#536 Business Travel and Security: What Leaders Must Learn from Charles Goslin’s Interview with Niels Brabandt

Business Travel and Security: What Leaders Must Learn from Charles Goslin’s Interview with Niels Brabandt

By Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Introduction: Why business travel security is now a leadership issue

In a world of heightened geopolitical uncertainty, digital exposure and increasingly complex travel patterns, business travel security can no longer be treated as a narrow operational concern. It is a leadership issue. It affects duty of care, executive resilience, employee safety, cyber risk, business continuity and the credibility of any organisation that sends people across borders.

In this week’s leadership podcast and videocast, Niels Brabandt interviews Charles Goslin, a former CIA officer and retired intelligence professional with more than 40 years of international travel and work in intelligence services. The conversation focuses on business travel and security, not through the superficial lens of generic safety advice, but through the discipline of awareness, preparation and practical judgement.

Charles Goslin’s central message in the interview is clear: security is not primarily about fear. It is about preparation. Travel has what he describes as an arc: before the journey, during the journey and at the destination. Each stage creates risks, decisions and opportunities for prevention. For business decision-makers, that principle should be understood as a management responsibility, not merely as advice for individual travellers.

The interview foundation: Charles Goslin’s background and credibility

Niels Brabandt opens the interview by distinguishing real business travel security from performative safety theatre. He makes clear that the conversation is not about symbolic compliance, but about the real security issues that arise when people travel for work.

Charles Goslin explains that his background includes more than four decades of international travel and work in intelligence services. He spent much of his career overseas, continues to consult internationally and has built his understanding of personal security through direct experience in places with varying levels of danger.

This matters because business travel security is often discussed by people who reduce it to checklists, travel insurance or broad common sense. Goslin brings a different perspective. He frames travel as a sequence of exposure points. He emphasises that the real discipline is not paranoia, but awareness and preparation.

Why the book matters now

During the interview, Niels Brabandt shows Charles Goslin’s book to the videocast audience and asks why he chose to revisit the subject now. Goslin explains that the current edition is a second edition and that the world has become more uncertain for travellers since his earlier work in 2017.

His reasoning is particularly relevant for boards, executives and senior HR leaders. According to Goslin, the risks have expanded beyond physical security and geopolitical risk. Cyber risk has become central because travellers now carry two personas: their physical persona and their electronic persona.

That distinction is crucial. Modern business travellers do not merely carry luggage, passports and corporate documents. They carry phones, laptops, accounts, credentials, personal data, client information and access points into organisational systems. A compromised traveller may therefore become a compromised business.

Vulnerable travellers: why experience alone is not protection

Niels Brabandt raises the issue of vulnerable travel populations by referring to his own awareness as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. He notes that risk can depend strongly on where someone travels. His point is not that people should avoid the world, but that pretending risk does not exist is poor judgement.

Charles Goslin responds by widening the concept of vulnerability. In his view, vulnerabilities can arise whether or not someone belongs to a formally recognised vulnerable group. Even experienced travellers can become vulnerable through complacency or lack of preparedness.

Niels Brabandt illustrates this with an example from business life: an older business owner, active on social media and running a company with more than 100 employees, receives a precisely timed phone call at an airport. He is told there is an urgent business problem requiring an immediate bank transfer of 20,000 dollars. He authorises it. The emergency was false and the money was lost. The lesson is not that the person lacked intelligence. The lesson is that timing, stress and surprise can defeat confidence.

Goslin identifies several groups whose travel risk requires particular attention: families with children, migrants under stress, LGBTQ travellers and elderly travellers. His emphasis is practical rather than dramatic. Different travellers face different forms of exposure, distraction and exploitation. Preparation must reflect those differences.

The leadership lesson: surprise exposes preparation gaps

One of the strongest insights from the interview is Goslin’s statement that people who are taken by surprise tend to fall back on their level of preparation and training. They do not rise magically to the occasion. They rely on whatever judgement, planning and habits are already in place.

Niels Brabandt reinforces this point with a concrete example from everyday urban life. Even digitally savvy people may go out in London assuming their usual night bus will operate, only to discover late at night that it does not. Suddenly they are exposed: tired, uncertain, possibly in an unfamiliar situation and vulnerable to illegal taxi offers or opportunistic exploitation.

For business travel, the implications are clear. The problem is rarely only the obvious crisis. The problem is the moment when a predictable assumption fails. The car is not there. The route is blocked. The phone battery is low. The hotel area is different from expected. A banking request arrives at the worst possible moment. A traveller does not know what they left exposed at home or in the office.

Leadership should therefore treat travel preparation as a risk-control process. That does not mean overwhelming people with bureaucracy. It means making preparation normal, intelligent and proportionate.

