Security Leadership and Management

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Long-term business relationships can be a win-win proposition for security integrators and executives alike.

Long-term relationships between security leaders and their integrators are born from years of consultations, installations and service work. Once you find a security integrator that you trust and that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations, you can bet that you will go back to them time and time again. There are many examples of security executives forming multi-decade working relationships with their integrator. Those relationships are built from trust, communication and delivering results.

It’s never boring in the boardroom. At the later part of the 1990s, “paradigm shift” emerged as the buzz phrase, popularized as business speak until it was overused to the point of becoming meaningless.

Last year, Joe Dunne, a 32-year NYPD veteran, was appointed to the newly created position of chief security officer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Specifically, he’s in charge of all the Port Authority’s security and public safety issues, including its 1,700-man police department. Now six months into his new role, what challenges has he faced in securing one of the most visible ports in the world?

In every element of our daily lives there are rules that guide our behavior. These rules come to us in many forms. From the time we are infants, our parents teach us what types of behaviors are acceptable and those that are not. We all remember the dreaded “No” from our mothers or fathers which was usually coupled with a stern look on their face.

Over the last few years, I’ve written several articles and blogs about how critical collaboration is to the success of a security organization. I’ve also worked very hard in my job to practice what I preach. Security will not work in a silo and unless we, as security practitioners, understand our business and its core assets, it will be pretty difficult for us to successfully ensure their security.

In 2004, the United State’s Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration established the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) to, as quickly as possible, identify, secure, remove and/or facilitate the disposition of high-risk vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials around the world that pose a threat to the United States and the international community.

When the LA Kings won the Stanley Cup last year in their hometown of Los Angeles and home ice rink, STAPLES Center, Lee Zeidman and David Born celebrated with them. Both men were not only proud that the LA Kings brought home a championship, but they celebrated the fact that during the series, the team, their families, fans and employees were safe and the facility was secure.

From the highest technology solutions against cyber crime, to the low-technology sandbags that saved $4 billion of Goldman Sachs’ New York City and Jersey City buildings against Superstorm Sandy, to the far-reaching and thought-provoking keynote presentation by Roland Cloutier, Vice President & Chief Security Officer of ADP, the Security 500 Conference gathered security’s thought leaders for a day of provoking and valuable networking.

Phil Hopkins, Vice President Global Security for Western Union, has a successful background in the public and private sectors. To what does he attribute his success, and what are the qualities that make him successful, including his relationship with his CEO?