Una Riley meets Allan Hildage FSyI, FCMI, MBCI, MASC, RISC.
Allan is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal Security and Business Continuity Consultant of the Griffin Security Group and is responsible for the direction and efficiency of all the Group’s activities both at home and overseas. A qualified trainer and regular speaker at international events. He has experience and knowledge in the development and implementation of all aspects of personal safety, information security, business-protective measures and business continuity management application in a wide-variety of sectors both within the home UK market and overseas. Allan is a former Regional Chairman and Board member of the Defence Industry Security Association, a member of ASIS (American Society of Industrial Security) and an elected and active Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. He is also a Fellow of The Security Institute and a member of The Business Continuity Institute. He is a Registered Independent Security Consultant (RISC) and as many of you will know is the Chairman of the Association of Security Consultants (ASC), who this year are hosting the Professional Security Magazine-Women in Security Awards.
I have been involved with the ASC for many years. It is a great association to be part of. When I started my systems company almost 30 years ago there were not a lot of women who were owners and MDs of their own business. As a consequence I was the only woman that attended various industry lead bodies representing the electronic sector within the security industry. It was a different time then and I was surrounded by male colleagues who were not used to having a woman in their midst. I want to paint a picture of the ASC so that other women might consider joining now as I did then. At a time when inclusion and diversity were not the agenda items they are today, it was a different working environment for women in business. However, there were a handful of men from those times that stood out from all the rest as far as I was concerned. One such person who represented the ASC back then, Mike Carhalane (a founding member of the ASC) to me epitomised what the organisation was all about. I was invited to become an associate member of the ASC then because I acted as a consultant within a systems security organisation. However, when I became a full time consultant I was then eligible to become a full time member; which I promptly did.
I was proud to be presented with my certificate by the chairman, Allan Hildage. Allan was particularly at the forefront of the ASC involvement with the Professional Security Magazine’s Women in Security (PSM-WiS) Award. Therefore, being a member of the ASC I am proud that we are the hosts of this year’s PSM-WiS Awards. I recently caught up with Allan to get his take on the ASC and to talk about the awards. I asked Allan how long he has been involved with the ASC and what positions did he hold before becoming chairman. Allan replied: “I became a full member of the ASC in 2005. I was elected as a Board Director in 2008 and took over as Chairman from Roy Sutherland in 2011.” I went on to ask about the ASC and its role as a lead body within the wider world of security. Allan said: “The ASC is the professional organisation for independent security consultants. In representing and promoting their specific interests, the ASC aims are to maintain the highest professional and business standards among its members and to stay in the forefront of work on security methods, technology, applications, legislation and standards, and to share knowledge and experience to ensure our members provide services of the highest quality, so that security consultancy achieves full recognition, acceptance and respect within the wider wold of security. All our full members are independent consultants, having no allegiance to specific suppliers of goods or services. They either head their own companies, or else are senior representatives in consultancy practices. Leading experts in their fields, members have specialist skills and are able to handle a broad range of strategic issues. Collectively their expertise and experience covers every facet of corporate and government security and in all sectors of commerce and industry.” We further discussed the ASC and the members involvement and recognition of their services and commitment to the ASC which led me to ask Allan to talk about the annual Imbert prize. Allan said: “One of the prime aims of the ASC is to raise professional standards and encourage the development of ideas for the advancement of risk and security management in the UK through the award of an annual prize. The ‘Imbert Prize’ is named after one of our patrons, Lord Peter Imbert of New Romney, CVO, QPM, JP, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and Lord Lieutenant of Greater London. The prize comprises of three separate elements. The first being for a ‘Selected Dissertation’ submitted by an academic institution. For instance Cranfield, Leicester, Loughborough and Portsmouth universities are invited to submit a dissertation on behalf of one of their students, which must be relevant to consultancy in security and adjudicated by the ASC Award Panel. The second element is for the ‘Person Making The Most Notable Contribution in the Security Industry in the Preceding Year’. We include industry lead bodies such as associations which include ASIS, BSIA, IPSA and the Security Institute. They are all invited to submit a nomination, to be adjudicated by the ASC Award Panel. The final platform and where the recognition of members comes in to play is the ‘ASC Member that has made the most significant contribution to independent security consultancy’ in the preceding year nominated by the Members of the ASC, as adjudged by the ASC Award Panel. It is notable and very pleasing that in recent year’s nominations and indeed winners of the prizes have included a number of female members of the security community.”
We went on to chat about some of the women that has been nominated for the award and indeed the winners and I asked Allan how he felt about actually being the host of the 2014 WiS event. Allan said: “I am delighted to have been personally involved with the WiS awards from the outset as a member of the adjudication panel and have been impressed by the very high calibre of nominees for these now very prestigious professional awards. I am particularly pleased that the ASC is able to more actively support WiS this year by hosting the awards dinner in conjunction with our annual conference, CONSEC, on October 2 at the London Heathrow Marriott Hotel. I believe that this joint venture will be very well received by ASC members and our delegate guests to illustrate the ASC’s continuing efforts towards the need for diversity and inclusion within our industry.” Although the ASC has female members, I wanted to know what the organisation was doing to encourage more female members to join?
Allan replied: “The ASC has sadly had too few female members over the years and we recognise the very real need to encourage applications for membership from female members of the wider-security community. To meet the necessary criteria for full ASC membership requires the individual to be a provider of independent consultancy services and I am sure that there must be some female practitioners out there somewhere? Equally, any person providing internal consultancy services within an organisation is eligible to apply for Associate membership of the ASC and we look forward to hearing from you.”
As a member I hope that woman are tempted to join the ASC it is both professional and welcoming. To finish I asked Allan what he envisaged for the future both of the ASC and his role as a security professional. With a smile he said: “I have now been actively involved in security both in the public and private sectors for more than forty years and have seen it grow and develop in importance as a business enabler over that time span. I hope that through the strategies and efforts that my contemporaries and I have collectively pursued over the years, that business protection in the whole is recognised as making a significant contribution in achieving the operational goal by effectively protecting people, assets and the ‘bottom line’. I recognise that I am now in the twilight of my security career (and am not quite finished yet!), but I am heartened by a new generation of highly-qualified and motivated security professionals coming through who will ensure that the ASC will continue to grow as part of the ever-evolving industry as a whole. They will continue to recognise the need to work cohesively and closely with our sister organisations within the industry, to ensure that we collectively provide a wholly professional service to meet the challenges that undoubtedly lie ahead in an ever-changing world.”
I challenge all the new blood to pick up the baton from the movers and shakers of the profession like Allan, Mike Cahalane and others that have fought to make this industry the profession it now is. It would be great to see even more young men and women getting involved in industry matters to take the ASC and the other lead bodies to the next stage. In the meantime, I am looking forward to meeting you at the CONSEC event in October.
About Allan Hildage
He was Head of Corporate Security and Government Departmental Security Officer (DSO) for National Air Traffic Services Ltd (NATS), became a full-time independent consultant in 2005 to do security consultancy and business continuity management work. He had a Royal Air Force service career of some 26 years of security and contingency planning related appointments that included most aspects of state-related protection and nuclear security. ‘Retiring’ as a Wing Commander 1997, he joined The John Lewis Retail Partnership as the Company Security Manager for Waitrose Supermarkets, before returning to the ‘public sector’ at the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Until the dividing into two of the CAA and NATS, he was dually appointed as the Chief Security Adviser / DSO for the CAA as well as his position with NATS.
