For exactly four years now, Tom Leijte (27) has been working for Proximities. A good reason to look back and towards the future. Tom was a youth politician, as chairman of the VVD-youth organization JOVD he knows the ‘Binnenhof’ like the back of his hand, graduated cum laude as a historian and has been immersing himself in risk & security since 2016. At Proximities, he is a pioneer in information security and worked as a corporate security advisor for one of our clients.

Tom, why did you decide to work for Proximities?

Good question. Usually politicians stay close to politics and the government because they think that is where they are able to make a difference. What I experienced during my time as chairman of the JOVD, however, was that real change is not made in The Hague but by Dutch companies. The Netherlands is strong and safe when Dutch companies are represented all over the globe and work on making connections and breaking through economic barriers. For me, there could not have been a better place to work on this than Proximities.

What part does Proximities play in this?

Our clients are smarter, more resilient and prepared. They don’t have to pass up on opportunities because of risks and they can respond adequately to setbacks. Whether it’s cooperating with foreign partners with possible edges, concerns about business travels during COVID-19 or suspicion of fraud within the organization.

This is because we urge our clients to think ahead. Don’t repair your roof when it’s raining. Repair the roof when it’s sunny outside. Should you find your roof leaking during a storm, we will support you by managing the crisis. Adapt and overcome!

The amazing thing about Proximities is our innovative approach. Take information security as an example. The whole world is talking about it, but we know that most companies miss out because they only focus on cyber security. In this case, you only talk about the ‘how’ and not the ‘why’.

What do you mean?

Often, people talk about cybersecurity as if it’s self-evident when, actually, the information security domain is much broader. That’s why we pose the question: why do you want to protect certain information? You can’t simply protect 100% of your corporate information. You don’t have to and you shouldn’t want to. As a result, we look for the underlying factors: your company’s treasure trove.

Your company’s treasure trove is not just your company’s finances, it can be much more. Information that could be considered intellectual property. Strategic information and multi-year plans. The secret formula of a company. The first thing we do with our clients is to ask that one crucial question: what are your crown jewels?

Once we have identified the crown jewels, we conduct a three-step threat analysis.

• Who wants to access this information and why? (intention)
• What resources do they have to access? (capacity)
• What do they have to do to access? (activity)

This three-step approach works wonders when you want to realistically map the level of threat concerning your company. By looking both inside-out (crown jewels) as outside-in (environment scan), you will have a clear holistic picture of the situation.

Finally, we understand that you have a small scoop for us! Explain.

Pioneering never stops. We are developing a unique online tool that helps your company guard itself against a crucial risk of information security. I’m not allowed to disclose more information!