For UHNWs, the threat of becoming a target for crime is all too real, whether due to 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 – only amplifies these concerns. High-profile incidents, often involving complex schemes, remind them that these risks are not just hypothetical; they are tangible and growing.
For many, the response is often a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction to seek additional security measures. ‘People suddenly think, “I should have a bodyguard”,’ says Hayley Elvins, founder of Sloane Risk Group. Others, however, resist the idea of needing security for as long as possible. ‘It is when something happens, or in a real public hacking incident, that we’re pulled out to look at residences and to look at a bigger picture,’ she adds.
When UHNWs eventually decide to implement security measures, they may not always take the most effective approach. ‘Quite often they may think they need a bodyguard and actually, they’re wasting their money because the threat is in a completely different area,’ Elvins explains. This is why many UHNW individuals and their families seek out security experts who can identify the true areas of vulnerability and determine the most appropriate form of protection.
The Spear’s index of the top security, intelligence and investigations advisers provides a curated selection of professionals who are dedicated to protecting their UHNW clients from a wide array of potential threats – wherever they may arise.
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Close protection officers are a staple offering from many of these advisers. Most have undergone training in royal households or military service, and some even receive bespoke training from firms like Polaris. Protection and surveillance services are available both at home – through patrols or stationed officers outside private residences – and abroad, with officers accompanying clients on travel or coordinating with close international offices.
Some advisers provide a comprehensive, wraparound service that covers digital, reputational and physical threats. For example, Olorisk, led by Richard Barclay, offers both close protection (bodyguards) and home security solutions, along with an advisory practice that assesses all potential threats and develops tailored responses for each individual or family.
Others, such as coc00n led by Lucy Burnford or X Cyber Group, focus on safeguarding the digital realm. These advisers perform detailed risk assessments to identify how exposed a family might be to cyber threats, scrutinising social media profiles and other data to create a comprehensive risk profile. In crisis situations, such as blackmail, hacking or extortion, these experts are often called in to manage the fallout. ‘Typically someone will come to us because they are being targeted in a way, through harassment, through stalking, through some sort of dispute and they want to know who that person is, what sort of risks do they pose and how do they deal with it,’ says Philip Grindell, founder and CEO of Defuse Global.
Other specialists operate in a different niche of the security and intelligence market. New to the list in 2025, Nicholas Bortman of Raedas and Chris Morgan Jones at Nardello & Co both focus on gathering intelligence and conducting investigations to meet the needs of their clients. Bortman handles contentious cases, gathering intelligence to support litigation or arbitration proceedings, as well as in regulatory disputes and campaigns. Morgan Jones, meanwhile, explains that ‘80 or 90 per cent’ of Nardello’s work focuses on issues that clients are already facing: fraud, disputes with business partners, corruption, anti-competitive practices and problematic employees. The remaining 10-20 per cent is spent proactively managing risk through investigative due diligence. Notably, Nardello & Co made headlines in 2025 for uncovering the mysterious owner of Tattle Life in June of that year.
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As explained by Philip Allen, director of Theseus Risk Management, the purpose of such investigations often revolves around understanding the motivation behind a threat, its structure and the relationship between the threatener and the recipient. Other fact-finding operations might involve asset tracing or providing transparency around business dealings before entering into new partnerships, as suggested by Richard Abbey of EY.
What unites all the advisers on our list is their dedication to providing discreet service tailored to the unique needs of their UHNW clients. Ed Hill, founder of Intrepid Protection, recognises that for many clients, the goal is not to feel burdened by overt security measures. ‘Very few clients actually want that overt-looking appearance; for all of the clients that we deal with, they just want to go out there, go about their business, just look normal on the street.’
