Corporate Risk in a Changing World

Stephen Ward (CEO, Polaris) sat down with Jon Sheppard as part of his Spotlight Sit-Down Series – candid conversations about industry changes, evolving work dynamics, and intergenerational collaboration in today’s workplace.

Steve and Jon discuss the latest trends in corporate risk, how businesses are adapting to new challenges, and what it takes to navigate security and risk management in an ever-changing world. They discuss 1) how corporate risk management is evolving, 2) key strategies for businesses in today’s dynamic environment, 3) the impact of intergenerational workforces on risk and security, and 4) practical advice from a seasoned industry expert.

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Jon: Welcome everybody to the JSA Spotlight sit-down series. I’m Jon Sheppard. Today we’re talking with Steve Ward, CEO and Principal of Polaris Risk Management. Steve, welcome.

Steve: Thank you, John.

Jon: Yeah, great to have you. I look forward to a good conversation. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and more importantly a little bit about Polaris Risk.

Steve: Sure, thank you. First of all, a pleasure to be here and be a partner with you and be on your podcast. So my background is somewhat of a non-traditional background in corporate security. I started off in undergrad and I was working on an externship and I wound up working with a state regulatory and investigative agency and I spent two years as an investigator working with different departments in law enforcement and I felt that I wanted to move forward with law enforcement on a federal level.

What transpired was that there was a hiring freeze and while I had connections in the government and my files were earmarked, they were only hiring through attrition. So my uncle who had been in Naval Intelligence and the CIA had advised me to stay involved in investigations and subsequently I got involved in running Wall Street law firms investigative team and over time I realized that this is the path I wanted to take and I formed my first company OmniWatch.

OmniWatch grew quickly. We were an industry leader in intellectual property investigations, high stakes corporate litigation and cyber and forensics. I exited that company with a sale to the oldest and largest security company in the world, Pinkerton. Pinkerton has been around for a little over 185 years. They’re a part of Securitas and I believe they have a 32 billion dollar market cap with operations worldwide.

Jon: One of the biggest boys in New York.

Steve: Yep. There I accelerated quickly to the vice president in charge of all operations on the US East Coast which is a significant amount of global multinationals doing their work worldwide throughout the Pinkerton network and then after that, I at the same time simultaneously took over all operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa, managing all the divisions there and a number of the specialty divisions for Pinkerton and over that time, I enjoyed my time at the large organization. I learned a lot, right. You always learn, you always want to evolve and what I found was that there was something missing in the model.

At larger organizations, clients get lost in the shuffle. You start looking at just the bottom line, top dollar and there was no emergence or consolidation between physical and cyber and that is the way of the future. So what we did is a number of us that were part of my team had discussed at some point why don’t we create a company that bridges the gap between physical and cyber and that brings us to where we are today.

Jon: Polaris Risk is bridging that gap pretty well and I know you pretty well from some conversations we’ve had with the business group that we’re both involved with and I think you broke it down recently to four main silos that you guys are involved with. So what are those?

Steve: So the four verticals or silos like you say we work in are cyber security and when we talk about cyber, we talk about advisory services, advising small, mid-sized and global multinationals on how to, you know, traverse the world of cyber security, making sure their environment is safe, testing, creating table tops and dealing with them in crisis management situations. We are not a disaster recovery firm.

However, we do offer forensic services, and that’s more on the litigation side, but we have a very strong hold with that, and then we look at controls and access, and the way we see that is it integrates with the next silo, which is physical security. We provide armed and unarmed security in over 85 countries. We utilize a caliber of agent that is typically a retired law enforcement, in some cases active duty, and in many cases military as well, and we have our own employees, but we also have vetted, trusted partners, because our model is global delivery with local resources.

Jon: And I would think that’s a big growth area for you guys, because while everything that’s been in the news lately of, you know, executives being killed and others being under threat and, you know, all these famous people having some issues with that.

Steve: So this is an evolution in the security industry, and that would bring us into the other two silos or vectors we work in, which is Intelligence, where we have an intelligence team that works in a fusion model with our investigative team, and we provide deep and dark media review, social media assessments, looking for that outlier, that individual that’s got negative sentiment about a company or its executive, and then the investigative team conducts everything from internal misconduct to background screenings, due diligences, and when you combine those two groups in our geopolitical threat group, you have what we call as a protective package, or a protective envelope, where that you’re not just putting an armed agent or an unarmed agent in the field, you’re putting someone that has a backup team that has intelligence services, investigative services, and you can have the true picture.

Jon: You know, you used the word earlier, evolved, right? You know, business has evolved. You know, one of the things I was thinking about on the way over here was how the security industry has changed dramatically since 9-11 happened in 2001.

Talk to me a little bit about old school, new school. You and I talk about being older dogs as opposed to the gummies, so talk to me a little bit about how that business has changed in that regard.

Steve: So I’ll say there was a huge shift after 9-11. Security became the utmost concern. We had a young generation of executives and people in all different industries that volunteered for the military and went overseas and served 15 years or more, and we have to thank them for their service. That is something that they put themselves out there selflessly to do for us, to keep us in the homeland safe.

