Why Secura
"It started with curiosity."
People occasionally ask me why I started Secura Consulting.
The answer is probably different to what most people expect.
It wasn't because I wanted to leave full-time employment, become an entrepreneur or build a consulting business. At the time, I was genuinely enjoying my career and had no intention of changing direction. Looking back, Secura wasn't born from a business plan. It grew from something much simpler: curiosity.
I wasn't looking for a gap in the market or searching for a point of difference that I could commercialise. Nor was I motivated by the idea of turning my knowledge and experience into a source of income. While consulting is, of course, a professional service and people rightly expect to pay for expertise, that wasn't what inspired me to register Secura.
What motivated me was the opportunity to keep learning, to explore interesting problems and to help people and organisations think differently about the challenges they faced. Secura was never conceived as a business opportunity. It was an outlet for curiosity, a way to apply what I had learned, continue growing professionally and, hopefully, make a positive difference along the way.
In 2017, I was working in Papua New Guinea on a 16 days on, 12 days off roster at a large surface and underground gold mine. I’d been there since February 2023, having left my role with the NZ Police Prosecution Service and it was one of the most rewarding roles of my career. The work was challenging, the environment was unforgiving and every day presented new opportunities to learn. I was fortunate to work alongside highly capable people in an industry where good decisions genuinely mattered.
During my breaks back in Brisbane, I was studying for a Master of International Security through Massey University in New Zealand, with a focus on intelligence. I found the subjects within that study fascinating. The research challenged the way I thought about risk, information, decision-making and the complex systems that influence human behaviour.
The difficulty wasn't the study itself. It was finding the time to do it properly.
By the time I travelled home from Papua New Guinea, I effectively had around ten days before returning to site. Those days needed to accommodate family life, everyday commitments, extensive reading and writing papers to a standard I expected of myself. Although I was achieving very good results, I often felt I was racing the calendar instead of fully immersing myself in subjects that genuinely interested me.
Around that time, one of my colleagues was pursuing an entirely different challenge. He had secured the rights to use the name of a well-known European golfer and was developing a premium golf driver using advanced manufacturing techniques. Like many start-ups, he had a vision, plenty of enthusiasm and was working hard to transform an idea into a viable business.
Watching that journey unfold made me pause and reflect.
It wasn't the golf industry that interested me. It was the willingness to back an idea and create something meaningful. It prompted me to think about what I could contribute beyond my day job. Over the years I had accumulated experience across defence, policing, investigations, security and mining, and I realised I enjoyed helping people understand complex problems, identify vulnerabilities and think differently about risk.
That was the moment Secura Consulting began.
One of the first opportunities that came my way reflected exactly why I had established it.
I was engaged to support the launch of a premium sporting product into an international market. At first glance it appeared to be an anti-counterfeiting project, but it quickly became clear that the challenge was much broader. Protecting a product meant understanding the entire system that supported it, from design and manufacturing through to distribution, customer confidence and brand reputation.
The scope expanded to include manufacturing processes, intellectual property protection, supplier assurance, quality management systems, supply chain security, logistics, product authentication, information security, packaging, online marketplaces, brand protection, customer education and incident response. Rather than examining individual risks in isolation, the project considered how each element influenced the next and how the organisation could build an integrated approach to protecting both its products and its reputation.
At the time, I simply saw it as an interesting consulting engagement.
Only recently did I realise how significant it had been.
Earlier this year I pulled the report off the shelf and deliberately stress-tested it against today's approaches to manufacturing, product authentication, traceability, artificial intelligence and counterfeiting. I expected parts of it to feel dated after almost a decade.
Instead, I found the opposite.
While the technology has advanced considerably, the underlying recommendations remain remarkably relevant because they were never built around a particular product or technology. They were built around capability, governance, layered controls and sound risk management principles. That was a valuable reminder that good consulting should not become obsolete because technology changes. If the underlying principles are sound, organisations can continue adapting as new technologies, threats and opportunities emerge.
That project shaped my thinking more than I realised at the time.
Over the years, Secura quietly sat in the background while I remained committed to full-time leadership roles. I made a conscious decision not to operate a consulting business alongside my employers because they deserved my complete commitment and I wanted to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest. Rather than seeing that as lost time, I now recognise it as one of the greatest investments I could have made.
Those years provided experiences that no business plan ever could.
Every investigation, emergency, audit, leadership role and operational challenge added another layer of understanding. Working across defence, policing, mining, heavy industry and local government gave me the opportunity to see how different organisations approach risk, leadership, governance and organisational performance. Just as importantly, it taught me that the best solutions are rarely the most complicated ones. They are usually the ones that people understand, trust and can consistently apply.
Today, after more than three decades of operational experience, I'm giving Secura the time it was always intended to have.
My understanding of consulting has also changed. Earlier in my career I probably believed consulting was about having the answers. Today I see it differently. I believe the best consultants help organisations ask better questions, understand what really matters and build the capability to solve problems long after the engagement has finished.
That is the philosophy behind Secura Consulting.
I have no ambition to become the biggest consultancy, nor do I believe success is measured by the number of reports produced. My ambition is much simpler than that. I want to work alongside good people, help organisations strengthen safety, risk, governance and assurance, and support them to achieve the outcomes they are striving for. If, through that process, I leave them more capable, more resilient and better equipped to deal with tomorrow's challenges than they were yesterday, then I will have achieved exactly what I set out to do.
Looking back, I realise Secura didn't really start with a business.
It started with curiosity.
