Senior leaders at Kroll share exclusive insights with International Security Journal:
- Jacob Silverman (JS), Chief Executive Officer
- Rachel Posner (RP), Chief Client Officer
- Brent Tomlinson (BT), President, Risk Advisory Practice
- Michael Gips (MG), Managing Director, ESRM Practice
- Nick Doyle (ND), Managing Director and Head of EMEA and APAC ESRM Practice
- Tim Horner (TH), Senior Managing Director, ESRM Practice
- Daniel Linskey (DL), Managing Director, ESRM Practice
- Julie Cabus (JC), Managing Director, ESRM Practice
- Steve Rumbold (SR), Managing Director, ESRM Practice
- Emily Baum (EB), Chief of Staff, ESRM Practice
- Matthew Dumpert (MD), Practice Leader, ESRM Practice
Jacob, as CEO, you oversee Kroll’s expansive mission in both financial advisory and risk advisory. How is Kroll’s ESRM practice evolving to meet client needs?
JS: We live in a world of ongoing and persistent cyber and threat activity. The sophistication of state, criminal and anarchist actors is growing rapidly. We help organisations and individuals anticipate, respond to and mitigate myriad enterprise-wide security challenges.
These challenges are growing in scope and complexity.
Our work has evolved to encompass both cyber and physical risk solutions, allowing us to uncover exposures, validate the effectiveness of our clients’ defences, implement new or updated controls, fine-tune detections and confidently respond to any threat.
Security is about relationships: Rachel and Brent, you are both extraordinary relationship builders. What are you hearing from your clients that they will need from Kroll in the next 2-5 years?
RP: Critical insight. We have the best team who come from vast and incredible backgrounds – intelligence, military, law enforcement, legal – just to name a few. They provide this diverse wealth of experience, and their experience helps inform the critical insights executives need to make serious decisions that protect their enterprise from the threat of today and tomorrow.
BT: Executives know that their legacy is on the line. Our global footprint, our discernment and our 24/7 responsiveness continue to make us the most sought-after partner in the business. In the current climate, clients need excellence consistently and they need capabilities spanning the risk lifecycle. Only Kroll can do that.
Michael, as a security thought leader with a powerful brand, what brought you to Kroll?
MG: For one, the opportunity to join a global brand with a sterling track record, a company with scale that can make a real difference in our industry. My goal is to help Kroll adapt quickly to global change by introducing new ideas, insights, processes, technologies, clients and partners.
And whole new product lines that leverage Kroll’s reputation and reach. But ultimately, what drew me was the people. I believe in the leadership and vision of Matt Dumpert and our team, and when I saw the direction he was taking the ESRM business line in, I knew that he had both the appetite and wherewithal to change the traditional security narrative.
Nicholas, you are responsible for a vast geographic territory and a broad array of industries. How do you balance risk and opportunity across such a diverse clientele?
ND: Balancing risk and opportunity across diverse clients in regions like EMEA and Asia-Pacific requires a strategic, culturally aware and risk-informed approach. From a security and crisis management perspective, this balance is achieved through customised risk assessments, proactive intelligence, scenario planning and agile response frameworks all tailored to both client needs and regional dynamics.
One major factor is climate risk and the impacts on global supply chains and markets and the resilience of organisations to react, respond and recover.
Regional conflicts add a complexity far beyond their location, exposing organisations far afield to activism, hybrid warfare and economic pressures. And overall political instability, economic stress, inequality and social unrest fuel geopolitical risk.
As Kroll’s Senior Managing Director, Tim, you built the ESRM practice after 9/11. Where is it heading?
Tim: After 9/11, we redesigned our security offerings around terrorism, suspicious packages and other relevant threats and we built a bespoke Security Consulting Practice.
Since then, we have prioritised agility for the rapidly evolving threatscape, whether it be workplace violence, school shootings, cyber-attacks, corporate espionage, supply chain disruption, natural and manmade disasters, insider threats, political attacks, executive risk or effects of regional war.
We have to constantly assess the political, social, economic, technological environment (and beyond) to provide the best possible counsel to clients. We are already working heavily with technologies often via strategic partnership, including AI and large language models, drones and robotics.
Our colleagues throughout Kroll are also addressing quantum, secure multiparty computation, developments in edge computing and so on. Mastery of the tech isn’t enough. It’s about maintaining relationships and serving as a trusted advisor.
Dan, you served as the Superintendent-in-Chief at the Boston Police Department before joining Kroll, even leading the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing. What is the greatest challenge to your public and private sector clients as the world gets more complex?
DL: The greatest challenge facing public and private sector clients today is navigating the complexities of an ever-evolving landscape. Organisations must balance day-to-day operations while simultaneously identifying potential new threats and challenges that lie ahead.
Key considerations include: Developing versatile team members who can adapt to various daily challenges, even if those tasks fall outside their original job descriptions; managing a diverse, multi-generational workforce with shifting values and expectations.
Recruitment and retention of new team members is becoming difficult, as many are not inclined to commit to a single organisation for the long term; recognising that safety and security issues do not adhere to a traditional work schedule. Crises can arise unexpectedly and require immediate attention, regardless of the time or day.
After a long career with the US Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), Julie, you joined Kroll in mid-2025. What concerns you most about the nature of global threats?
JC: My thoughts on the “global threat” are less of a concern and more of an observation. During my 26 years with the DSS and now with Kroll, I see global threats as ever-present – no one is immune. However, I see more willingness to manage risk and mitigate threats and thrive despite them.
Organisations, companies, NGOs, faith-based groups etc. are willing to accept greater risk and are turning to Kroll to do so. This shows the maturity of the enterprise risk community, which strives every day to find the balance between getting the work done in difficult circumstances and protecting organisations and their greatest asset, their people.
OT and CI are firmly in your skillset, Steve, and they are a particular expertise of the London office, where you are based. What do we need to know and plan for in OT and CI?
SR: Attacks on CI have become more frequent and are likely to result in severe systemic consequences as our societies increasingly interconnect. For example, AI users receive data via cables connected to data centres, which in turn are fed by energy grids (or generators needing fuel supply) and water.
Each element can be vulnerable. In addition to constant attempts at IT incursions and an uptick in OT (operational technology) attacks that use cyber means to create real-world harms, we’ve recently seen more direct disruptions to CI (critical infrastructure), almost certainly orchestrated by hostile states.
Think drones shutting down airports and dragged anchors cutting telecoms and energy cables.
Just as attacks can be hybrid, approaches to protecting CI also need to be more connected across cyber and physical domains, including better understanding of complex supply chains and dependencies. Presenting a hard target and lowering adversary ROI through resilience represents a strong deterrence strategy.
Having started your career as an engineer, Emily, how are you using or recommending technology to solve the problems of tomorrow?
EB: In a strategic and targeted way. Today’s technological innovations are groundbreaking, certainly the ones that Tim mentioned as well as AI-driven video analytics, mobile access control, advanced weapon detection, edge sensors and on and on. But these are only tools.
The application should dictate their use, not the other way around. It’s not helpful to shoehorn a hot new technology in a situation where it isn’t the best or most fitting solution. Kroll’s ESRM team is leveraging all these technologies, internally as well as for clients, but responsibly and with flexibility and foresight.
Matthew, you are the overall practice leader for the ESRM group. How do you get your hands around everything?
MD: Actually, my job is simple. I find the best people in the world to innovate on tomorrow’s problems.
Then I resource, motivate and remove obstacles so they can thrive. That, and fiercely protecting our clients’ hard-earned trust and confidence by keeping their needs in the centre of our universe, is our approach.
