Annoucements & Updates
OCTOBER 2023
Product Announcement: The Intelligence Hub
Last month, we launched the Intelligence Hub as part of our continued growth.The Intelligence Hub is Sibylline’s internal Centre of Excellence for collaboration, engagement and mentoring between all our global teams. Our embeds can use the platform to quickly locate expertise, collaborate directly with our in-house Global Intelligence Team, discuss emerging incidents on chat forums in real-time, access resources and training, and much more. The Intelligence Hub is part of our company’s intranet revamp and marks a new phase in connecting our global workforce as one cohesive and effective unit.The platform was built by analysts, for analysts. With easy access to templates, tools and methodologies within the Hub, our embeds are uniquely positioned to inject fast and effective improvements for any intelligence or GSOC programme. We look forward to seeing our analysts take advantage of this powerful force multiplier!
Events Announcement: CSO 360 Berlin (6 – 8 December)
Sibylline is proud to announce it will again sponsor the CSO 360 for its 7th congress at the Pullman Berlin Schweizerhof from 6 to 8 December. As sponsor, Sibylline has the unique opportunity to invite 5 complimentary CSOs/in-house practitioners, in addition to a 50% discount on guest passes. If you are interested, do not hesitate to contact us. Please note: guest passes are only for CSOs/in-house practitioners (i.e. CSO, intelligence professional, risk manager or other in-house executive roles).
Welcome to our new Business Development Manager
Jimena Shelton is based in the UK and has joined as Business Development Manager. Most of her professional career was spent as Entrepreneur and Managing Director of an award-winning Colombian coffee manufacturer and distributor. Jimena’s specializes in opening new markets and routes to market, with both new and existing products, as well as building lasting partnerships, with extensive experience in the UK and Latin America. Jimena is Colombian and fluent both in English and Spanish. She is the mother of 2 boys and enjoys reading and travelling. In her spare time, Jimena contributes to her local community as a youth group leader and as Enterprise Business Advisor in secondary schools with the LLEP in the East Midlands.
Welcome Jimena! How are you has your first week been with us? My first week at Sibylline has been great!, it has been full of activities, such as one to one meetings with different members of the company, catch up work-teams meetings, and customers meetings too, while also having time to complete my own online training. Everybody has been happy to help and the atmosphere of the company is fantastic. I am thrilled to be part of such a professional and active organization, I am really looking forward to start to contribute.
Welcome to our new APAC Team Associate Analyst
Sophie Hanck is based in London and has joined the APAC Team as an Associate Analyst. Previously, she has served as a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford and at the French Institute for International Relations’ Centre for Asian Studies. Her academic journey began with a bachelor's in Chinese studies, followed by a master's degree in East Asian Studies at the ENS de Lyon. Sophie studied for an MPhil in International Relations at the University of Oxford, where she completed her thesis on the PRC’s foreign policy discourse towards African states. Sophie is fluent in French, English, and Mandarin and in her free time enjoys rowing and is an avid listener of classical music.
Welcome to Sibylline, Sophie! What topics and themes within APAC are you looking forward to researching? I'm very keen to research China-Taiwan relations, due to my personal ties to both areas. With Taiwan's elections coming up early next year, there will be a lot to keep an eye on! Throughout my academic journey, I have mainly focused on China and its foreign policy. I’m very excited for the opportunity to broaden the scope of my focus and explore new areas and topics: I’m particularly interested in gaining more in-depth knowledge about the internal politics of countries in the region. This has led me to go down quite a few rabbit holes in the past few weeks – the most recent was New Zealand’s political landscape: messy, but interesting.
Welcome to our new Associate Intelligence Analyst for North America and Latin America
Lily Hood has joined as an Associate Intelligence Analyst focusing on North America and Latin America. She previously worked as a Research Coordinator for two foreign policy think tanks where she focused on feminist foreign policy framework recommendations. Lily also worked at an NGO encouraging corporate equality, providing her insight into the importance of ESG practices. She recently graduated from the University of Cambridge with an MPhil in Latin American Studies combing her regional interests in North and Latin America. She possesses a bachelor’s degree in French and Spanish. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, tennis and playing netball for a local team.
What does Sibylline represent for you at this phase of your career? What interested you in joining and what excites you most about the future with us? Joining Sibylline marks an exciting beginning to my career, and represents a place where I hope to grow and develop. I was drawn to Sibylline in particular because of the opportunity to work day to day on fascinating topics which you cannot do at many other firms. I also was really drawn to the fact you get to work daily on specific geopolitical regions and develop a deep knowledge on these certain areas. I am really excited be the propesct of taking ownership for big projects and working closer with clients, as well as becoming more of an regional expert more broadly like the principal desk leads.
Welcome back to our Embedded VSOC Team Manager
Liz Lauzon returns to Sibylline as an embedded VSOC Team Manager based in Washington DC. She was previously with Sibylline, embedded at Meta as a Latin America Intel Analyst in Mexico City before going in-house as the Americas Regional Lead. She has cultivated LATAM regional expertise and Spanish over the past 10 years working at the Organization of American States (OAS) working on drug demand reductions projects, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) providing on security risk analysis and at Southern Pulse conducting bespoke investigative and due diligence projects. Liz holds a Master of Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California and Bachelors in International Studies and Spanish from the University of Richmond. She enjoys early morning runs, playing with her dog Picasso, dabbling with playing the piano and taking care of her plants.
