Three back-to-back violent incidents within the area of 10 months have woke up a brand new reckoning in company safety that’s essentially altering the way in which firms shield their executives, knowledge from a brand new Goldman Sachs Ayco report discovered.
The stunning New York Metropolis homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 was adopted by a July Midtown Manhattan capturing that claimed the lives of two safety guards and two executives at Blackstone and Rudin Administration. Final month, a lone gunman allegedly shot and killed right-wing speaker Charlie Kirk at an occasion at a Utah school. The cascade impact of these occasions has led to a palpable shift in company safety postures, with a flood of recent unbiased menace assessments and protecting measures.
Corporations are layering in extra residence safety, private safety, and cybersecurity protections for CEOs and high-profile executives and board members. Goldman Sachs Ayco, the monetary planning and wealth administration affiliate of the financial institution, discovered the commonest private safety measures are at the very least one bodyguard when an government travels for enterprise or is at a public engagement with a controversial determine in attendance or different uncommon dangers, and an armed chauffeur for commuting and journey. Necessary non-public jet journey has lengthy been widespread amongst high-profile CEOs, and firms are additionally leaning in on first-class air journey for government groups, the survey of compensation professionals from 291 private and non-private firms discovered.
“Companies want to make sure executives are safe,” Jonathan Barber, head of comp and advantages at Goldman Sachs Ayco, informed Fortune. “We’re seeing this inching back in some cases this year to some of these benefits exceeding early 2000s levels.”
Technique, previously often known as MicroStrategy, this month raised the annual cap on government chairman Michael Saylor’s safety program to $2 million from $1.4 million, the corporate informed buyers. Chipotle informed buyers this yr that it offered private safety to CEO Scott Boatwright on the finish of 2024 and early in 2025 “as a precautionary measure, in response to the highly publicized murder of a public company executive and generalized threatening public discourse,” the Chipotle board wrote in its most up-to-date shareholder proxy report. Salesforce maintained a cap on CEO Marc Benioff’s safety and plane perk quantities of $4.6 million for fiscal 2025 and 2026 to maintain bills stage. Benioff covers prices above that quantity, the corporate mentioned.
The 2025 Goldman survey, which polled 291 firms and is performed each two years, discovered 27% of respondents now present private safety for his or her CEOs, which represents a 59% enhance within the share offering the profit from two years in the past. Cybersecurity safety greater than tripled throughout all government tiers since 2021, from 10% to greater than 30% for CEOs. The survey marked an acceleration of those protecting measures—technically thought of perks—noting that 24% of the respondents added the brand new advantages up to now 24 months, which is triple the 20-year common of 8%.
Private safety, added by 10% of respondents, was the second-most cited consideration for future additions. Greater than half of the businesses surveyed cited safety as the first underlying motive for offering private use of company jet and chauffeur providers. Barber characterised the shift as a major reversal from the cost-cutting strategy that has dominated government advantages and perquisites because the early 2000s and the 2008 monetary disaster. These intervals had been adopted by regulatory modifications that fueled extra particular perquisite and pay disclosures by firms, and the appearance of shareholder say-on-pay votes on government comp applications. The mixture led to what Barber mentioned was the very best share of eliminations of safety perks, however 2025 ranges are clocking the early aughts, he mentioned. Safety can be a perquisite that’s palatable to shareholders, he added.
“Security is an easy one—it’s an obvious safety issue,” mentioned Barber.
Within the two months after Thompson’s dying, allegedly by the hands of accused shooter Luigi Mangione, safety firm Allied Common’s embedded safety enterprise—round the clock safety for execs by armed guards—grew 30%, mentioned Glen Kucera, president of enhanced safety providers. In the meantime, advert hoc safety when an government travels skyrocketed 300%, Kucera informed Fortune.
“The world for executive protection changed on December 4,” Kucera mentioned, citing the date of Thompson’s assassination, allegedly by the hands of Mangione. Within the weeks after, decks of playing cards spotlighting different CEOs and executives circulated on social media, which heightened the menace local weather as did Mangione’s public reception as quasi vigilante, Kucera mentioned.
Tech firms reported the very best menace ranges in 2025, in keeping with a September World Safety Report from Allied Common, based mostly on a survey of 620 chief safety officers. Some 66% of tech corporations reported elevated threats of violence towards executives in contrast with a 46% common within the U.S. amongst all corporations. Kucera mentioned these corporations are dealing with a extra acute menace panorama given the high-profile nature of the corporations, and since they’re recognized to be considerably worthwhile. Plus, social media platforms are a “lifeline for a lot of people,” and elimination from platforms or different actions creates robust animosity that may result in better agitation, he mentioned.
In line with Allied’s findings, tech firms are tied with pharmaceutical corporations in offering government safety at 40%, whereas 31% additionally present safety for executives’ households. Roughly 90% of chief safety officers at tech corporations say their firms had been focused by misinformation or disinformation campaigns, and 63% mentioned misinformation influenced greater than half of the threats lobbed on the firms.
The distinction now versus in previous years isn’t simply within the scale however the sophistication of threats pelted at firms and executives, mentioned Matt Dumpert, a managing director who leads Kroll’s enterprise safety threat observe. Synthetic intelligence has made it simpler for disgruntled prospects, workers, and people desirous to do hurt to focus on firms and unfold doubtlessly harmful details about their location and actions and the private lives of executives.
“The tools to collect background information, to create targeting dossiers against executives, to learn about their habits, where their families vacation—all of these things are readily accessible to adversaries,” mentioned Dumpert. “What used to require sophistication can now happen very quickly in a highly automated way.”
In line with Kucera, the brand new playbook contains residence safety assessments, armored drivers and automobiles, skilled canines for explosives detection, and superior cyber protecting measures.
“Each one of these events feeds the awareness that this could happen anywhere,” mentioned Kucera.
