Dear Reader
Season’s Greetings. I hope the new year has begun on a positive note for you.
In my 30 years of association with the private security industry and having interacted with almost all the stakeholders of this domain, whether they be – products and the service providers, security professionals, end users, consultants, educationists, regulators, government officials and others, I learnt that the with numerous security conferences and seminars taking place all around, the end users of security – the Chief Security Officers, the CSOs – as they are known, desired an industry event that was world class, where one could qualitatively network, had structured and relevant educational content, was intellectually engaging and delivered actionable takeaways for professional security practitioners and other participants.
The CSO today is a senior corporate executive who is responsible for security of personnel, physical assets and information in both physical and digital form in any organisation. The importance of this person has increased even further in the age of information technology as in today’s highly connected world it has become easier to steal sensitive information. His profile has changed and continues to change rapidly! The CSO of tomorrow has to have a proven track record to lead during a crisis, recognise and manage risks, understand technology and have the ability to manage & communicate clearly and concisely with the all the stakeholders and particularly the top management and possess business skills. Therefore, I realised that, satisfying the professional development needs of such a community was not going to be easy!
However, SECURITY TODAY took on this challenging task and set off to organise this year’s Knowledge Summit that was focused on the CSOs and their professional needs. Our Advisory Board, led by the visionary Mr. GK Pillai, the former Union Home Secretary of India, and comprising of other security stalwarts, helped us in crafting the agenda, selection of speakers and even the guests, shortlisting the venue and working out the finer details to design and organise a world class conference – The SECURITY TODAY Knowledge Summit 2015! Please read our cover story to learn what happened there!
The journey for the CSO has been remarkable, given the unique kind of trust and reliability the entire community has developed over the years. It is now time to take this community to the next level.
While all this was happening I realised that there was also a strong need to create an open professional platform that comprises of thought leaders and senior practicing security professionals with a conducive environment to share experiences, air views and perform analysis on the current and emerging situations and trends that may have the potential to jeopardise security and the well-being of our local ecosystem. This forum essentially would be a collective resource community that constantly educates its members on the latest trends in security technology and best practices while delivering insights and workable solutions for the professional requirements of its members within the Indian context.
This idea gathered momentum and we launched CSO LINE-UP at the SECURITY TODAY Knowledge Summit! The honours were done by none other than Mr. RK Sinha, Member of Parliament, Mr. Jeff Horkey, the Regional Security Officer of the American Embassy in India, and Mr. N. Ramachandran, President of the Indian Police Foundation, by unveiling the Logo of this forum during the inaugural session. The bottom line of the logo reads, “Predictive, Proactive, Preventive Security”. We shall be sharing more information on this in the next few months.
Team SECURITY TODAY heads for Dubai to exhibit at the INTERSEC show later this month and we shall bring you the latest updates from there in our next issue, till then…
Cheers and happy reading
G B Singh
Email: editor@securitytoday.in
Follow me on @EditorGB
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