Our guest for episode 54 is Colin Pereira, a pioneer who has been working on risk management models for journalists operating under threat for over two decades. He is a Director at HP Risk Management, a consultancy assisting companies and media organisations operating in fragile environments. In 2020, he launched RiskPal, a software as a service platform focusing on streamlining risk assessment.
“I think one of the greatest myths in certainly in the media is when you work for a big news organization, there’s this idea that the news organization will come sweep in and have people on white horses charging in to save you that’s not the case, part of my role is to educate the people doing the job to say, look, if you get in trouble, I’ve literally got nothing to help you with. It’s just being frank and honest with them, really “
-Colin Pereira, The International Risk Podcast
Previously, he was head of security for ITN and Deputy Head of BBC High Risk Team. Pereira has advised teams of journalists covering wars, natural disasters, terrorism and riots globally, and has worked on high risk investigations. He also was an award winning journalist for BBC Newsnight and BBC Current Affairs.
“What I always say to our client base is the word risk management is wrong, we don’t manage the risk, we don’t control the risk, the risk has its own life, and it does its own thing. The only thing we control is the caliber of the people we send in and the caliber of the people managing those people in the field. “
-Colin Pereira, The International Risk Podcast
You can read more about RiskPal here https://riskpal.com/ and about HP Risk Management here https://www.hpriskmanagement.co.uk/
Listen to the episode with Colin Pereira