Skip to content
Daniel Smith AdvisorySecurity · Risk · Preparedness

Security, Risk & Preparedness

Independent security consultancy helping organisations protect their people, wherever they work or travel.

Independent security and risk advice for organisations responsible for protecting their people, at work and while travelling. Built on 27 years of military, corporate, humanitarian and executive security experience.

Preparedness

Preparation does most of the work.

Before anyone travels, the destination is assessed and the route planned. A threshold is set for changing or stopping the journey. The traveller knows what to do if it goes wrong.

Day to day it works the same way, at an office, a site, an event or a home. Each engagement leaves the plan, the training and the written procedure with your own people, in a form they can run without me.

How it is built

  • Planning. destinations, routes and sites assessed before a movement or an operation is approved
  • Training. the people who have to carry the plan trained on it, assessed and recorded
  • Procedure. written thresholds and escalation, so a decision does not wait on one person being reachable

Who this is for

Organisations that:

  • Carry a duty of care for staff travelling or working abroad
  • Protect executives, principals or high-profile individuals
  • Operate in unfamiliar or higher-risk markets
  • Already pay for security and want an independent view of it
  • Have the policy, but nobody who owns the decision
  • Need an assessment they can act on

Areas of practice

Six areas.

Everything is fixed scope and fixed price, agreed in writing before anything starts.

Footprint

Where the work has been delivered.

Each point represents experience working across different cultures and environments. It has built an understanding of local context, how people communicate, build trust and make decisions differently, and why an approach that works in one place, with one group of people, may not work somewhere else.

Operational footprint

Practice base

United Kingdom

Practice base. Working across UK and EMEA time zones.

Delivered work

Paris

Executive travel risk and journey management for principal movement.

Delivered work

Cote d'Azur & Monaco

Nice, Cannes, Saint-Tropez and Monaco. Event and executive movement planning, venue and route assurance.

Delivered work

The Alps

Geneva, Zurich, Davos, St Moritz and Courchevel.

Delivered work

Italy

Milan, Rome, Vatican City, Portofino, Naples, Capri and Sardinia.

Delivered work

Munich

Germany.

Delivered work

Amsterdam

Netherlands.

Military service

Norway

Northern Europe.

Military service

Denmark

Northern Europe.

Military service

Finland

Northern Europe.

Military service

France

Western Europe.

Military service

Slovenia

Central Europe.

Military service

Cyprus

Eastern Mediterranean.

Military service

Canada

North America.

Military service

United States

North America.

Delivered work

Madrid

Spain.

Military service

Canary Islands

Eastern Atlantic.

Delivered work

Greece & Turkiye

Athens, Istanbul and Bodrum.

Delivered work

Sint Maarten & Saint Barthelemy

Eastern Caribbean.

Delivered work

Egypt

North Africa.

Delivered work

Gaza

Humanitarian response in an active conflict environment.

Military service

Iraq

Operational service. Security planning and movement in a high-threat environment.

Military service

Afghanistan

Operational service. Leadership and crisis decision-making under operational pressure.

Delivered work

United Arab Emirates

Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Executive travel and event security, regional risk planning.

Delivered work

Hong Kong & Macau

Executive protection and corporate resilience through sustained civil unrest.

Delivered work

South Korea

North East Asia.

Delivered work

Singapore & Kuala Lumpur

South East Asia.

--:--:--UK
Practice baseDelivered workMilitary service

Method

The process changes with the service.

There is no single route. What gets applied depends on what is being delivered. Three examples below: how a destination is structured, how a risk is identified and treated, and how training is built and recorded.

POSTT lens

Executive visit
  • PPolitical3/5 Moderate

    Government functioning, policing thin away from the centre

  • OOperational4/5 High

    Power, medical cover and vehicle recovery all have to be brought in

  • SSituation3/5 Moderate

    No major incident this period, criminality against visitors persistent

  • TTravel4/5 High

    The airport road and any movement after dark carry the exposure

  • TTerrorism2/5 Guarded

    Capability exists in country, no recent targeting in this city

Every destination is read through the same five lenses, and every score carries the reason it was given, so two assessments can be compared rather than just read.

Identify & treat

ISO 31000

Identification prompts

  • What?The asset at risk, and the act that would harm it
  • Where?The location, and the ground the act would happen on
  • When?The timing, and the window in which exposure is real
  • Why?The motive, and what a hostile party gains from it
  • How?The method they would realistically use, and with what capability

Treatment options

  • AvoidDo not run the activity in the form proposed
  • ReduceLower the likelihood, the impact, or both
  • ShareMove part of the exposure by contract, partner or insurance, knowing the duty of care stays with you
  • AcceptCarry it knowingly, with the decision recorded and owned
  • PursueTake the risk deliberately because the opportunity justifies it

Every risk carries one of the five treatments, a named owner and a stated residual risk. A risk with no treatment against it is not a finding, it is a note.

Training cycle

PTLLS
Identifying needs and planningDesigningFacilitatingAssessingEvaluating
  • Identifying needs and planning

    The needs of the organisation, the trainer and the learners, and the plan built around them

  • Designing

    Programme, materials and resources designed to cover what the subject requires

  • Facilitating

    Delivering the learning, using a variety of approaches and resources

  • Assessing

    Checking the skills, knowledge and understanding have actually been gained

  • Evaluating

    Feedback obtained and the process evaluated, so the next delivery is better

The client receives a training record showing who attended, what was covered and the standard reached.

Worked against combined specialist knowledge acquired through experience, training and real-life exposure.

Engagement shape

Three phases.

Most engagements move through three phases. You can enter at any of them. The intent is the same in each case: the system should hold once I step back.

IPhase

Understand

Read what you actually have, then build what should already exist. Risk model, thresholds, decision ownership, vendor standards and templates people will actually use.

IIPhase

Test

Prove it holds. Dry-run the trip, challenge the vendor, stress the leadership team against a scenario, and log where decisions slow or break.

IIIPhase

Support

Stay close while it beds in. Briefings, approvals, oversight and incident support, then a clean exit once it runs without me.

Evidence

A completed survey and its cost-benefit analysis.

A licensed venue, newly refitted, with a security spend already in place. The survey is anonymised. The numbers are not.

Rated Amber overall. Every finding was costed against the benefit of fixing it, with the return stated alongside each recommendation.

7critical
Findings serious enough to need action before anything else
£2,000to fix
Total cost of the recommended changes, training and equipment
£16,600avoided
Loss, claims, fines and closure risk the changes remove
8:1return
Eight pounds back for every one spent, paid back inside a month

How it starts

How an engagement starts.

    01

    Scope call

    Thirty minutes to understand the movement, the individual or the gap in the arrangements. No charge.

    02

    Fixed proposal

    Fixed scope, fixed price, agreed turnaround, in writing before anything starts.

    03

    Delivery

    The work, to the method, on the date agreed.

    04

    Decision brief

    A clear, governed output you can act on or hand straight to the board.

Next step

Thirty minutes to find out whether this is worth doing.

Thirty minutes to establish what the exposure is and whether it warrants the work. If it does not, I will say so on the call.