For UHNWs, the threat of becoming a target for crime is all too real, whether because of their wealth, high-profile position or access to sensitive information. The rising frequency of sophisticated threats, from cyber-attacks and identity theft to physical kidnapping and extortion, aided by the increased surveillance afforded by digital footprints, has only heightened these concerns.
Artificial intelligence is adding a new, and potentially catastrophic, dimension to the threat. In January 2025, a finance employee at engineering firm Arup joined a video call with several senior colleagues, including the UK-based CFO. Following a short discussion, the employee authorised 15 bank transfers totalling over $25 million before realising that every person on the call was a deepfake.
‘Identity theft has become a cyber problem, particularly with the uptick in voice faking and video fraud,’ Cameron Colquhoun of Neon Century tells Spear’s. ‘It is absolutely a real threat and should be taken seriously.’
Explore the other rankings within the 2026 Spear’s Business & Entrepreneurship Indices:
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Risks are not limited to the loss of an individual’s or company’s financial assets; there is also significant privacy and reputational damage that can be done. Bad actors can seek to expose the personal information of UHNW individuals, including existing security arrangements, travel plans and private correspondence. In 2025, an Iranian-linked group hacked former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Telegram account, leaking thousands of chat messages, photographs and phone numbers.
[See also: CEOs spend more on personal security as threats ‘on the rise’]
These actors are not always malicious – or even human. For instance, in 2026, a leak caused by faulty coding exposed private information connected to PayPal founder and AI entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s invitation-only community ‘Dialog’. The names, addresses and off-record communications of over 200 people, including senior politicians, tech executives and celebrities, were released as a result. Similarly, in 2025, fitness-app data from bodyguards who recorded their workouts via wearable smartwatches exposed locations associated with the Swedish royal family and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
In the immediate aftermath of cases like these, crisis management is key. Security and intelligence advisers can gather information, investigate leaks and conduct threat assessments: determining what was exposed, who accessed it, who else may have been affected and whether the information creates further targeting risks.
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Preventative measures can also be taken. Rather than waiting for a crisis, clients can work with specialists to proactively identify areas of vulnerability and determine the most appropriate form of protection. Mike O’Neill, founder of Optimal Risk, says his firm’s services include personal digital vulnerability assessments that examine clients’ lifestyles, travel plans and social media use; security briefings for each member of the family; and, where necessary, close protection.
‘With our clients, we try to understand their personal context rather than come in and say, “This is exactly what you’ve got to do,”’ he says. ‘It’s a collaborative approach where we guide their decisions but don’t dictate to our clients. They have to trust and listen to us.’
[See also: J.P. Morgan: UHNWs should invest in security amid geopolitical tensions]
For family offices and businesses, proactive risk management can also extend to regulatory and compliance requirements. ‘It’s important for companies and family offices to get ahead of what they need to be doing for regulators,’ explains one adviser, who estimates that around 40 per cent of their workload now involves guiding clients through proactive compliance.
From private investigations, background checks and intelligence gathering to close protection and residential security, the advisers featured in this year’s Index operate at the highest level of the security sector, working discreetly across jurisdictions and online. What unites them is their commitment to providing a discreet, highly tailored service designed around the unique needs of their UHNW clients.
Trends in 2026
Property purchase peril
Despite recent headlines suggesting that HNWs are leaving London over concerns about personal safety, Daniel Daggers, founder of high-end estate agency DDRE Global and star of Netflix’s Buying London, says he does not see people leaving the capital en masse because of crime. ‘What we are seeing instead is a shift in how buyers assess risk and personal security when choosing a home,’ he told Spear’s.‘The focus has moved away from the postcode alone and towards the practical details: perimeter security, the number of access points, CCTV coverage, concierge presence, and whether there is any form of private or on-street security,’ he added.
David Allison of Octaga Security Services is regularly instructed by clients acquiring new properties. Before a move takes place, he deploys specialist operators to carry out detailed security and risk assessments of both the property and its surrounding area.
One of the principal factors assessed is the level of organised crime operating locally. Allison advises clients on how criminal groups identify affluent neighbourhoods and adapt their security arrangements accordingly. But physical security is only one part of the assessment: he also considers digital vulnerabilities and the risks created by clients’ social media activity.
Next-gen risks
The changing nature of UHNW security is also becoming increasingly apparent as wealth passes between generations. Wesley Bull of Sentinel Research Group says this reach is particularly useful as families navigate the risks associated with the great wealth transfer.
‘You’ve got multigenerational movement of wealth across the world right now, and we need to look at how risk transcends geographies and the digital landscape,’ he says.
Younger wealth creators, particularly those who have made their fortunes in technology, may have a considerably larger digital footprint than more established ‘old money’ families. Their visibility online can create a broader range of cyber, privacy and reputational risks, while social media can provide bad actors with information about their lifestyles, movements and personal networks.
Colquhoun has also observed a generational divide in how families approach these risks.‘Recently I’ve seen that there’s definitely a generation divide,’ he tells Spear’s. ‘Older [family members] for the most part understand what reputation is and that it can be taken away in a short space of time. I’d say it’s the next-gen of existing families and young entrepreneurs who are more cavalier and susceptible to risk.’
