ISJ Influencer 2022: Anderson Fagundes da Silva, Head of Loss Prevention Transportation, Mercado Livre Brazil

The World Economic Forum, through the Global Risk Report 2022, already tells us that there is little faith in accelerating global economic recovery, with authorities and business leaders citing climate change and increasing social tensions.

The global divergence in several domains in the post COVID-19 recovery threatens to widen disparities and exacerbate social fractures – global leaders will have to navigate social fractures, economic deficits and climate change.

The world is focused on an economic recession and one of its main causes is the war in Ukraine which, in the sequence, can bring and maintain social instability for 2023. Consequently, this will have impacts on public and social security. Therefore, in the case of the European Union, the main challenges will be economic and public/social security issues with possibilities of disturbances and social manifestations that will certainly impact the continuity of business.

For Latin America, in general, the countries now almost entirely governed by leftist parties, and some with more authoritarian governments, have marked routines or manifestations linked to the social and economic instability that the region is experiencing.

So, what are the challenges that security professionals will face? The protection of people and business continuity management! However, the premise will be the daily and uninterrupted monitoring of incidents, as they can be “small”, but in a short period of time they will take a greater proportion and strongly impact people and businesses.

In the case of Brazil, which is one of the most important countries in Latin America, despite the current economic stability, the country is politically divided between left and right and there is a strong tendency for a rupture after the election results. Since practically half of the population become opposition, in a country where public security is a challenge, this adds to social instability and security managers will certainly have to review all their protection plans and business continuity plans – this is high on the agenda and shouldn’t leave anytime soon.

In other words, monitoring scenarios, anticipating trends, simulating contingencies and training multidisciplinary teams in incident solutions and business continuity management will be more than important for 2023.

The pandemic taught us to handle contingency plans with faster responses; the speed of detection and response to incidents and protection will be key points to ensure the continuity of business and the protection of people. It sounds easy conceptually, but it’s like running a marathon all week, putting together the necessary strategies to make good time and not suffer with fatigue! Security managers should be more skilled with soft skills.

Dealing with business continuity management and people protection in 2023 will require emotional intelligence, negotiation power, persuasion, resilience and, especially, situational leadership. We can arm ourselves with resources and technical knowledge, but if we don’t have personal skills and soft skills at a time of crisis, everything can be lost. The security manager will need a lot of soft skills and resilience to drive tough business continuity and protection agendas.     

Bio

Anderson is currently Head of Loss Prevention Transportation at Mercado Livre Brazil. He has over 25 years of experience in the security field. He was a Military Police Officer of the Brazilian Army, and passed through large organisations in the areas of ports, airports, logistics, industry and tobacco. He is a lawyer and has participated as a speaker at several international seminars and conferences focused on maritime security, logistics security, risk management and compliance in many countries in the world.

This article was originally published in the December 2022 Influencers Edition of International Security Journal. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.