What I do
Much of my work isn't technical. Security is mostly something people do, or don't do, and the measure itself is rarely the hard part. The harder part is helping an organisation stop seeing security as an obstacle and start seeing it as something everyone has a part in.
In practice, that means working with the people whose routines a measure will change, as well as with senior colleagues who have good reasons to push back.
From experience
When a public institution's workforce went private
A national cultural institution moved its security and visitor services, several hundred people, from the public sector to a private contractor after a long, public dispute. Many had spent years under the same system and expected the worst. Privatisation meant cost cutting, many were worried about losing benefits they had earned, and others worried they wouldn't keep up with new standards and new ways of working.
I was in the first group the contractor brought in, as a security officer working alongside them. To many, we were the change they had fought against, and at first they kept us at arm's length. It took time, and work done well beside them, to earn their trust.
Over four roles I rose to security manager. By then I knew what people feared, because I had seen it up close. I set out where we were going and why, and gave the team a real part in getting there. I did away with old ways of working that had held some people back for years, so development, recognition and progression were open to everyone on the same footing. Those who doubted they could keep up got the support to do it. Much of what people feared never came.
What I'm proudest of is the people. One of my team went on to lead security at another of the country's most prestigious institutions. Others became the next generation of leaders.
I started out in nightlife, where I learned that most of security is reading people. Since then, I've worked across some of London's busiest transport hubs, including Euston, Waterloo and St Pancras, and in landmark corporate buildings whose occupiers include some of the world's leading financial and professional firms.
What I believe
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People follow what they understand
A measure that arrives as policy is tolerated. One whose purpose people can see, protecting them and the trust others place in them, is kept.
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A control is only as strong as the people around it
The best control in the world does little if the people it relies on see it as someone else's problem.
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A well-made decision shows its workings
Months later, what matters is not only what was decided, but why, by whom, and on what information.
Percival
Over the years I kept meeting the same gap. The tools I used were good at recording risk, producing reports and showing compliance, but none of them reflected how security decisions are actually made, with judgement and context, and none of them kept the reasoning behind a decision.
In the end I stopped working around the gap and built what I needed. That became Percival. It has grown a long way since, but it is still an extension of my own work, not a separate career.
Memberships
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The Security Institute
Member (MSyI)
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International Security Management Institute
Member, and Certified Security Management Professional (CSMP®)
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The Institute of Strategic Risk Management
Member of the London Chapter, completing my studies with the Institute