Avren was built around a gap we observed in the market for Independent Security Studies. Most firms that produce security assessments also sell the equipment, personnel, or services those assessments recommend. The few that don't carry a commercial conflict often lack the federal protection background that makes a study credible under examination. We built Avren to be something different: a pure compliance and risk practice, with no downstream services attached to any engagement, staffed by practitioners who spent their careers doing this work before doing it privately.
Our founding partner is a retired United States Secret Service agent and officer. As a Special Agent, he conducted executive protection operations for U.S. and foreign heads of state, planned security programs for events of national significance, and led cyber and financial crime investigations requiring forensic electronic media examination. His uniformed career began on the detail protecting the White House complex, where he developed the threat-identification and pre-attack surveillance tradecraft that underlies physical security methodology. Following his federal service, he continued criminal investigative work and led physical security assessments and emergency planning programs for private clients across corporate, residential, and institutional environments. His work on individual executive threat profiles forms the foundation of Avren's assessment methodology.
Our other founding partner is an FBI Special Agent with deep experience in transnational organized crime across Latin American, Caribbean, and European theaters. Before joining the Bureau, he served as an Army Special Forces ODA commander, leading stability and anti-narcotics operations in Afghanistan and Colombia. That operational background in threat assessment, surveillance, and principal protection in hostile environments directly informs his approach to threat actor behavior and exposure risk. He also brings extensive experience outside the government and law enforcement context conducting physical risk and security assessments across a wide range of industries and internationally.
Engagements are supported by a network of digital risk analysts, open-source intelligence specialists, and subject matter experts with comparable field experience. Depending on engagement scope, assessment work and interviews may be conducted by founding partners directly or by vetted practitioners who meet the same credentialing standards. Every Independent Security Study Avren delivers is signed by a founding partner, who takes personal responsibility for its findings, methodology, and regulatory sufficiency.