Before, during and after travel: the arc of security

Goslin’s concept of the travel arc is especially valuable for corporate leaders. It turns security from a vague concern into a structured discipline.

Before travel, organisations and travellers should consider destination risk, legal and cultural context, personal identity risks, medical needs, communications, device security, transport planning, documentation and what is being left behind. Goslin specifically notes that many travellers forget the return trip and the profile created by leaving a residence unoccupied.

During travel, awareness and judgement become decisive. Travellers should know how they will move, what they are carrying, how they are dressed, what digital access they hold and what alternatives they have if the original plan fails. Preparation should support decision-making in the moment.

At the destination and on return, risks continue. Devices may have been exposed. Routines may have been observed. Residences and offices may have signalled absence. Business leaders should understand that the end of a trip is not always the end of the risk.

Cyber security: the electronic persona travels too

The interview is particularly relevant because Goslin does not restrict travel security to physical danger. He explicitly discusses the electronic persona that travels with every modern professional.

This is where many organisations remain underprepared. A senior executive crossing borders may carry more organisational risk in a smartphone than in a suitcase. Business email, banking access, client communications, authentication apps, cloud documents and messaging histories all travel together.

For decision-makers, the key issue is not merely whether employees have strong passwords. The issue is whether the organisation understands travel as a cyber exposure event. Devices, networks, charging habits, public Wi-Fi, urgent requests and social engineering all belong to the same risk environment.

Checklists have value, but they cannot replace judgement

One of the lighter moments in the interview arises when Goslin says that checklists have a place but should not replace good principle-based preparation. Niels Brabandt responds that, as a German, he loves checklists. The exchange is humorous, but the underlying point is serious.

Checklists are useful when they reinforce thinking. They become dangerous when they replace thinking. A traveller who mechanically ticks boxes may still fail to understand the actual risk pattern of a journey. A leader who delegates travel security to a template may still fail in duty of care.

The better approach is principle-based preparation supported by practical tools. Organisations should build habits that help travellers ask the right questions: What could predictably go wrong? What would I do if the main plan fails? What am I carrying physically and digitally? Who knows where I am? What assumptions am I making? What would surprise me?

What business leaders should take from the interview

The interview between Charles Goslin and Niels Brabandt is not a conversation about anxiety. It is a conversation about executive responsibility.

First, organisations must take business travel seriously as part of risk management. Travel involves people, information, mobility, identity and timing. That combination deserves leadership attention.

Second, traveller vulnerability must be understood broadly. It includes age, family status, LGBTQ identity, migrant status, health, stress, seniority, public visibility, social media exposure, device dependency and complacency.

Third, preparation must be realistic. People need clear principles, usable guidance and the confidence to make good decisions when plans fail. Training should not create fear. It should create competence.

Fourth, cyber and physical security must be integrated. The person and the device now travel together. Any serious business travel policy must reflect that fact.

Finally, leaders must recognise that security culture is leadership culture. If executives treat preparation as excessive, employees will do the same. If executives model proportionate awareness, the organisation becomes safer without becoming paralysed.

Conclusion: safer travel begins before the journey

Charles Goslin’s interview with Niels Brabandt offers a clear message for business decision-makers: travel security is not a matter of panic, suspicion or overreaction. It is the disciplined practice of awareness and preparation before, during and after travel.

Goslin’s experience as a former CIA officer and international consultant gives the discussion weight. Brabandt’s leadership framing turns it into a practical business question: how should organisations protect people, judgement, information and continuity when travel is part of professional life?

The answer begins with preparation. Not preparation as bureaucracy. Preparation as leadership. Preparation as duty of care. Preparation as a practical expression of Sustainable Leadership.

For organisations that send executives, employees, consultants or teams across borders, this interview should not be treated as optional listening. It should be treated as a reminder that the best security decisions are often made before the journey begins.

Keywords:

business decision-makers, executives, HR leaders, risk managers and leadership teams searching for business travel security, executive travel risk, personal security, cyber exposure, duty of care and expert insight from Charles Goslin and Niels Brabandt.

Charles Goslin, Niels Brabandt, former CIA officer, business travel security, travel risk management, executive security, personal security, cyber security, duty of care, vulnerable travellers, LGBTQ travel risk, leadership, Sustainable Leadership, business continuity, organisational risk.

Niels Brabandt

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Mehr zu diesem Thema im dieswöchtigen Podcast und Videocast: mit Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify

Das Transkript zum Podcast und Videocast befindet sich unter diesem Artikel.

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Kontakt: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn

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Podcast and Videocast Transcript

Niels Brabandt

Safety and security. And you probably now think, oh, is this going to be the security guy who tells me to wear the high visibility vest? No, that's not the one here. We talk about the real security you have, for example, during business travel. I have an expert on the matter with me today. Hello and welcome, Charles Goslin.