Welcome back Liz! What’s different from your last role and this one? And what are you most looking forward to working on? When I was last with Sibylline at Meta, I was a Latin America subject matter expert providing analysis on how current events could affect the client’s physical security and reputational risks in the region. Returning to Sibylline, instead of being an analyst, I will lead a team of analysts to monitor a new client’s platform and current events and provide incident response support. In the new role, I am expanding beyond my regional expertise to oversee a global team – but I will be relying on that “analyst experience” to not only cultivate relationships with my analysts but also build out the infrastructure for this new VSOC. This is one element I find very exciting – building something from scratch and being able to influence how the program will operate. I am also looking forward to getting to know my analysts and harnessing their expertise to deliver actionable insights for the client.
Congratulations our new Lead Americas Analyst
Sydney Stewart, based in London, has been promoted to the role of Lead Americas Analyst. In this role, she will lead the Global Intelligence Team's coverage of political and security risk in North America and Latin America. Before Sibylline, Sydney worked at a global strategic communications and campaigns agency, helping drive client engagement in the EU and globally. During this time, she specialised in EU tech regulation, advising clients on the Digital Services Act, as well as supporting nonprofit advocacy clients based in Washington DC. Sydney also worked at a global think tank producing research on global peace and terrorism. She holds a master's degree from the European Institute at the LSE, and a bachelor's degree in international affairs from the Brussels School of Governance. While living in Brussels, Sydney gained fluency in French and basic competency in Dutch and Arabic.
Welcome to all our new team members!
Chris Reyes (GSOC Operators); Hieu Le (GSOC Analyst); Hugh Leader (Crisis Response Manager); Frank Fraser (Threat Intelligence Analyst); Matthew Smith (Retail Security Support Analyst)
Annoucements & Updates
SEPTEMBER 2023
The Ukraine Monthly Report
We are proud to announce the launch of our new reporting product, The Ukraine Monthly, which is a comprehensive forecast report crafted by our industry-leading Eurasia team. The report not only summarises the month’s key developments but explores short, medium and long-term scenarios, mapping out indicators, warnings and triggers. The scenarios are intricately linked with Sibylline’s strategic risk register, allowing clients to map interlinked threats that could have an impact on their organisations.
API Integration & Customization
We are excited to announce the launch of our new ASTRA API integration and customization feature; one that has increasingly been requested by clients in recent months. This will allow users to connect directly to the data that feeds our ASTRA platform and tailor them to their specific needs, whether that is part of existing risk models and/or native dashboard tools, to name just a couple use cases. Our quantitative risk ratings in the ASTRA platform currently include nearly 50 unique factors assessed on a 1-10 scale, with forward-looking trend indicators. These cover Political, Security, Governance, Criminal, and Health threats... with other categories being added as we speak. This is just one of a series of changes that are coming to our ASTRA platform – stay tuned for more!
Welcome to our new Group Finance Director
Andrew Wood joins us from Guinness World Records (GWR) as Group Finance Director. He brings extensive knowledge and experience in establishing and running a mature enterprise finance functions. At GWR, he led the development of its Business Partnering function, supporting and driving the business in its evolution into a PR & Marketing consultancy, helping grow this new business unit into the company’s primary revenue stream. In addition to this, Andrew was an integral member of the governance leadership team and drove the modernisation of the company's finance function.
What records are you most looking forward to breaking with Sibylline? Guinness World Records has a record in its database for Fastest-Growing internet service provider. So I think, why not go for a record for the fastest-growing strategic risk consultancy. During lunchtime I think I can go for the most hamburgers eaten in one minute. The record is 5 which I think sounds beatable.
Welcome to our new Embedded Intelligence Analyst
Shubhangi Priya joins Sibylline as an Embedded Intelligence Analyst based in India. She has prior experience working in intelligence and security management with an EMEA and APAC regional focus. Shubhangi previously worked with the United Nations Development Programme where she supported UNDP’s sustainable finance offer in Europe and East Africa. She has a master’s degree in International Affairs specialising in Global Security from The Geneva Graduate Institute. Growing up in India, Shubhangi is fluent in Hindi and can also speak French as well as a basic level of German. In her spare time, Shubhangi loves singing, playing her ukulele, and enjoys Japanese and Italian.
What do you think is the biggest misconception your friends or family have about your job?
The biggest misconception held by my family or friends with regards to my job is the fact that they tend to understand “security” exclusively in terms of network or cyber. The physical aspect of security is largely misunderstood or overlooked, which is something on which I’ve tried to spread awareness in my communities.
Internal Transfer - Welcome to our new Client Relationship Senior Analyst
Robert Veldhuizen, who has been with Sibylline since July 2020, has transferred over to the Client Relationship Team after previously supporting a client as an Embedded Senior Intelligence Analyst. In this new role, he will work with multiple parts of the business to bolster Sibylline’s client relations, product development, and marketing.
What Are You Most Excited For? Everything! As an embed, you really felt the pace and scale of change that Sibylline has gone through in the past three years. While you can’t really say things have slowed down, after the recent re-org, there is definitely more bandwidth and alignment to troubleshoot, bolster and refine what we do and what we want to do. I’m grateful that Sibylline is a company that keeps tabs on its employees and their career development – and because of that I get to work on a series of exciting changes that will bring Sibylline to its next phase.
Welcome to all our new team members!
David Aspenson (GSOC Analyst); Taylor Dein (GSOC Operator); Shiza Abbasi (Intelligence Analyst – South Asia Branch); Wesley Newman (GSOC Analyst); Lily Hood (Associate Analyst); Qiao Wen (Intelligence Analyst – DOI); Kenny Osborne (GSOC Manager); Makenzie Lucas (GSOC Analyst); Corey Harper (GSOC Operator); Alexandra Adams (Talent Acquisition Partner)