For many years, govt safety adopted a well-known playbook: Most CEOs traveled freely at residence, accepted safety solely in high-risk international nations, and handled private security as a personal concern quite than a boardroom crucial.
That world not exists.
Mentions of exec safety protocols are popping up in additional proxy filings, and firms like Starbucks are changing corporate jet policies on account of what it calls “important heightened safety considerations.”
These strikes comply with the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York Metropolis and a shooting at a Park Avenue office constructing about eight months later.
Each cases shattered long-held assumptions that company leaders had been not less than considerably insulated from the kinds of violence extra usually related to politicians or celebrities, a number of safety executives advised Enterprise Insider.
There is not a distinction between low-, medium-, or high-risk anymore, mentioned Dale Buckner, head of the safety agency International Guardian, which works with Fortune 1000 firms.
“The danger is all over the place,” he mentioned.
The information of the disappearance of “At present” co-host Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy, has solely added to a way of unease for high-profile leaders, a number of of those execs mentioned.
Boards step in
Buckner, a retired US Military colonel who served for greater than 20 years, mentioned his agency has briefed extra boards prior to now 11 months than within the earlier 14 years mixed. More and more, Buckner mentioned, boards view CEOs and different C-suite members as property that should be protected, even when some leaders are leery of perceived constraints on their freedom.
“The board is overruling the CEO who’s going, ‘I do not want this,'” he mentioned.
In regulatory filings, firms have begun to spell out their choices. Starbucks mentioned final month that, following a safety assessment, it beneficial that CEO Brian Niccol use firm plane for each private and work journey. Whereas it is made that advice earlier than, the corporate lifted a spending cap it had in place for private journey and can as a substitute assessment these prices every quarter.
In contrast to in its earlier proxy a 12 months earlier, Starbucks additionally cited “the existence of credible menace actors.”
These considerations lengthen past the espresso chain.
Disney requires Bob Iger, who is about to step down as CEO subsequent month, to make use of firm plane for each enterprise and private journey. A safety guide recognized “bona-fide, business-related safety considerations” for Iger, Disney mentioned in a January submitting. That language did not seem within the firm’s prior submitting.
Meatpacking big Tyson Meals mentioned it employed a guide throughout its fiscal 12 months that led to September to assessment dangers related to its senior administration workforce “primarily based on the evolving safety setting for company executives.” One ensuing change: requiring sure execs to make use of firm plane for each enterprise and private journey.
Proxy filings by massive US public firms that point out “govt safety” or “company safety” rose from 69 in 2023 to 87 in 2025, in keeping with an AlphaSense evaluation.
Representatives from Starbucks, Disney, and Tyson Meals did not reply to Enterprise Insider’s requests for touch upon the character of the threats executives face.
18 armed brokers
Whereas high-profile CEOs have lengthy had safety in high-risk zones, Buckner mentioned what’s grown extra widespread is retaining executives beneath a 24/7 security umbrella.
Buckner mentioned that the protocol for one in all his protectees, a Fortune 500 CEO, consists of 18 armed brokers, digicam surveillance of the chief’s residence, and monitoring of its WiFi community. A former storage on the property now serves as an “op middle,” he mentioned.
“I’ve two to 4 roving armed brokers round their residence, 24 hours a day,” Buckner mentioned.
It may be a problem to find out whether or not one thing that begins as disapproval over an organization or chief might morph into one thing extra nefarious, safety veterans mentioned.
A menace may begin out as a joke in poor style, and a gaggle concentrating on an organization may decide it up. Then, impulsively, it turns into an actual threat, mentioned Lisa Kaplan, founder and CEO of the risk-intelligence agency Alethea.
‘The fact of threat’
Caleb Gilbert, founding father of White Glove Safety Group, a safety agency serving massive firms and household workplaces, mentioned the vary of people that really feel threatened has widened over the previous six months.
“The fact of threat is resonating with extra folks. And that is totally different than I’ve seen within the final 30 years,” he mentioned.
One cause is that the cadence of high-profile incidents — from the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in 2024 to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September — hasn’t appeared to gradual, Gilbert mentioned. Whereas assaults on enterprise leaders stay uncommon, many nonetheless really feel rattled, he mentioned.
“It was the place one thing unhealthy would occur, there’d be time in between, and the executives would overlook about it,” Gilbert mentioned. Now, “with the security-minded glasses that they placed on, it is introduced the whole lot into focus.”
The price of safety is a part of that view. A small protecting element can price about $1 million a 12 months, whereas a full-scale operation can attain $30 million, he mentioned.
In some instances, Gilbert mentioned, even and not using a board’s prodding, executives are “keen to surrender private liberties that they cherished earlier than for the sake of feeling protected.”
The obvious kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie might result in demand from executives to detect threats in opposition to dad and mom, Kaplan mentioned. Sometimes, she receives requests from executives to observe dangers to their kids.
Buckner mentioned he lately spoke to a gaggle of CEOs in Washington, DC, on safety threats. Many reported feeling unnerved, he mentioned.
“It is palatable,” he mentioned. “They’re scared that they are in a brand new world order. They are not fairly certain navigate it.”