What we saw in the private sector was the evolution of the more growth of security companies. And while they grew in number, I would say that the organizations did not grow in, I’d say, maturity to keep up with the market and the evolution of the services.

Jon: Yeah, a nimbleness in what you provide.

Steve: Yes. So nimbleness is key.

That’s actually one of our core principles is that we’re nimble, we’re attentive, and we’re relentless. And we really mean that. So when we look at some of the larger companies, some I was a part of, you know, we deal with Fortune 50, Fortune 100 companies and boards.

They want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to the CEO or the COO. They don’t want to see on the website that they can’t find that person, they can’t see their background, and that they have to wait. So when we look at the industry, now you have dozens and hundreds of smaller companies, and what you really have to look at is what capabilities do they bring to the market.

Jon: Right. Yeah, that’s one of the biggest things in the service that you guys provide. You know, everybody specializes in everything. You know, and one of the things that I found as I was looking into the labs further and further is, you know, it’s almost a bespoke model. It’s really about getting to the core principles and the core issues of the clients you serve, whether they are Fortune 50 companies, individuals that work in those companies, private high net worth individuals, sports leagues, everybody that you guys service, everybody has a different need set.

And with what you’re providing, you’re addressing all of that. And it sounds like this model is not only here to stay, it’s probably the foundation of what’s coming next.

Steve: A hundred percent, Jon. We spoke with a very large corporate consulting firm, you know, similar to McKenzie’s of the world, and they likened our organization to something similar to theirs. Well, we can’t do everything for everyone. We do have experts that we bring in, and we publicize and put them on our websites with their bios.

These are consulting experts that work for us that have core capabilities in areas such as cyber security. We have a doctor of forensic psychology to look at the threats that are coming in, so you can have a real true assessment, not just by a security professional, but we have someone who’s actually practicing clinically and can look at these documents and aspects. So what we look at is we can scale or shrink based on the client’s needs.

We do have core capabilities and we have resources, and the key for us is when we tell a client we can take something on and it’s specialized, we will then put forward our expert with their bio and let them have a conversation. If it’s something we can’t do, we have no problem in referring them to industry-best partners, because our model is, if I can help you any way I can as a client, it’s a partnership. I don’t look at ourselves as a vendor. I look at our clients and our role as a partner.

Jon: Yeah, one of the things I talk to people about in my business, in the search business, in the advisory business, is I need to be effective for you. If you guys aren’t effective for a client, it could cost them money, it could cost them reputation, it could cost somebody physical security, so it’s super important that you guys are effectively bringing out those experts, and if you don’t have them, I’m sure you have access to plenty of them.

One of the things that you and I spoke about before we got on camera was the changing face of the industry, and how it doesn’t look like a bunch of old ex-cops sitting at a desk in an office building anymore. It’s really getting more diverse, age, gender, and all that. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Steve: So when you look at the evolution, you look back at the FBI as they were kind of the gold seal when it came to investigations, and at some point in their evolution, they realized that investigators alone can’t get this done. So the model of a former accountant or a lawyer as an FBI agent still was good, but then they created an intelligence division, and this brought people from different backgrounds. What we see in this evolving culture is that it’s not always looking for someone with 20 or 30 years experience in the military or law enforcement.

We look at a different profile. We’re seeing a number of very intelligent young people going through great universities, getting their master’s in these forensics courses, Homeland Security, physical security intelligence, and instead of saying, hey, go do 20 years and come back, we’ll take them now because they’re young. They have ideas that we don’t, and I think to be a real incubator of talent and to be able to provide holistic solutions, you need all different generations in the room to give their opinion, and not to say, hey, you just got out of college, and when I was your age, you sat there and be quiet.

I want you to tell me what you think is different. Now maybe you’re wrong, and maybe I can educate you. We’ve gone down that rabbit hole, but maybe you could look at what we’re doing, and I see this more often than not, and find a more effective way or a new tool that we could use.

Jon: Yeah, that’s super important, and it’s the difference between experience and subject matter expertise, and people coming into the industry now have a higher level of subject matter expertise, whether it’s in forensics or another area, that they bring to the table, they bring best practices, and then the buyer of your service is starting to skew younger. It’s no longer the corporate executive 60 to 70 years old. It’s somebody in their 30s and 40s and maybe their 50s who are looking for the same kind of services that you guys provide.

Steve: And that goes into messaging. So if I’m dealing with a 35-year-old female director of security who’s come up very quickly, has significant experience, I may not speak the same language he or she wants to hear. When you’re dealing with corporations, they don’t want to hear the nomenclature of law enforcement.

They want you to talk to them as if you’re in the border. Explain to them what the service is, the key on what the limitations are, but look to your team on how to communicate the message because they understand better sometimes than we do because we have our tried and true methodology. But again, as we get older, the people that we deal with are going to be younger, and the last thing you want them to do is look at you and say, wow, this guy is way out of it.

He doesn’t understand the use of AI and other things. You want them to say, wow, these guys are on the cutting edge. They have a great core team.

