David Burrill was, for 32 years, a member of the British Army Intelligence Corps. In his military career, he held several key appointments including head of intelligence and security for land forces in the Falklands Campaign, chief instructor for all Royal Navy, Army and some Royal Air Force security training, head of intelligence and security for the 1st British Corps, commander of the British armed forces interrogation and de-briefing organisation, chief of staff of the British defence intelligence and security centre and deputy director of the Intelligence Corps. He retired early from the army to become Chief Security Officer at BAT Industries, a manufacturing and insurance industry conglomerate, later to become British American Tobacco – a company with presence in over 180 countries. Insurance companies for which he was responsible, during a six-year period, were Farmers Insurance (USA), Eagle Star (UK and international) and Allied Dunbar; all now part of Zurich Insurance. From 2004 to 2009, David retained his military links as Deputy Colonel Commandant Intelligence Corps, a role with officer selection, charitable trustee management and ceremonial responsibilities. More recently, on 1 January 2016, David became and still is the Chairman of the Trustee Board of the (British) Military Intelligence Museum.
Under David’s fourteen-year stewardship, BAT became recognized (through independent research) as the international benchmark company for corporate security. His philosophy that “Corporate Security is to Companies what National Security is to Nations” proved a catalyst for the growing recognition that security can also be a business enabler and reputation enhancer. In addition to responsibilities routinely associated with Chief Security Officers, he became a permanent insider for all company projects and was responsible for global business resilience and crisis management, and for anti-illicit trade strategy. On retiring from BAT in January 2006, David formed, together with an old friend, the Burrill Green company which provides security management/change management consultancy services mostly to multi-national companies and coaching and mentoring services to senior executives, and, through its Security Leadership Recruitment enterprise, provides search, selection and recruitment services for senior security/risk executive positions. In all his roles, David has had responsibility for information, Cyber & IT security.
David, who was educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the Open University, and the Army Command and Staff College, has been a Defence Fellow at King’s College, London University. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personal Development, the Chartered Management Institute, and the Security Institute. He has been a leader in a number of Public Private Sector Partnerships (PPP) involving UK government departments, the US State Department, the European Union, the World Customs Organisation, INTERPOL and the World Intellectual Property Organisation. He was the principal architect of the Security Information Service for Business Overseas (SISBO), a British equivalent of the US State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), and was its first business co-chairman. David delivers lectures to business, academic and military audiences around the world.
Awarded the OBE, by the Queen in 2003, for services to international security, he has also been honored with distinguished achievement awards from The US Department of State (for OSAC of which he was the first foreign Alumnus), the International Security Management Association, of which he was the first non-North American President, ASIS International, the Association of Security Consultants and the American ‘CSO Journal’. He is an Emeritus Member of the UK’s Risk and Security Management Forum (RSMF) and is one of the first people to be CRISC certified by ISACA.
Together with Kevin Green, his business partner, David Burrill has authored two books:
Value from Security (published 2011) and Crossing the Line (published 2012)
Two more books by David and Kevin are scheduled for publication in 2018:
Security Career Transitions and Elastic Truth