New firms are popping up to protect their clients in any scenario

There was a near-tragedy on the slopes in Whistler, Canada, over spring break this year, when a young skier suffered a serious head injury. His family, wealthy Americans, were keen to whisk him home for treatment, but transport was challenging despite the fact their private plane was on standby; doctors warned there was risk of a stroke at altitude. Thankfully, they could tap the team at private-security firm Crisis24’s Private Strategic Group (PSG) for advice, as founder Stephan Crétier explains. “We brought in specialists in pressurisation on airplanes—one is a special surgeon who worked on Air Force One,” he say. “And they were able to give instructions to the pilot to adjust the pressurisation to a certain level, to fly at 7,620 metres instead of 9,144 metres and to slow down enough that they were able to fly back to the hospital.”

Crétier founded PSG during the pandemic to pinch-hit in scenarios just like this one, offering presidential-level support in far-flung crises. And the company isn’t alone: There’s a growing niche of new firms that specialise in such elite emergency responses, medical or otherwise. They offer a handy backup service for an increasingly globally mobile group of the world’s wealthiest, who also recognise the uncertainties that loom ever larger wherever they might be. The unfolding questions around how a rogue shooter was able to nearly assassinate former President Donald Trump recently, despite his top-level Secret Service protection, also underscore the issue. Pop culture reflects this sense of unease, too: Breakout hit Baby Reindeer, for example, and its exploration of stalking, or Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s just-released novel, Long Island Compromise, whose plot pivots on the kidnapping of the central family’s deep-pocketed patriarch.

Crétier sparingly discusses PSG—it’s only passingly mentioned on the firm’s website—but he’s granting a rare interview to Robb Report to explain why 200 families now pay US$125,000 per year to be members (and to proudly tout that his team was tasked with operating the VVIP medical clinics at Paris’s Hôtel de Crillon during the Olympics).

The billionaire has long been CEO of Crisis24, one of the world’s largest private-security companies, but he tells us that the idea to expand its offerings via PSG came from casual conversations he had with his peers about how vulnerable they felt while traveling. Medical emergencies at home would be handled by concierge doctors, of course, but what would happen in a scenario like that ski accident? “Our clients’ biggest risk was more a problem around their health than their security,” he says. “It’s surprising how many people are ready to pay US$5,000 to US$7,000 for a Romanée Conti, but when it comes to medical, they turn to the back of their Centurion Card and call the number. Really? Come on.” So seven of his existing clients, some of the wealthiest families in the world, came together to be the founding members of PSG. It is predicated on offering head-of-state-level medical support wherever you might be in the world; to do so, Crétier tapped former director of the White House Medical Unit, William Lang, M.D., as its medical chief.

In another client example, the ex-wife of a wealthy hedge-fund owner suffered a stroke at her Paris hotel on a recent trip, Crétier says. Within hours, a top neurologist had been dispatched from London to pick her up and escort her back to America on a private plane. “They landed in Miami, and she was seen by the chief neurologist of the University of Miami hospital, 24 hours later,” he says, “You don’t want access to a doctor, but thedoctor.” The company’s clients can even depend on custom medical kits, prepped by PSG’s team to their exact needs, to be maintained in every plane, boat, or house they own.

They can bolster that backup by tapping Charlie Hanbury’s insurance firm Samphire Risk. The British insurance broker, and former Lloyds of London staffer, started this operation three years ago to focus on bespoke insurance for the 1 percent. He spotted a gap in the market after a two-decade career in crisis-management insurance, where he had largely focused on policies taken by wealthy Latin American families against kidnap for ransom. Most such insurance, Hanbury explains, is sold as-is and rarely tailor-made to an individual’s needs: “The large providers of insurance are extremely large organisations, but you can trust a boutique business like us to get it right. We will provide you with insurance adapted to the types of risk you’re facing, engineered to your actual requirements.” As an example, he cites two people on an adventure trip through Africa by motorbike; after a traffic accident, one was badly injured. The other, though, was kidnapped in the resulting chaos, creating a second, unrelated incident. This emergency, then, was both a security and a medical one, but typical policies don’t coordinate or complement. “They were in a hostile environment, a long way from home, facing a complicated, critical incident, and there should be a single point of entry to get help,” Hanbury continues. “We are the connective tissue between the problem and the expertise needed.”

He has worked across a wide spectrum of risk, including one recent scenario consulting with the CEO of a well-known Asian corporation who was receiving severe death threats while his wife was heavily pregnant. “If you’re worried someone’s in the bush outside the house, you can stick a six-foot, eight-inch-inch, four-foot-wide person on the doorstep, but you also want to train people how to identify the warning signs,” Hanbury adds. “Baby Reindeer is a good example of what I’ve seen over the years, how stalking threats can escalate.” Samphire can connect clients with consultants, for example, who won’t just nullify threats but can also advise on how to spot warning signs and dampen incendiary situations. It typically costs mid-five figures for a policy that will cover up to US$25 million of costs, whether that money’s needed for PR representation, medical fees, or a ransom payment—or what Hanbury delicately calls “the financial fallout of events.”

If you’d rather try to avoid those situations entirely, consider hiring Mac Segal’s team at AHNA Group. The Dubai-based South African former military operative offers executive protection and transportation, as well as protective intelligence, worldwide; last year, his 14-strong team coordinated 500 trips in more than 50 countries and six continents. “We have 30 cars and drivers up at Davos every year. It’s an absolute circus,” Segal says. “But this job is not about being James Bond, flying on private jets with dark glasses and an earpiece, looking cool.”