And the key is team. Not integrating only being the CEO or the COO or managing director that deals with the client. Expose your entire team to the client because let them have the ability to talk to the people that are doing the boots on the ground work.

As long as there’s a curated message and you’re confident, but they’ll never get there unless you give them the power to do it.

Jon: Yeah, 100%. Everybody that watches this knows I preach intergenerational communication and collaboration.

It sounds to me like Polaris Risk Cabinet has a very collaborative environment. They’re really encouraging people across the board, and those are things that never go away. You mentioned AI briefly when we were talking about this earlier.

Talk to me about how AI has actually helped you serve clients.

Steve: So AI is a great tool, but it’s not 100% accurate, and we’ve seen those. But what we’ve leaned into is when we look at calling vast amounts of data for intelligence analysis, utilizing tools that have AI backends, we can pull in a significant amount of data in a relatively quick format.

We can call that data down, and then we can have an analyst, intelligence analyst, or investigative team member review that data for accuracy. Now, we have a whole model of quality control, but it enables us to provide clients with quicker information. It could be just scratching the surfing. Here’s the icing. Here’s where we are. Do you want to move forward? No, this is good enough. Or, wow, I want to go deep. Let’s go to the next level. But if you’re not looking in this industry for resources in this model, you’re going to be left behind.

Jon: Yeah, you’re providing services that need to stay out probably two to five years ahead of not only the competition, but all the bad actors out there. 100%. And the reality of AI is it’s a useful tool, and again, something that people who are a little further down the career path, maybe they’re a little resistant to, but the fact that you have people within the company that embrace it, you’re going to teach everybody the benefits of it.

You and I are already benefiting from it in our businesses. And it’s not only here to stay, but it’s what’s going to happen next. And to see that you can create this tool to utilize all the data and information you need to provide better service to your clients comes back to, we trust Steve, we like Steve, they do a great job. We know we get the result they want, and that’s timeless. It doesn’t matter in the time of AI or the time before AI. So I think that’s true.

Steve: Yeah, and the key is we have multiple layers of tools, so we’re not just relying on one aspect. So people will say to me, hey, what product are you using to get these results? And I may look at them and say, well, we invest a significant amount of money into multiple tools. So our people are cross-trained on multiple tools.

So it’s just not one tool, but it’s also not one tool that one person looks at and says, oh, this looks great. There’s a team, and that’s our fusion model. And keeping ahead of it, looking, like you said, to the future, I can give you an example of what I would not have faced maybe 10 years ago as a client came to me.

The overview is, how do we keep the high net worth executives’ information off the media so it can’t be found on deep and dark web? We call that PII removal, scrubbing that data. The next aspect was, OK, how do we know the threats out there? That’s the intelligence portion where it’s looking at negative commentary, negative tone, social media assessments. And then it was said, we have a ton of cameras, and we have all these alarms. Well, guess what? They’re all integrated through a network. Can you do a cyber assessment? So we said, of course, we can look at a controls and access model to see if everything’s integrated properly. And then if we need to, we can do an assessment, like an internal-external penetration test, making sure that there’s no vulnerabilities.

But 10 years ago, where some of these other companies that are out there that have not evolved yet, and there’s still time. There’s nothing holding them back. They won’t be able to do those three different programs in-house. They’ve never done it before. So if you’ve never done it before and you’re just going out to someone you’ve never worked with who’s an expert, you don’t know the pitfalls to tell your client, these are what we can do, and here are the things that can’t be done.

Jon: That’s the value proposition that you have. That’s the endgame.cSo how do people get in touch with you?

Steve: We have our website, which is PolarisRSK.com. My email is very easily gotten, stephen.ward@PolarisRSK.com. If you look us up, you can see our team. We make ourselves available. The website has marketing material you can download to look at. And we get a lot of our traffic through referrals because we’ve built this big network. So the website’s a great way.

You can always contact myself. And we’re always available for a consultation. Not everything turns into a project, but some of our best clients come from people that we talk them out of doing something because it’s not necessary, and they remember that.

And then they come back to us and say, you know, you really helped me here. I have something that can really fall into your, you know, daily wake, and I’d like to get you guys involved.

Jon: One thing I’ve always known about you for the 15 plus years we’ve known each other is not only are you in the security business, you’re in the relationship business. And that really is the bigger thing. You know, developing those relationships with people over time, taking time with people that are inquiring about your business, and really getting them to understand a new dynamic that can play in the security world we’re in today.

Steve: And, you know, leading into that is we are in a talent crisis. So we have to make sure that people understand that, you know, it’s not just, hey, I need this person. There’s not a lot of people out there that know what they’re doing or that are into this market space that are willing to, you know, come forth at this point.

There’s a lot of people sitting on the sideline because of the changing working environment from hybrid to full-time and things such as that. So that also plays a factor in being able to explain that to a client. That’s awesome.

Jon: That’s awesome. Steve, I learned a lot today. Everybody, hopefully you learned a little something. Please join us again as we do another episode of the JSA Spotlight Sit-Down Series.

Steve: Thank you, Ken. Awesome.

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