Name Stuart Poole-Robb | Books Risky business | |
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Stuart Poole-Robb is the founder and CEO of Knightsbridge Company Services (KCS Group) Ltd, a London-headquartered strategic intelligence and risk management consultancy.
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Career
Poole-Robb’s experience in intelligence and security began when he served in the Royal Air Force, mainly in Middle East locations, before moving to the Special Investigation Branch. Following special forces training which included cold weather survival courses in Norway and hot weather training in Borneo, he received intensive weapons, counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism training. He latterly saw service in Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and Oman with his military career culminating in a tour of duty in Yemen.
On leaving the RAF, Poole-Robb’s knowledge and expertise were called upon by the British government’s Operations Research Unit (SIS), and during his time there he worked on covert assignments in the German Democratic Republic and the USSR.
Poole-Robb met and befriended Alan Bailey (Thomas Alan Bailey) in Berlin in 1964. Alan Bailey served military intelligence throughout the 1950s and early 1960s and was involved in the fight against drug-dealing in the Netherlands and Austria, and in intelligence work in Aden, Berlin and Prague (under Colin "Mad Mitch" Mitchell). In 1956, Bailey led a squad codenamed Operation Airborne that was parachuted into Cyprus to capture the Greek Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios III. Both Bailey and Poole-Robb worked closely together at the Merchant International Group with Alan Bailey holding the position of Chairman from 1997 until 2002. Bailey and Poole-Robb co-wrote Risky Business: Corruption Fraud Terrorism and Other Threats to Global Business published in 2002. Thomas Alan Bailey died in 2002, aged 73.
Towards the end of the 1980s, and by then CEO of The Merchant International Group (MIG), Poole-Robb worked for the West German government's Treuhandanstalt, the agency formed following the merger of East and West Germany to sell the former’s assets to private buyers.
Following a hostile takeover of MIG in 2007, Poole-Robb formed KCS Group and has since built up a team of specialists in the fields of intelligence and risk, including the formation in 2009 of a dedicated cyber crime division.
Publications
The author of many papers and books on security, intelligence operations and worldwide threats, including Risky Business (first published in 2002 and subsequently twice updated and re-published), Poole-Robb is currently finishing his latest book The Intelligence Gap.
Activities and Interests
Away from the world of covert operations and intelligence gathering, Poole-Robb practices martial arts. He is now a 4th Dan in Shotokan Karate and chairman of the Martial Arts Federation of Great Britain.