Three back-to-back violent incidents within the house 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 surprising New York Metropolis homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 was adopted by a July Midtown Manhattan taking pictures 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 faculty. The cascade effect of these occasions has led to a palpable shift in company safety postures, with a flood of recent impartial menace assessments and protecting measures.
Firms are layering in further house 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 most typical private safety measures are no less than one bodyguard when an govt 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 corporations are additionally leaning in on first-class air journey for govt groups, the survey of compensation professionals from 291 private and non-private firms discovered.
“Firms need to ensure executives are secure,” Jonathan Barber, head of comp and advantages at Goldman Sachs Ayco, instructed Fortune. “We’re seeing this inching again in some instances this yr to a few of these advantages exceeding early 2000s ranges.”
Technique, previously generally known as MicroStrategy, this month raised the annual cap on govt chairman Michael Saylor’s safety program to $2 million from $1.4 million, the corporate told traders. Chipotle told traders 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 extremely publicized homicide of a public firm govt 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% improve within the share offering the profit from two years in the past. Cybersecurity safety greater than tripled throughout all govt 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 prior 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 cause 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 govt advantages and perquisites for the reason that early 2000s and the 2008 monetary disaster. These durations have 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 govt comp packages. The mixture led to what Barber mentioned was the best proportion of eliminations of safety perks, however 2025 ranges are clocking the early aughts, he mentioned. Safety can also be a perquisite that’s palatable to shareholders, he added.
“Safety is a simple one—it’s an apparent security challenge,” 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 govt travels skyrocketed 300%, Kucera instructed Fortune.
“The world for govt safety modified 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 best menace ranges in 2025, in line with a September World Safety Report from Allied Common, primarily based on a survey of 620 chief safety officers. Some 66% of tech companies reported elevated threats of violence towards executives in contrast with a 46% common within the U.S. amongst all companies. Kucera mentioned these companies are going through a extra acute menace panorama given the high-profile nature of the companies, and since they’re recognized to be considerably worthwhile. Plus, social media platforms are a “lifeline for lots of people,” and elimination from platforms or different actions creates robust animosity that may result in larger agitation, he mentioned.
In line with Allied’s findings, tech firms are tied with pharmaceutical companies in offering govt safety at 40%, whereas 31% additionally present safety for executives’ households. Roughly 90% of chief safety officers at tech companies say their firms have 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 follow. Synthetic intelligence has made it simpler for disgruntled clients, staff, 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 instruments to gather background data, to create focusing on dossiers towards executives, to study their habits, the place their households trip—all of these items are readily accessible to adversaries,” mentioned Dumpert. “What used to require sophistication can now occur in a short time in a extremely automated means.”
In line with Kucera, the brand new playbook consists of house safety assessments, armored drivers and automobiles, educated canine for explosives detection, and superior cyber protecting measures.
“Every one in every of these occasions feeds the attention that this might occur anyplace,” mentioned Kucera.
