What should companies do to keep bosses safe?

TO KEEPCEO Mark Zuckerberg safe, has spent at least $23m annually on bodyguards, home security and other support during the last three years. To protect , another high-profile billionaire, but a famously frugal one, Berkshire Hathaway laid out just over $300,000 in 2023. In between those budgets, boards at America’s large public companies make diverse investments to protect bosses, according to filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The range of spending indicates a lack of C-suite consensus about what is necessary.That may now change. The murder charges filed against , the Ivy League graduate who allegedly stalked and shot to death , UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive, have rightly shaken up corporate assumptions. “Businesses are in panic mode, especially large corporations with higher profile s,” says Bill Gage, a former secret service agent with SafeHaven Security Group, a consultancy. Corporations that previously viewed security investments as wasteful, or a bad look, are suddenly all ears. “I’ve worked with billion-dollar companies before that didn’t even want to spend $50,000 on any sort of active shooter [training] or review how to harden their physical security,” Mr Gage says.Any sound security strategy requires a threat assessment. Mr Mangione’s alleged political motivations and cold-blooded preparations challenge complacency. The suspect has pleaded not guilty. The allegations in his case suggest that violence related to America’s heated, polarised politics may also pose new threats to corporate bosses. Since Mr Thompson’s murder, popular outrage over America’s opaque, costly health-care system has made Mr Mangione an online folk hero to some. Yet health care is hardly the only industry that attracts passionate opposition from activists and sections of the public.Public support in America for using violence to achieve political goals is rising, according to surveys overseen by Robert Pape, a scholar and longtime analyst of political violence at the University of Chicago. (During the 2024 election campaign, Donald Trump narrowly survived one assassination attempt and later dodged a second, according to charges in that case.) In recent years, peaceful protestors have turned up at executives’ homes, including that of Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, a big bank. Some executives have had paint or eggs thrown at them. A few have been harassed on the street or in a restaurant. Mr Thompson’s fatal shooting shocked because it was of a different magnitude, seemingly more of a departure than an escalation of prior civil disobedience.Even before Mr Mangione’s arrest, however, some executives recognised that they had become political targets of a sort. Mr Zuckerberg, Meta wrote last spring in a filing about its spending on security, “is synonymous with Meta and, as a result, negative sentiment regarding our company is directly associated with, and often transferred to Mr Zuckerberg.”In New York, security firms have been inundated in recent weeks with calls and emails from existing clients and potential new ones. Law enforcement is also trying to help. The state and the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, hosted a virtual meeting on December 17th. More than 200 companies heard state and city counterterrorism officials and police expound on corporate security.The police officials at the meeting said that Mr Thompson’s killing should not be considered a one-off. They reported an escalation of threats since the shooting, what those in the counterterrorism field call contagion. The officials said they are on high alert, according to Kathryn Wylde, head of the Partnership. Despite the apparent rise in risk, Ms Wylde says, “I don’t think there’s any place in the world that is better equipped to prevent these kinds of acts than New York City.”After the initial panic, more thoughtful discussions are taking place, security consultants say. Executives are now clamouring for threat intelligence. Implementing new plans and protocols takes time. When Mr Gage takes a new client, he meets with the chief executive to discuss lifestyle, travel plans and ways to take easy precautions, while monitoring threat chatter.Some bosses at the largest companies think security merely entails hiring off-duty cops for $50 an hour. “There’s a perception out there that the protection people have to be these hulking, large human beings that are there to physically intimidate everybody that they come in contact with,” agrees David Komendat, Boeing’s former security chief and the founder of Komendat Risk Management Services. Most of the time, effective security is multi-layered. It can entail protecting several people at the company as well as their homes and online, looking for worrying chatter and monitoring the dark web.For his part, Mr Mangione is locked up in a Brooklyn federal jail. On December 23rd, Mr Mangione was arraigned on the latest slate of state and federal murder and other charges that have now been filed against him. He again pleaded not guilty. If he eschews a plea bargain and goes to trial, a media circus is all but guaranteed, replete with story lines about the accused’s radical views of corporate responsibility. Such a trial would do little to calm C-Suite nerves.