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This week's tragic killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York has raised concerns about the safety of corporate executives.
CNN says“Assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Shows Why Companies Spend Millions to Protect Their Top Executives.” A Forbes columnist It provides that “after the shooting… security personnel will be required”. And, according to this Wall Street Journal REPORThis killing “prompted an immediate reevaluation of longstanding security practices across corporate America” and “dozens” of security chiefs from major US companies gathered together on a call to discuss the situation.
“The environment is explosive right now,” a former Boston police commissioner who now (not surprisingly) consults with major companies on mitigating security risks told the Journal. “Threats are evolving and becoming more violent.”
Okay, let's chill, shall we?
Of course, there is a reason behind this concern. Corporate executives are not only more in the spotlight than ever before, but they're also not too hard to find. They attend public events, shareholder meetings and social functions all over the world. Often, companies make their schedules public or publish press releases noting where they will be. Getting their home addresses is a few steps online. Digging into their personal relationships takes minutes, thanks to LinkedIn, X and Facebook.
If you're a corporate executive, you can easily be targeted by someone who, say, wants to right a wrong or impersonate a social justice warrior for 15 minutes of fame. But this is not a new thing, is it?
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick it was with eggs in Taiwan in 2017. Bill Gates was hit with a pie in the face during an overseas visit in 1998. Robert Murdoch and CEO of Qantas Airlines and now extinct Enron Corporation he also got pie. Frankly, many business leaders and celebrities have been “unintentionally” dirty over the years.
But killing a CEO is, obviously, much more serious. Thankfully, these situations have not only been few, but almost non-existent.
An advertising executive was killed in New Jersey in 1994, but it turned out to be the work of the Unabomber. A Microsoft executive was shot and killed in Florida in 2022, but the culprit turned out to be his ex-wife's husband. George Tiller, who owned a women's health clinic in Kansas, was killed by an anti-abortion extremist at a church service (his clinic was the target of “multiple attacks” before).
I don't want to downplay or trivialize the gravity of what happened to Thompson. But I've searched Google and various chatbots like Perplexity and ChatGPT for examples of other CEOs who have had the same fate and come up short.
there are currently 55,000 public companies in the world, and the US has more than six million employee-owned businesses only. These companies are led not just by CEOs and business owners, but by senior management teams, all of whom would make tempting targets for attention seekers. And yet, there are very, very few such incidents. Executives seem more at risk of having a skiing accident or going down in a plane crash than some random person shooting them at point blank range on a busy New York street.
That's why we all need to calm down for a minute. The media loves to exploit our worst fears and anxieties to get clicks. So they write things like “security will be required” and “the environment is explosive.” threads for like these nor from the irresponsible “journalists” certainly do not help. It's a great marketing moment for security firms. But should corporations make the poor decisions to suddenly start spending significant sums on security over what appears to be an isolated incident? If your CEO is Mark Zuckerberg, a celebrity, I understand. But for everyone else? I'm not so sure.
Related: Here's how entrepreneurs can protect their company from cyber attacks
Why? Because people don't go around shooting other people. Our systems – while they don't catch everyone – are pretty good at weeding out those with criminal histories or who need to be watched. Guns can be obtained both legally and illegally, but shooting requires patience, skill and planning.
Of course, people in public positions have to be careful in today's world. CEOs who engage in politics or engage in social issues or support some controversial cause are increasing the risk of being attacked by a minority of lunatics who oppose them. Executives running firms that are involved in life-and-death matters, such as health care, also need to be careful. All leaders must be aware of their surroundings. If they receive threats – like Thompson allegedly did — should be taken seriously. These are the situations where increased security measures are needed, either by the local police or by private firms.
But, as you can see from the figures, these situations are few and far between. So no one should panic. Corporations don't need to surround their CEOs with secret service type agents in sunglasses. Some do, and pay millions for the privilege. But for the vast majority of corporate leaders, they can understand that we have not reached that point. And I don't think we'll ever get to that point – at least not in the foreseeable future.
Thompson's shooting was tragic. But it was a rare event. An anomaly. We should mourn for this man. But, with apologies to the security industry, we mustn't go overboard.