Charles Goslin

Good to meet you, Niels, and nice to be on your podcast.

Niels Brabandt

Thank you very much for taking the time. We're getting straight into it. Some people, of course, might wonder, look, there are so many people giving commentary on what to do and what not to do during travel. Can you give us a bit on your background. Where did you come from? What is your background on safety and security, security work-wise?

Charles Goslin

Well, thank you for asking, and it's nice to be with you. My background is that I've got about 40, about over 40 years of international travel and work in our intelligence services. I'm a retired intelligence officer, and I spent probably most of my time overseas, and I still consult internationally and travel internationally.

Charles Goslin

So a lot of my experiences over decades of travel in a lot of different places, places that are dangerous and places not so dangerous, gave me the idea that really I wanted to talk about personal safety and security through the lens of travel. And because in travel there is an arc, there is a beginning, a middle, and an ending to the journey. And it's a good way to talk about the issue of personal security. And really, it's not so much about security, it's about awareness and preparation. So that's a long answer to your question.

Niels Brabandt

Yeah, very good answer, though. And of course, as someone— I just give a very, very, very simple example. I'm part of the LGBTQIA+ community. When someone says travel somewhere, I am aware that there might be some risk depending on where I travel. However, I think the vast majority of people simply say, you just go somewhere, what could happen? Until something happens, and then, then, then they wonder, oh, I probably should have talked about that.

Niels Brabandt

So you wrote a book on the matter. I'm going to show it right here for the ones who are on the videocast. So this is the book. Can you tell me a reason, what was your motivation to write the book, to write it right now, to bring it to the market at this point in time?

Charles Goslin

This is it. Well, as you can see, kind of down in the fine print, it says second edition. I actually wrote a similar book back in 2017, and I wanted to revisit this particular topic about security and risk because the world has really become a more uncertain place for travelers. And I wanted to update it quite a bit because it has changed quite a bit in terms of not only the security risks, but the risks posed not just by physical security, but and geopolitical risk, but also cyber.

Charles Goslin

We, we today we carry around with us, we have two personas. We have our physical persona, but we also have our electronic persona that we take everywhere. And that has also become an issue. So I wanted to revisit this, this particular security book. I

Charles Goslin

wanted to organize it better. I wanted to talk about vulnerable travel populations. And I noticed that you picked up a bit on that because I believe that that's a very important thing to the traveling public.

Niels Brabandt

Yeah, absolutely. Can you give us a couple of examples of, because some people might think, am I part of maybe a vulnerable group? I am not really sure, because I think some people think they are not despite the fact that they actually are.

Niels Brabandt

So I just can give you an example of one person who is part of my clients, who is someone who owns a business for a long time, has more than 100 employees, and has a certain business travel, is active on social media. He traveled, he's now 76 years old, running the business, everything's going well.

Niels Brabandt

Arrives at a certain airport, gets a phone call that there's a massive problem going on in the business right now and he has to authorize a bank transfer right now of $20,000, which he did. Guess which money he never, never saw back? That money. Because neither was there any emergency nor was this a legitimate call.

Niels Brabandt

However, it was so well timed according to what they could see that suddenly he said He said word by word, I never thought that I could fall for any of this. I always thought people who fall for this simply didn't listen close enough. So can you give us a couple of examples what could happen and which groups might be affected?

Charles Goslin

Well, yes, a couple. First, well, let me just say this in a general sense, that vulnerabilities arise whether you're part of a vulnerable group or not. You can be a seasoned traveler, just like the individual you talked about. However, complacency and lack of preparedness can make you vulnerable no matter how, no matter how seasoned you are a traveler. So preparation is key.

Charles Goslin

But more specifically to your question, families with children, and that's one that I found very interesting because depending on the age group of your children, You have very specific challenges that you need to deal with when you're traveling with children. There's so many distractions that can occur, whether it's traveling with a teenager, which I have, traveling with very young children, traveling with infants, all of that sort of thing.

Charles Goslin

Compound that, for instance, the second group that I talk about, migrants, people that are traveling, and they may be under a tremendous amount of stress. And I have a great deal of sympathy for those groups, and they are ripe for exploitation, and they're vulnerable. Yeah.

Charles Goslin

The third— there's several groups I do talk about. You did mention LGBTQ. Yeah, that is a group as well where really preparation in advance will will take care of a lot of challenges that may happen because— and that is certainly a group.

Charles Goslin

And finally, the elderly. I noticed in a lot of my travel, there's a lot of elderly people that are traveling today, a lot more than used to travel. And there are a lot of issues that they need to address as well. And preparation is very, very important in advance, in advance of travel.

