The Risk Advisory Group is ten years old.
We took the occasion to ask Richard Prior, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer of the London-based consultancy, what changes he has seen in those ten years – and what he foresees.
Richard Prior, a founder member of the consultancy, identified the regulatory environment, and security, as the two main changes for businesses. The group has grown to 125 staff with offices in Moscow, Rotterdam, Nairobi and Riyadh; a Dubai office opened in 2007. Asked what changes he can foresee, Richard Prior said: "I think that perhaps we have reached the high water mark as far as the imposition of regulatory responsibilities is concerned; and I wonder if perhaps we might see some slight relaxation of that in the next decade, where businesses learn to live with the regulatory regime in which they have to operate, and learn to perhaps find a little bit more wiggle room in the way that they manage regulatory risk.
"As far as security is concerned, clearly these risks are very real and I would suggest that business probably has not yet felt the full impact of the modern security threat arising from terrorism, but also from activists." He suggested we may see more direct action, against pharmaceutical and tobacco, and other companies." In the last ten years, legislation on business, not just in the UK but Europe and the United States, has put more onus on businesses, for example to check who they are doing business with; and who they are partnering with. Two examples of US laws he gave were Sarbanes-Oxley; and the PATRIOT Act. As for security developments, he pointed to Islamic terrorism and Al-Qaeda, ‘which clearly was not a particularly recognised or significant factor back in 1997, when we started the business. Islamic terrorism hadn’t really been recognised as a threat to business at that stage; it was much more seen as being a threat to government, and to military installations."
The group offers business intelligence and due diligence; corporate investigations, employee screening; and security advice, particularly where businesses are operating in difficult or high-risk places. While there is an Army flavour to the group – Walter Courage, Director, Business Development, was a major general, and a non-executive director is General Sir Mike Jackson former Chief of the General Staff – others come from corporate security, the police, and the law. Richard Prior had an oil industry background and before TRAG set up a business intelligence consultancy. in Russia.