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- Methodology
- The best security, intelligence & investigations advisers: some names to know
- The best security, intelligence & investigations advisers: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
The best security, intelligence & investigations advisers: some names to know
Kate Bright
- Focus: Security concierge
- Position: Founder and CEO
- Firm: UMBRA International Group
Kate Bright, founder and CEO of UMBRA, is the approachable and personable face of a team of security professionals drawn from a great variety of backgrounds, including the military, government protection, customer service, the law and finance.
Bright’s own experience in family offices and security gives her a unique perspective on the requirements of her HNW and UHNW clients. UMBRA has developed a specialism in what they call invisible security and ‘secure lifestyle’, prioritising their customers’ feelings of well-being as well as ensuring that they are never at risk physically.
She also handles recruitment and vetting of household, estate and security staff – notably, she has built a pool of female protective personnel – as well as personal crisis management, all serving private clients and single-family offices as the core client base.
Read Kate Bright’s full profile at Spears500.com
Shires Crichton
- Focus: High-risk individuals and corporates
- Position: CEO
- Firm: Amba Defence Global
Shires Crichton is co-founder and CEO of Amba Defence Global, a security and intelligence organisation that looks after high-profile individuals, ultra-high-net-worth clients and corporate entities.
Amba helps clients in four ways: by mitigating risk and managing strategy as a consultancy service; by using technology to help manage risks; by working within a family office or family unit setting to deliver their residential security programme; and by monitoring threats via a 24/7 control centre.
It is with the latter that Amba has ‘plugged the gap’ in the security and intelligence market to be a ‘real 24-hour business’. Through this model, Crichton says, they are able to provide ‘real, current, live advice’ to maximise the impact of a threat response.
Read Shires Crichton’s full profile at Spears500.com
Jessica Miller
- Focus: Investigations and intelligence
- Position: Founder
- Firm: Strela Advisory
Jessica Miller is the founder of Strela Advisory, a firm dedicated to addressing what ‘keeps clients up at night’ through intelligence gathering and investigations.
She specialises in helping private clients navigate sensitive and complex issues that pose a threat to their assets and reputations – including litigation relating to divorces, inheritance disputes and challenges to fiduciaries. On the non-contentious side, she advises on wealth reporting and assists clients who are restructuring their family offices or relocating to new jurisdictions.
Miller estimates that her work is split evenly between direct instructions from private clients and referrals from legal, tax and wealth advisers.
‘My network is incredibly broad and very international,’ she says. Proactive in cultivating relationships and maintaining contacts, she has increasingly used ‘social media as a tool’ to expand her network and raise the profile of the firm.
Read Jessica Miller’s full profile at Spears500.com
Philip Grindell
- Focus: Behavioural threat management
- Position: Founder and CEO
- Firm: Defuse
After Philip Grindell retired from the police in 2019, having led the effort to protect MPs after the death of Jo Cox, he set up Defuse to safeguard high-profile individuals and corporations from physical, reputational and psychological harm.
‘Our goal, our purpose, is to help clients feel safer,’ Grindell tells Spear’s. ‘Anybody can make somebody feel safe … but the real skill is in ensuring that security.’
Grindell’s service combines protective intelligence, forensic psychology and rigorous data analysis in order to eliminate the anxiety caused by intimidation and threats, whether it is stalking and harassment or data breaches. Strategies are tailored to each client based on their individual circumstances. ‘What we do, what we focus very deeply on, is solving the problem rather than putting sticky plasters on,’ he says. ‘Our goal is to actually instigate services and processes so that they have one less thing to worry about.’
Read Philip Grindell’s full profile at Spears500.com
Philip Allen
- Focus: Information intelligence
- Position: Founding director
- Firm: Theseus Risk Management
Theseus Risk Management is described by founding director Philip Allen as a ‘clinical threat assessment practice’, where ‘issues of state of mind, the law and aberrant behaviour meet’.
His firm helps private clients, government ministers, business leaders and other figures in the public eye to see off any potential threats arising from nefarious actors who might be engaging in activities such as stalking or obsessive behaviour that threatens a client’s reputation. ‘We work on how [clients] should respond in a particular situation, and we bring expertise on the individual who is making the reputational threat,’ Allen tells Spear’s.
Theseus’s multidisciplinary team of advisers includes highly experienced clinical psychologists and consultants. Allen himself is a former security liaison manager for the British royal household.
Read Philip Allen’s full profile at Spears500.com
Andrew Wordsworth
- Focus: Legal disputes managemen
- Position: Co-founder and partner
- Firm: Raedas
Andrew Wordsworth has the air of the man you’d want in your corner when you’re in a tight spot. Affable, charming and voluble, the co-founder of Raedas, an investigations firm specialising in litigation support, aims to do everything necessary to diagnose clients’ problems and find the best solutions.
‘Your job is to solve the problem and get out of the way afterwards,’ Wordsworth tells Spear’s. ‘You’re not their friend, right? You’re not their best buddy. Your job is to come in as calmly as possible and make the best decisions you can without being paralysed by the fear of making the wrong decision.’
Should his clients find that their partners have let them down, their staff are leaking to the press, or law enforcement agencies are involved in their affairs, they will often call on Wordsworth. ‘Our speciality is work on legal disputes,’ he says, providing investigatory and PR support as required.
Read Andrew Wordsworth’s full profile at Spears500.com
The best security, intelligence & investigations advisers for HNW individuals: the complete list
Click on the individual names to be directed to more detailed profiles of each adviser on The Spear’s 500 website. The table is ordered by ranking and then alphabetically by surname.
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