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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
Shires Crichton
- Focus: High-risk individuals and corporates
- Position: CEO
- Firm: Amba Defence
Shires Crichton serves as CEO of Amba Defence, 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
Philip Grindell – Top Recommended
- 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
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
Wesley Bull
- Focus: Security and risk advisory
- Position: Founder and CEO
- Firm: Sentinel Resource Group
Wesley Bull is CEO and founder of security and risk advisory firm Sentinel Resource Group (SRG). The company specialises in providing security risk intelligence, threat assessments and investigations to corporate and private clients. This includes some of the world’s leading law firms, including Clare Locke, and several UHNW individuals and their families.
SRG’s employees are drawn from the elite units of US law enforcement, defence and intelligence agencies. However, what sets them apart from the rest is that many of their staff have also held executive-level roles in wealth management firms and global corporations. As Bull explains, ‘This provides us with an unparalleled engagement model that yields superior results.’
Read Wesley Bull’s full profile at Spears500.com
Lucy Burnford
- Focus: Cybersecurity
- Position: CEO
- Firm: coc00n cyber
Lucy Burnford is the CEO of coc00n, a specialist cybersecurity firm based in London. Established in 2023, coc00n protects HNW and UHNW individuals and their families against cyberattacks using risk profiling, which provides clients with a detailed report regarding their online vulnerability, and the creation of bespoke solutions, such as a secure email checking and mobile device protection.
‘Our mobile device protection service is designed for high-value individuals, their families and their businesses at a level that was previously only available to those under government protection,’ Burnford explains. The team at coc00n have over 30 years of experience, having previously worked at GCHQ and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre.
Read Lucy Burnford’s full profile at Spears500.com
Damian Ozenbrook
- Focus: High-stakes intelligence solutions
- Position: Founder and CEO
- Firm: Blue Square Global
Former paratrooper Damian Ozenbrook founded Blue Square Global in 2007 to provide a suite of intelligence-led solutions for private clients and family offices. The firm is proud of its ‘boutique’ status and punches well above its weight; Ozenbrook says almost every client has arrived through a ‘network of referrals’.
‘You’re as good as your last job,’ he adds, emphasising that to be successful in this industry, ‘you can’t rest on your laurels’.
As well as supporting cross-border litigation, investigations and disputes, the firm helps clients to develop and implement strategies in response to ‘often challenging, sensitive and critical issues’ faced by HNWs and their families. A large number of the clients who approach him for his business intelligence services come from banking or wealth management backgrounds.
Read Damian Ozenbrook’s full profile at Spears500.com
Nick Doyle
- Focus: Resilience and crisis management
- Position: Managing director
- Firm: Kroll
Kroll managing director Nick Doyle works in resilience and crisis management, advising clients on security issues such as enterprise risk management, executive protection, surveillance support and technical security.
As head of the firm’s enterprise security risk management practice in EMEA and APAC, Doyle has conducted a significant amount of work for financial institutions and law firms on behalf of their clients’ in recent times. That’s not surprising given the jaw-dropping nature of Doyle’s experience: he has worked in more than 75 countries, overseeing more than 750 assignments.
He says that ‘business continuity preparedness … has seen a significant uplift in demand, and the more mature clients are realising they have to manage risk across their whole business enterprise’. His advice to clients: ‘Manage your risks, [or] it’s probably going to cost you!’
Read Nick Doyle’s full profile at Spears500.com
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.
Staff provision and vetting is a speciality, as is crisis management, all with family offices as the core client base.
Read Kate Bright’s full profile at Spears500.com
Adam Wilkinson
- Focus: Private diplomacy and international risk
- Position: Partner
- Firm: Schillings
Adam Wilkinson is a partner at Schillings, overseeing teams that deal with digital and physical risk and private diplomacy around the world, with a particular specialism in African countries.
There is a lot at stake for his clients. ‘The world is becoming more unstable and dangerous. Clients have high-risk appetites; they are in risky industries, in risky jurisdictions,’ he tells Spear’s.
‘They’re just trying to do [business] the right way, rather than give people brown envelopes. And if you’re not prepared to deal in corruption, then unfortunately in some parts of the world you’re going to have problems, and bad actors of all stripes are going to try to take advantage of you and try to muscle against you to take what you have.’
Read Adam Wilkinson’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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