Society in-house members across sizes and industries responding to a recent benchmarking survey provided insights on their organizations’ executive security practices, which helped inform last week’s virtual roundtable and provides valuable benchmarking information for companies to compare their practices against their peers. Among the key takeaways:
Understanding and Addressing Potential Threats to Executives’ Personal Safety and Security
- A plurality of companies represented by respondents (38%) don’t have a formal process for identifying and assessing potential threats to one or more of their executives’ personal safety/security.
- More than half of companies focus on cybersecurity threats, physical threats, travel risks, and reputational threats (e.g., negative media coverage, social media attacks), while about one-quarter focus on financial threats (e.g., blackmail) and 18% focus on political/social unrest.
- Most boards have no role to date in understanding and addressing potential threats to their executives’ personal safety/security, while 36% review information provided by management. Just 6% are actively involved in overseeing management’s determination and implementation of security measures.
Executive Personal Safety/Security Practices, Protocols, and Risk Mitigation
- Nearly half, and a plurality, of companies don’t have a written executive personal safety/security policy, program, and/or protocol, while 21% are currently developing one.
- A majority of companies have personal cybersecurity measures and travel security measures in place specifically for one or more of executives, while less than half have event security measures and physical protection measures, and less than one-third provide personal security training for executives.
- While 41% of companies have no executive security team, 41% have in-house and/or outsourced security, and 15% share responsibilities for executive security across departments.
- Most companies offer or provide personal security protections to the CEO, whereas about one-third offer or provide protections to non-CEO executives, and less than one-quarter offer or provide them to board members. More than one-quarter of companies say that the offer or provision of protections is threat- and/or role-specific.
The Role of the Corporate Secretarial Function
- Corporate secretaries most commonly contribute to their companies’ executive personal safety/security and risk mitigation and disclosure practices and processes via: (i) involvement in the CEO/executive emergency succession planning process; (ii) advising or informing executives and/or the board on proxy disclosure and/or other SEC filing implications related to executive personal safety/security; and/or (iii) overseeing disclosures related to executive personal safety/security, including risk mitigation, incidents, and perk disclosure.
Key Considerations for Executives, Boards, and the Corporate Secretarial Function
- More than half of respondents (52%) reported that management has provided no information to date to the board and/or relevant board committee(s) with respect to executives’ personal safety/security, but they are considering changing their practices going forward.
- A plurality of respondents indicated that their companies have not made or planned any changes to practices due to executives’ personal safety/security concerns as a result of the events of December 4, 2024, while 16% have changed or planned changes to website disclosures (e.g., profiles, photos, etc.) and 15% have changed or planned changes to the format of certain in-person meetings (e.g., annual shareholder meeting, investor days, executive engagements).
Society Members may access results in the aggregate and by company size on the Society website.