When Stalking Looks Like Affection, Admiration, or Anger — The Challenge for EP Teams

Conduct a thorough risk assessment

To effectively understand and mitigate stalking risk — and ultimately ensure executive safety — it’s essential to have a comprehensive view of the threat landscape. A detailed threat assessment provides a clearer picture of behaviors or situations that could pose a risk. Key steps include:

• Evaluate potential threats from known individuals, internal sources, external actors, and unaffiliated persons of concern
• Gather information from multiple sources, including reports, digital data, in-person observations, and online activity
• Monitor both direct threats and unusual sentiments directed at executives, the brand, facilities, and assets — excessive admiration should not be overlooked
• Assess the social media activity of those under protection
• Include family members, close associates, and frequently visited locations in the assessment

Build a business case and establish executive buy-in

Even if you have an executive protection strategy in place, you may need to get buy-in for support and funding to strengthen and expand your program. Executive decision-makers often require persuasion to recognize the risks facing themselves, and their families. Awareness training — leveraging insights from the threat assessment conducted in step 1 — can be eye-opening for executives (and their executive or personal assistants).

To establish buy-in and build trust, use real-life scenarios to illustrate the multidirectional nature of stalking risks and their potential harm. Beyond the obvious physical dangers, it’s also crucial to highlight the broader business impact, including potential losses from downtime, litigation, and reputational damage. Leaders need to understand the risks to both themselves and the organization.

Define who you are protecting and align cross-functionally

From there, define who you are protecting against stalking behavior, such as executives, their families, personal assistants, and other key individuals. Next, identify cross-functional partners and assign roles and responsibilities. Departments like legal counsel, HR, employee relations, cybersecurity and IT, facilities, and even marketing and corporate communications may encounter concerning behaviors that need to be communicated to security and executive protection (EP) teams. Clearly outline what types of information should be reported. These may include:

• Threatening statements, communications, or behaviors
• Unusual interest or fixation on the protected individuals or assets
• Angry sentiment toward specific people, the organization, or the industry
• Obsessive pursuit, even if it appears positive or affectionate in nature

Although each function within your organization has its own concerns and responsibilities, department leaders need to understand the importance of their role in keeping executives and the organization safe. Their cross-functional insights are valuable, and their collaboration is essential. Ensure alignment across functions by setting shared goals, communicating the expected action, and working to bridge information silos that impede cross-functional communication.

Establish protocols for information intake and investigation

Clear processes for receiving, assessing, managing, disseminating, and documenting information are critical. In most cases, you’ll want to implement an online intake form for reporting concerning behavior. With intake forms, it’s important to define specific guidelines for handling personally identifiable information (PII), using the latest technology to manage sensitive data within secure channels. Work with your legal team to ensure compliance with all relevant privacy regulations and offer an anonymous reporting option.

When incidents are reported, leverage a standardized behavioral threat assessment process for triaging, investigating, and assessing the information. And establish a case management system with designations (like low, medium, and high) to indicate the level of concern for each report.

Communicate and implement protocols across the organization

Strong executive protection is an organizational-wide effort. To maximize the effectiveness of your strategy, clearly communicate the program’s purpose and processes to the entire organization. This ensures everyone understands the steps involved in reporting concerning behavior and can contribute to maintaining a safe environment.

• Provide clarity around the use of intake forms established in step 4, highlighting the anonymous reporting option
• Create program awareness through training, internal information campaigns, and lunch and learns to foster and understanding of stalking behavior and how it will be addressed
• Use scenario-based training to help employees recognize concerning behaviors and understand how to respond — this will reinforce the “see something, say something” approach and provide direction for action
• Within your messaging, emphasize a sense of shared responsibility across the organization