TINYg – Who we are
Whether you’ve been a member of TINYg since its inception in 2006, or have joined more recently, I thought the launch of this newsletter, may offer a great opportunity to remind you, in a little more detail, who we are, what we do and importantly, what we are planning to do in the future.
Who are we?
The group was formed in 2006 following a meeting between Founding Chairman David Evans, then a Police Officer in London’s Metropolitan Police and Professor Kevin Cassidy, at that time Global Chief Security Officer of Reuters. During their discussion, David and Kevin recognised that there was room for substantial improvement in law enforcement liaison and sources of credible, timely and reliable Counter Terrorism information for business, in both London and New York City. As a result they wasted no time in organising the first TINYg conference, which attracted nearly fifty New York City based law enforcement and corporate security professionals. Shortly after this and in response to a request from the members, we introduced the TINYg email Security Alerts.
In 2010 the group’s leadership was supplemented with the arrival of Philip Rogan, Senior Vice President of Corporate Security at Bank of America, Mario Doyle, COO of Doyle Security Services and myself, Andy Williams, as Co-Vice Chairmen. Our roles were to further the reach and develop the strategic aims of the group and take on some of the heavy lifting that hitherto David and Kevin had done alone. By 2012, the group’s membership had reached over 50,000*. Sadly, shortly after this and because of professional pressures on his time, Kevin Cassidy had to step down from the leadership of the group, but his passion, integrity and absolute determination to maintain the principle of free membership will always remain.
Strategically, 2016 was our most important year since formation. Firstly, we established local Advisory Councils in London, New York and New England, comprising of Law enforcement, Emergency service leaders, Corporations, Local government, Academia and Specialist vendors, who were empowered to develop their own local networks, events and resources. Secondly, we recruited our first group Patron, Commander Chris Greany of the City of London Police, who forged even deeper connections with other Police leaders internationally, that we could never have achieved. His retirement from the Police in 2017 and departure as Patron could have been a terrible blow, but with good fortune on our side, Chris agreed to remain as a member of our Advisory Council and was replaced as Patron, by his old boss at the City of London Police, Commissioner Ian Dyson.
In 2020, the corporate structure of TINYg changed, with the formation of a Company Limited by Guarantee, registered in England called TINYg (Global Information Network) Ltd. This model of company cannot have shareholders, therefore in support of our policy of transparency and not for profit status, we believe this provides the best mechanism of ensuring the independence and openness of the group and prevents any risk of commercialisation, which would be entirely against the spirit in which it was established.
What do we do?
Our core objective has never changed. We seek to provide a network for law enforcement, business, academia and individuals to collaborate, share ideas, information and best practice. Membership is and always will be free of charge, ensuring that nobody is excluded from membership on the basis of cost. That’s not to say that membership is freely available to everyone. Each application to join is scrutinised, to ensure that we protect the group and its members from those who may wish to do us harm, or to misuse membership of the group for their own aims. Fortunately, very few have to be rejected and 2019 was our busiest year ever with more new members, more email alerts and more events than ever before. Funding for the group has been solely derived from those incredibly generous sponsors and supporters, who donate cash to cover our operating costs, which include our IT infrastructure, event fees which include flights and accommodation, hire of facilities, catering, AV, printing, website updates etc. But every member of the TINYg team is a volunteer, who gives their time freely and willingly to support the aims of the group, this allows us to maintain our immutable pledge, that membership will always be free of charge.
The future
The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us all that life can suddenly change very drastically and that we cannot take anybody or anything for granted. As such, very shortly we will be introducing additional offerings to our members, which will reduce our total reliance on the generosity of our sponsors and supporters and enable us to be more self sufficient. The following are the first of several new offerings: –
- Corporate Risk Crisis Leadership training in conjunction with Deltar Training Services
- Cyber Security Diplomas in conjunction with the Global Cyber Academy
- Digital Behaviour Assessment and exercising with The Cyberfish Company
- A panel of international counter terrorism expert consultants, available 24/7 to support any organisation with the development of counter terrorism strategies, responses and C-suite level support.
We are also developing the following sector specific working groups. If you are interested in leading or joining one of these groups, or finding out more, please drop us a line at info@tinyg.info
- Public Space Protection
- Financial Services
- Legal Profession
- Retail
- Education and Academia
- Hotels and Hospitality
- Travel and Transportation
- Heritage
- Emerging Technologies
- Sports and Leisure
TINYg now has members in over 150 countries. We have issued more than 250,000 email security alerts, have held over fifty free to attend events and conferences and with the assistance of New York University, have held the first of many webinars. Our focus on Counter Terrorism and associated criminality and vast network of Counter Terrorism experts, means that we are ideally placed to support every civilian and law enforcement organisation. The best way for us to assist more organisations is to recruit new members. Please encourage as many colleagues and contacts as possible to join. Joining is easy atwww.tinyg.info/join
On behalf of the entire leadership team, I would like to thank you for your continued membership and support of the group. Please do not hesitate to contact us we any suggestions for speakers, venues or if you’d like to support the group by undertaking one of our volunteer roles or sponsoring the group. We can be contacted at info@tinyg.info
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