Interview With Frank Elsner: Corporate Security, Crisis Planning, and Leadership Under Pressure

Frank Elsner is a Canadian corporate security executive and crisis management advisor with more than three decades of leadership experience in public safety, security operations, and organizational risk management. He is the Founder, Executive Security Advisor, and Crisis Leadership Consultant at Stonehaven Risk Group Ltd., where he advises organizations on workplace violence prevention, crisis preparedness, security governance, operational risk, and executive-level security strategy.

In this interview, Elsner discusses his experience in executive leadership roles, corporate security priorities, crisis preparedness, and the realities organizations face when risk management fails to keep pace with operational growth.

Q: Your work at Stonehaven Risk Group focuses heavily on organizational risk and crisis preparedness. What concerns are companies bringing to you most often?

Frank Elsner: A lot of the calls I get deal with companies that have grown quickly, and leadership realizes its internal controls have not kept pace. Maybe they added new facilities, expanded distribution, hired rapidly, or took on greater operational demands without building the structure to support them. Many executives know something feels off, though they cannot always identify where the exposure lies. Sometimes it is workplace conflict that management ignores for too long. Sometimes it is weak reporting procedures or confusion around who is responsible during a serious incident. What companies need is clarity. They need someone who can come in, look at the situation objectively, and help them put practical systems in place without slowing down the business. That’s what we do at Stonehaven.

Q: A major part of your advisory work involves workplace violence prevention. What separates an actually effective program from one that…