trade war-driven economic damage. Wall Street futures were mixed amid the volatility, while TSX futures followed global sentiment lower.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 3.29 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 declined 2.38 per cent, Germany’s DAX fell 2.98 per cent and France’s CAC 40 gave back 2.93 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 3.63 per cent lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.68 per cent.
The Canadian dollar traded at 70.39 U.S. cents.
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