“Herbert Smith LLP regularly works with clients needing business intelligence and specific investigation and information gathering skills. We invariably seek to involve The Risk Advisory Group because they are highly skilled in their approach and have senior people who are strategic thinkers with well-tuned political antennae."

Simon Bushell, Partner, Head of the Corporate Fraud Group, Herbert Smith

 

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Senior staff


Alex Leslie
Director, Business Intelligence
Alex Leslie received a joint honours degree in modern languages from Bristol University. He has lived in Germany, Belgium and France.  He joined The Risk Advisory Group at its inception and since then has undertaken assignments covering all of the principal business intelligence services including competitor intelligence, due diligence and corporate contests. His areas of geographic expertise include Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Prior to joining The Risk Advisory Group he worked for an international investigations business.


Rebecca Palser
Head of Operations, Business Intelligence
Rebecca Palser has a BA (Hons) in law and Italian from Anglia Polytechnic University and trained as a barrister at the Inns of Court School of Law in London. She joined The Risk Advisory Group in 2003 from the World Markets Research Centre where she conducted research into the political, tax, security and operational environments within Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy, and the impact on business of legislative changes in western Europe and Africa.


Chris Rowley
Associate Director, Business Intelligence
Since joining the company in September 2003 he has undertaken a variety of due diligence cases in the mining, banking, property and travel industries. Prior to joining The Risk Advisory Group, Chris worked in the political risk arm of a business risk management company, where he held specific responsibility for the company’s Latin America and Caribbean division. The position involved advising a raft of international clients on the various political and economic risks associated with doing business on the continent. Chris graduated from Exeter University in 2000 with a BA in Political Science. He has lived in Chile and travelled throughout Latin America and Spain.


Charles Skinner
Associate Director, Janusian Security Risk Management
Charles Skinner was educated in Africa and then joined the British Army in which he served for 22 years. The majority of his service was with the Royal Military Police’s elite Close Protection Unit where he deployed operational teams in support of British diplomats in Uganda, Colombia, Peru and Angola. After leaving the Army, he provided security and safety consultancy to some of the world’s largest corporations in the pharmaceutical, manufacturing and extractives industries. For Janusian, he has carried out in-depth security risk management surveys and managed security operations for corporate clients around the world.

Tom Barker
Associate Director, Janusian Security Risk Management
Tom Barker joined Janusian in 2008 from an international risk management company where he had worked for 2 years as the Director of Security to the US Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq.  From Baghdad, he commanded a Security Force of 350 Gurkha, Iraqi and Expatriate guards and consultants and was responsible for the security of US military and contracted engineers at 5 compounds in 3 cities around the country.  Previously, Tom served in the British Army with both the Royal Gurkha Rifles and on attachment to the Parachute Regiment on Operations in Sierra Leone, the Balkans and Afghanistan. Tom was educated at Stowe School and the Royal MilitaryAcademy Sandhurst.


Ernst van der Merwe
Financial Controller
 Ernst van der Merwe joined The Risk Advisory Group in 2001. He holds a BComm (Hons) in management accounting and is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. After graduating from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, he relocated to London. Prior to joining The Risk Advisory Group he held roles with Sainsbury’s, The Pearson Group and a London-based recruitment consultancy.
The Risk Advisory Group & Janusian Security Risk Management


One candidate for an American investment bank stated that he had attended a prestigious UK university on undergraduate and postgraduate courses and provided copies of his graduation certificates to the HR department. The university’s Student Records department advised TRAG that the candidate had never been registered as a student at the university and was never awarded any qualifications. The certificates were found to be forgeries and further enquiries revealed that the candidate had attended a different university in the same city for four years, but left without graduating.

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The Risk Advisory Group (Holdings) plc Registered Office: 10-12 Russell Square London WC1B 5EH Place of Registration: England and Wales Company Number: 5188468