What it might involve, though, is wrangling special dispensation for a plane, as he did a couple of years ago in Israel. One client was due to be wheels up on a private jet, heading back to Paris, at 10 pm; three hours earlier, his assistant called to say the corporate jet had malfunctioned and had to return to base. The client, though, needed to leave as planned. Israel isn’t awash in spare private aircraft, Segal notes, so he instead confirmed that a first-class ticket on Air France would be acceptable, leaving on a scheduled flight at 10.20 pm. The big issue: a top-secret conference call taking place between 9 pm and 10 pm that could not be moved. Segal wrangled a private lounge and a wireless hot spot at the local FBO for the call and confirmed that the passenger could be driven straight from the private airfield to the commercial tarmac, a journey of a few minutes, and board as the aircraft doors closed. ”99.9 per cent of the time, we’re problem-solvers,” Segal says. “His assistant wasn’t asking me, ‘Can you figure it out?’ She said, ‘We need to leave as planned at 10 p.m. Fix it,’ and didn’t want to be bothered with the details.”

Segal’s Mission: Impossible–style approach, where he assembles a team as needed—perhaps a car and a driver with defensive expertise or a close protection officer—allows him to cherry-pick the right staffer for every job. Each person undergoes AHNA’s own training, which involves unusual skills, including conversation-making. Agents should avoid controversial topics, of course, even if clients broach them, but it is as important to know how to talk as it is to know what to say. “You should speak in short sentences, so the client can stop the conversation whenever they want to. We teach that in training,” Segal says. “You can make small talk, but don’t overstep.”

Problem-solving doesn’t always require strong-arming, either: His staff often needs to deploy negotiation skills more adroitly than landing punches. Another client was visiting London, and his wife was invited to lunch at an exclusive members-only club, one with a years-long waiting list to join. She was thrilled for that special treat—well, at least until she was denied entry on arrival. “It’s members only,” sniffed the hostess. That’s when AHNA swung into action, sending one of its agents to the venue. A few hours later, that same woman was told she could return the following day, with one proviso: The agent had to walk her to her table. Sure enough, she was thrilled to sit down for lunch as planned, albeit 24 hours late. “A ‘no’ is only the first step on the way to ‘yes,’” says Segal, who guarantees that his staffer didn’t simply slip a few pounds into the hostess’s palm. “That would expose the client to reputational damage. So what you might do instead is identify the right person in the club who can make the decision and understand why they would help. You never threaten, either. You could say, ‘I am in such trouble, I am going to lose my fricking job, and I have two small kids at home.’ It’s about evoking empathy and recruiting the person to your side.”

Doron Kempel takes a more high-tech approach to supporting his clients. The Israeli entrepreneur is the founder of Bond, an app-based service aimed at the world’s wealthiest that’s akin to a bodyguard in your pocket. He’s squarely focused on risky situations and how to make them as safe as possible, and his service costs up to US$3,000 per year for each family who uses it. The app incorporates 14 different services, Kempel explains, all of them aimed at different circumstances. “In a psychological, and a real sense, you’re never alone,” he says. Activate the Monitor Me function, for example, and within seconds a security agent at a command centre will appear on your smartphone’s screen and ask for your situation—perhaps you’d like a virtual escort to your car in a dark garage late at night. They will then accompany you, able to alert emergency services should anything go awry. You can also opt to have your finger rest on the screen, which will give an agent live updates on where you are; if you release that finger and an agreed password isn’t entered within a certain time frame, that same agent will appear on a video call.

Users could activate another option, Track Me on the Go, as they leave their building on the morning commute, and the AI-powered system can make sure that they’re following the typical route and that it’s taking the usual time. It will also flag and act on anomalies. Translation is unexpectedly useful, too. “If your driver has a heart attack in a cab, it can detect the language the person is speaking and translate up to 300 languages,” Kempel explains. He’s proud that Bond was able to assist in a recent crisis. A member was planning to help a friend move out of an abusive boyfriend’s home and wanted Bond to virtually escort them. “Within minutes, the boyfriend arrived, armed with a gun,” Kempel says. “So the primary agent stayed on the call with her, while other agents reached out to the local police. They could say, ‘There’s an armed male on the second floor in a red shirt, and two unarmed females on the first floor.’ We are someone to look after you in those situations.”

Even travel specialists are now offering security checks and support to their highest-paying clients. Jimmy Carroll is the cofounder of high-adventure specialist Pelorus, which focuses on adrenaline-soaked, six-figure-plus rips around the world. Both he and his business partner, Geordie Mackay-Lewis, are former British military officers, and they use the same planning model for their trips that they learned for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. “We look at the terrain, the environment, [and] the geopolitical elements, whether you’re going to Eritrea or… Italy,” he tells Robb Report. “Every single trip has a document called coordinating instructions, which is lifted from British military doctrine, broken out hour by hour or minute by minute if need be.”

“We’ve used aliases for booking hotels and yachts, and we don’t put someone in disguise, but we might suggest they wear a hoodie and sunglasses,” Carroll says of the well-known figures with whom he often works. “Or we could have two or three cars leave at the same time, so anyone watching would think, ‘Oh God.’”

The big risks, though, aren’t always those you might assume. Heli-skiing in remote locales is one of his fortes. He isn’t overly concerned about injuries on the slopes, though, but rather the issue with transport. The sport usually takes place in single-engine helicopters, as twin engines are too heavy; many C-suiters will have insurance policies that specifically preclude them from clambering into any single-engine copter, a Robinson, for example. That was the case with one client, whose Icelandic adventure looked like it might end up on ice before an ingenious workaround. “Iceland doesn’t have any twin-engine helicopters in the country, so we shipped one there to use for the trip,” Carroll says. That created a secondary security question. “Keen beans would notice the helicopter wasn’t there usually, so we had to do a whole analysis on the perception side, as it would draw a bit of attention,” he continues. The client, though, was thrilled, and came home unscathed—from both the chopper and the mountains.

This story was first published on Robb Report USA