K2 Global Consulting

Today we sent out our December newsletter, entitled “Managing Reputation and Risk.”  If you didn’t receive it, you can read the full text below (and be sure to click here to sign up for future newsletters).

Dear Friend:

As the holidays approach, I’ve begun to reflect on K2 Global’s first full year in business. The model of a pioneering organization that Jules and I envisioned—a lean investigative team that combines old-school skills with new technology and a global reach—has really come to fruition.

Throughout 2010 our focus was on getting our firm launched. In 2011, we concentrated on filling out our team with a group of experienced and well-connected investigators, case managers, intelligence analysts, technology and legal experts. In fact, we’ve been so good at attracting talent, our London office recently relocated to a new, larger space and our headquarter office in New York is ready to burst.

A lot of hard work has also begun to bear fruit this year. The most gratifying part has been re-connecting with old friends and building strong new client relationships.

In the many conversations I’ve had over the last year, I and my colleagues and have noticed a number of issues that keep cropping up. All of these of these issues revolve around risk – not just financial risk but reputational risk too. This risk is introduced by the parties you do business with, the actions of your employees, and the data your company generates. Most of the solutions we offer to manage that risk involve using a combination of our investigative expertise and the technologies at our disposal.

The biggest is issue is uncertainty. I  recently spoke to the Financial Times (check out the whole article, “Risk and Reward“, over at FT.com.) about how “volatility is the new norm.”  I don’t think I’ll get an argument from you about the truth of that statement. But I do believe that many of our clients don’t fully understand that they already possess a lot of the information that can help manage that vulnerability and risk. And though many of the lurking threats to your business come from outside of your enterprise, a surprising number may already be present within your business.

For example, in recent years we’ve seen the emergence of a global effort to crack down on business practices that were once conveniently tolerated. That includes increased scrutiny from regulators; new laws in the form of the UK Bribery Act and stepped up enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; as well as more government prosecution of insider trading cases. We’ve obviously thought a lot about these issues, and our Head of Compliance, Jason Golub, has written quite a bit about them on our blog. In Europe, Matteo Bigazzi, who has been recently promoted to head our London office, has also posted on the UK Bribery Act.

All this boils down to your need to develop a “First-to-Know” policy about your own company’s risks and vulnerabilities.  Much of this knowledge lies within the data you’re already collecting about your communication, transactions and products,  To that end, we’ve spent much of the last year building and acquiring technologies that help us interrogate massive data sets. These new tools allow us to help you  detect outlier activities (and non-obvious relationships) before they get out of hand.

We can apply these data analysis technologies to outside data sources as well – for example, a number of our clients look to us to understand how they are portrayed by traditional media, how users of social networks perceive them, and whether the  larger Web holds information that can reveal lurking threats or notable opportunities.

We’ve written more about “big data” analysis  and our approach to understanding cyber threats on our blog as well, but we invite you send us a note or call us at 212-694-7000 if you’d like to get a greater understanding of our considerable technical capabilities.

After the roller coaster of 2011—and the prospects for more of the same in 2012—I’m sure we’re all ready to take a breath, enjoy the holidays and get ready for the New Year. I want to wish you, your colleagues and all of your families the best.

Best,

Jeremy Kroll
CEO and Co-Founder
K2 Global Consulting
www.k2global.net