Niels Brabandt

Absolutely. So how should people prepare? Because I know that people often said when something happened, they said, I wish I had prepared. But often also they say, I simply didn't have— I simply didn't see that point coming. So how can I prepare properly when I don't know what's coming up there?

Charles Goslin

Good question. All right. So the book sort of lays out a very— so I call it sort of 5 pillars of personal security that people should be aware of. And you can sort of hang your hat on any one of these pegs when you do prepare. Preparation is actually the very first principle.

Niels Brabandt

Mm-hmm.

Charles Goslin

It's the very first thing. And again, when you're talking about your personal security and you couple that with travel, you have a fairly predictable arc of your travel before you travel, when you travel, and then the destination. And all of those areas, all of those segments require some attention. And so you need to prepare for the things that potentially you could do— detection, your awareness. When you travel, you need to prepare for things that— the way you dress, what you take with you, how you pack, where you're going to go, what you leave behind, all of those kinds of things, your medications, all of these kinds of things. These are sort of typical checklists. I hate checklists, but checklists are—

Niels Brabandt

But they're helpful. And as I'm German, I love checklists. Here we go. Oh, I know. Bit of a serious side, but just the facts.

Charles Goslin

Yeah. Checklists have a place, but they should not replace good principle preparation for the journey. These are the things that, that you should think about and think about in terms of— and people, a lot of people don't think about the return trip. They don't think about what they leave behind.

Charles Goslin

I know I do talk about in the book, particularly with older travelers or people that travel regularly and they leave their residence unoccupied. How are you? What is the profile of that that you're leaving behind? Because people take advantage of that all the time.

Charles Goslin

Yeah, there's a lot of different kinds of examples, but this is what I'm talking about. Preparation, very, very important.

Niels Brabandt

Excellent. And I think this also starts with very small examples because I just give you one example. I still frequently go out to the electronic music scene and I see even very young people who are digitally savvy. Going out in London, going to a club, and suddenly at 2:30 in the morning seeing that the night bus they thought they could take because they take it every week is not going that night, and suddenly having absolutely no idea how actually to get home within their own city. So there's a lack of planning even on that level, which of course very quickly I think people can take advantage of you because it only takes 1, 2, 3 steps and the illegal taxi driver stands there and says, "You need to go somewhere? Got a special offer tonight." Yeah, and that's not going too well.

Charles Goslin

No, it's just taking a bit of time. It's not a lot, but taking a bit of time to think through where you're going and how you're going and the transportation that you're going to use in advance will help you.

Charles Goslin

Because once you get into travel and this— I've seen this many times— once a situation begins to occur, you talked about your friend at the airport. They took him by surprise. People, when they're taken by surprise, tend to fall back on the level of their preparation, the level of their training.

Charles Goslin

They don't think. You need to be able to be prepared so that your reaction, your judgment is good in the moment. In the moment.

Niels Brabandt

Absolutely. So two more questions. When people now say, hey, I'm going to buy this book, what kind of read is it? Do they have to expect like a scientific analysis, which is pretty hard to read, or what? What kind of read is it going to be for them?

Charles Goslin

Okay. Listen, this book is— it ended up being much larger than I expected it to be. The second edition, it's over, what, 454 pages or something? Yeah. So part of the book, it is dense and it is a— it's very much kind of a guide.

Charles Goslin

In other words, it's a reference. So there is very much that side of it. And I do have sort of a academic side. But in terms of examples, I try to use examples from— drawn both from my own experience, but also good examples that I've found in the past that I've used in training.

Charles Goslin

I think make it interesting and make the read interesting in elements of it. So yes, it's— I think it's a good read. And I hope people like it.

Niels Brabandt

Yeah, I'm sure people will. And I think when you get 462 pages, there's a lot of content in there. So you get lots of great value for money as well. So I think it is really worth buying. And certainly I read it. So I think I can tell you as someone who travels roughly 200 days a year, it is a very good read. So well done here.

Niels Brabandt

Of course, one last question I have to ask when some people now say, look, book is great. However, I think I might either I need you for my company, or I'd like to have you as a keynote speaker, or maybe as a coach or a trainer for my staff to tell them how to do that properly. How can people get in touch with you if they'd like to?

Charles Goslin

Well, a couple of ways they can get in touch via my email, charles.gosling54@gmail.com, by phone. And then I am, and I haven't done this yet, but I am pulling together an author's website as well. So I can be reached that way as well. And my phone number, 347-831-4490.

Niels Brabandt

Brilliant. So you know how to get in touch. So when you now say, I think we have a couple of people traveling, either yourself or in your business, you now know who to ask. At the end of this podcast and videocast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Charles, thank you very much for your time.

Charles Goslin

Thank you very much, Neal.