The Protective Intelligence Advantage: Mitigating the Rising Threat to Prominent People

The world reacted in horror to the graphic security camera footage of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson being gunned down on a Manhattan sidewalk as he was on his way to attend a scheduled investor conference. Contrary to many reports, his murder was not the first attack against a CEO on American soil, and it won’t be the last.

Since this murder has already spawned copycat attacks, The Protective Intelligence Advantage: Mitigating the Rising Threat to Prominent People is especially needed at this moment in time. In it, the authors outline various case examples of other executives, VIPs, and high-profile figures who were victims of such attacks. The goal is to learn key elements from them, then outline exactly how individuals and security teams can utilize protective intelligence tools ―and their own behaviors, mindfulness, and awareness to protect themselves and their families from threats and imminent harm. This book will detail the essential security and awareness tools that any executive can learn: what the authors dub protective intelligence-led security, a model they designed. Since 1998, the authors have trained billionaires and Fortune 100 protection teams on the concept.

After a lifetime of investigating attacks on high-profile persons, heads of state, and celebrities―and training others to prevent them―the authors will be the first to examine the murder of Brian Thompson in detail, and use the lessons learned from that attack (and others) to illustrate how protective intelligence can be used to identify threats and prevent attacks.

Fred Burton is one of the world’s foremost experts on protective intelligence, global security, and terrorism. He is a former State Department counterterrorism deputy chief and DSS special agent, who investigated the kidnapping of the hostages held captive by Hezbollah and many other acts of terror. He is the author of Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent and Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent’s Lifelong Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assassin to Justice, and coauthor with Samuel M. Katz of the New York Times bestseller Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi.

Scott Stewart is the Vice President of Protective Intelligence at TorchStone Global. He is a veteran protective intelligence practitioner with four decades of analytical, investigative, and security experience in the government, corporate, and NGO sectors. Prior to joining TorchStone, Scott led Stratfor’s global analysis of terrorism and security topics from 2004 to 2020. He also served as the protective intelligence coordinator at Dell and spent ten years as a special agent with the U.S. State Department where he conducted hundreds of terrorism, criminal, and protective intelligence investigations.