U.S. companies are spending record amounts to keep their executives safe in response to rising threats and the killin
gs of two high-profile corporate officials in separate attacks in Manhattan over the last eight months.
Corporations have doubled the number of plain-clothed security teams outside buildings in New York City since a s
hooting last week in which four people were killed, said Glen Kucera, president of the enhanced protection se
rvices unit at Allied Universal, a security and facilities services firm.
“It’s unspeakable. I never knew anyone who was murdered,” said Rich Friedman, chairman of Goldman Sachs A
sset Management, who previously worked with one of the victims, Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner. Her death shook Wall Street, even though authorities beli
eve her killing was a random event. Police said the shooter was targ
eting the headquarters of the National Football League, which is housed in the same building in the Midtown area of Manhattan where LePatner worke
d. The shooter also killed a New York City police officer, building security guard and employee at real estate company Rudin before turning the gun on himself.
The attack was “shocking and hits very close to home,” Citigroup sp
okesperson Ed Skyler said in a note to employees a day after the July 28 killings in Midtown. “Understandably, yest
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erday has also left many of us feeling uneasy,” he said, assuring employees that the bank has beefed up security at its Manhattan headquarters over the last year.
Threats against executives “have massively ramped up since 2020,” said Chris Pierson, the CEO of cybersec
urity firm BlackCloak. He noted how the man charged with murdering a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband near M
inneapolis in June allegedly kept a target list of mostly other politicians and used online people-search services to find their addresses.
Ben Joelson, head of security risk and resilience for the Chertoff Group, a security advisory firm, said threats against executives are higher than at any time in the deca
de he has worked in the field, with social media posts magnifying complaints against institutional leaders. Artificial intel
ligence is compounding the problem, leading to an “exponential rise” in realistic phishing attempts, Joelson was cited as saying in a report by research firm Equilar.
When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot to death in New York in December, it seemed to be a very rare “black swan event,” Joelson told R
euters in an interview. But targeted attacks have continued, including the killings in Minnesota and the shooting deaths of two employees of the Israeli embassy in
Washington in May. “It’s increasingly acceptable for some bad actors or adversaries to address grievances through violence,” which has led many companies to put a new focus on security, Joelson said.