Securitas establishes dedicated Security Risk Management Unit

The Security Risk Management Unit is underpinned by an end-to-end, intelligence-led approach to identifying, understanding, monitoring and acting on risks specific to each client. It enables proactive security, faster crisis response and adaptive security programmes for clients, leveraging Securitas’ ability to integrate physical and digital security, and is an engine for future growth at the organisation.

Structurally, this move brings together Pinkerton, the recently acquired open ource intelligence and threat intelligence company Liferaft and Securitas’ existing Risk Intelligence Unit under the leadership of Matt Ellis, who has been appointed president of the security risk management function and a member of the Securitas Group’s management.

At the same time, Securitas combines the development of its digital platform and Artificial Intelligence capabilities with the IT organisation, under the leadership of Hillevi Agranius (Group chief information officer and also a member of Group management).

Together, the Security Risk Management Unit and the digital platform form the strategic engine of an intelligence-led model: the Security Risk Management Unit connects insights to action, while the digital platform is the infrastructure through which it’s delivered.

In conjunction with this transition, Marthin Althén (president of Securitas Digital) is leaving Group management. All other Group management members continue in their current roles.

Thought leader

“I’m delighted to welcome Matt to Securitas,” said Magnus Ahlqvist, president and CEO of Securitas. “He’s an outstanding thought leader who has built one of the most sophisticated global security and risk programmes in the industry. His experience gained from highly complex and global security environments in a tech-forward organisation makes him exceptionally suited to build and scale this important new business for us. I would also like to sincerely thank Martin Althén for being an active and essential contributor to Group management over the past decade.”

Matt Ellis joins the business from Amazon, where he served as director of global corporate security, having joined the company in 2017. In this role, he led worldwide security strategy and operations across more than 570 sites, supporting upwards of 350 000 employees globally, and helped to bring together intelligence, investigations, crisis management and security operations across programmes.

Prior to working at Amazon, Ellis held senior regional security leadership roles at WeWork and Cameron/OneSubsea, and earlier led international investigations in private practice. He began his career as a Commissioned Officer in the British Army.

Ellis holds an MSc in Security and Risk Management from the University of Leicester and is a graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.