Global Security, Investigative & Crisis Services
We have been retained by the Chubb Corporation for 46 years to respond to emergencies on behalf of holders of its Kidnap/Ransom & Extortion insurance policy.
Our emphasis is on prevention, but, in an emergency, we respond with unparalleled professionalism. Our tenacity and resourcefulness have earned us a reputation as the crisis management authority for beleaguered corporate decision-makers.
47 Years of Excellence
We are best known for developing and implementing strategies to protect multinational corporations and their personnel from terrorists and criminals, planning for contingencies, dealing with extortions and other threats and recovering kidnap victims.
Our approach is anchored in our Risknet® service, which analyzes terrorism, crime and political-stability risks in 100 countries and is updated every business day.
Clients seek out our intelligence, negotiating, communications and protective expertise when facing emergencies globally — from kidnappings, extortions and threats to wrongful detentions, evacuations, and intractable problems with violence-prone labor and fringe groups.
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Our Services
The Ackerman Group provides an array of services to safeguard client corporations and their employees against a broad spectrum of terrorist and criminal threats.
Business analysis
Business analysis
The best solutions for Your problems.
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From Risknet™
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The Ackerman Group has offices in Fort Lauderdale, Salt Lake City, Paris, Bangkok, and correspondents throughout the world. Our clients include some 65 of America’s top 100 multinationals, along with numerous European and Japanese companies.
Our Team
Our superb staff—with invaluable experience in the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and military special-operations units—possesses in-depth area knowledge and personal contacts in virtually every corner of the world. We work in more than 20 languages.
Mike Ackerman
Chairman
Widely acknowledged as one of America’s leading authorities on terrorism, Mike Ackerman’s forte is recovering kidnap victims. He has lectured at the National War College, the Harvard Business School and Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, has appeared before the crisis-management teams of numerous multinational corporations and has made more than 50 appearances as a commentator on terrorism and intelligence matters on major news networks. His book, Counterterrorism Strategies for Corporations: The Ackerman Principles, was published in 2008. Ackerman served in the CIA’s Clandestine Services for 11 years before resigning in 1975 to protest the congressional investigation of the Agency then in progress and plead for the preservation of America’s intelligence capability. In the CIA he had undertaken intelligence operations in 20 European, Latin American and African countries. Fluent in Spanish and conversant in Russian and Italian, Ackerman graduated from Dartmouth College magna cum laude and holds an M.A. from Columbia. He was a security officer in the US Air Force Strategic Air Command.
Joseph M. Deters
President
Joe Deters retired from the FBI in July 2021 after a 20-year career that culminated in an appointment as Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Cincinnati Field Office. He also served as Supervisory Special Agent in the Los Angeles Field Office, overseeing investigations into public corruption, was Legal Attache in San Salvador, with responsibility for the Northern Triangle of Central America, and led investigations into kidnapping and terrorism in Latin America from the Miami Field Office. He has been commended for investigative excellence, sustained exemplary performance and high-impact leadership. Deters has a B.A. from the University of Idaho and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Spanish language and literature from the University of Arizona.
H. Wesley Odom
Senior Advisor
Wes Odom joined AG in 1990, following a 15-year career in the CIA’s Clandestine Services. He has participated in all aspects of company services, kidnap, extortion, workplace violence and threat response, security audits, investigations and executive protection. At the CIA, he specialized in foreign intelligence operations and counterterrorism. He had tours in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and served as an instructor in the Agency’s operational training program. A fluent Spanish speaker, he pursued studies at Brigham Young University and he holds a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of West Florida. He served with a US Navy Seabee battalion in Vietnam.
Frank Pedrozo
Senior Vice President, Operations
Frank Pedrozo served 29 years in the US Army, achieving the rank of colonel. A Special Forces officer, he commanded the US Military Liaison Office in Mexico, the Special Troops Battalion of V Corps, US Army-Europe, and served as a military advisor in El Salvador during that country’s civil war. Pedrozo holds a B.S. from West Point, an M.S. in Strategic Planning from the US Army War College and an M.A. in International Relations from Salve Regina University. His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Bronze Star with “V” Device. Pedrozo speaks native Spanish, and is conversant in Portuguese and German. Since joining AG in 2005, he has been the firm’s primary Mexico referent and has responded to numerous kidnappings, extortions and threats throughout Latin America.
Bill Reynolds
Bill Reynolds, who joined AG in 2001, is Senior Vice President, Analytical Services. A journalist by trade, he has years of experience in the former Communist bloc. He arrived in Czechoslovakia upon the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, filing stories for US newspapers as the country peacefully dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. During the same period, he made frequent reporting trips to the former Yugoslavia, then splitting apart. He moved to Ukraine in 1995, and from 1998 to 2001 edited the leading English-language newspaper in Baku, Azerbaijan. Fluent in Russian, he holds a B.A. in political science from Temple University.
Joshua M. Ackerman
Vice President, Operations
Prior to joining AG in 2016, Joshua Ackerman served in the US Navy, working primarily in Naval Security Forces. He received training in numerous naval force-protection fields, including maritime antiterrorism, in-port threat detection, special reaction force team and active shooter situations. He deployed to the Persian Gulf in August 2014 and conducted force-protection operations in Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. He has responded to threats and workplace violence incidents, conducted security audits and investigations and managed executive protection teams. Ackerman earned a B.A. from the University of Colorado. He is conversant in Spanish.
Alberto Lizarazo
Alberto Lizarazo joined AG in 2003, rising through the ranks to Vice President, Administration. As such, he supervises all financial, risk management and human resources matters. In addition, he developed and coordinates our highly regarded executive protection program and is renowned for nurturing protective details from the planning stage to completion. A native Spanish speaker, Lizarazo has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Miami.
Alejandro Barbeito
Alejandro Barbeito served 25 years as an FBI agent, with assignments in Miami, San Juan, Bogota and Madrid. As Legal Attache in Bogota, he investigated complex homicides, kidnappings, and extortions targeting US entities in Colombia and Ecuador. Later, as a supervisor in Miami, he deployed personnel to investigate crime and terrorism targeting US entities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. In Madrid, he supervised an Organized Crime Task Force that investigated Russian, Chinese, and Italian transnational criminal organizations. After his retirement from the FBI, Barbeito worked for five years as a senior investigator for a major global technology company. Fluent in Spanish, he received a B.S. in Criminology from Florida State University.
John Reinbold
John Reinbold retired from the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) Intelligence Bureau in July 2021 with the rank of sergeant. During his 20-year NYPD career, he specialized in international terrorism investigations and was assigned to International Liaison Units in Montreal and Paris. John served nine years in Paris and was the primary liaison officer with the National Police for the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. He also served in the NYPD’s Threat Assessment and Protection Unit and supervised the presidential protective detail in New York. In 2016, he received NYPD’s Hemmerdinger Award for Excellence for his work with the French government. Prior to his time with NYPD, John served with the Canadian Armed Forces as a military police officer. He is a native French speaker.
Chuck Krueger
Chuck Krueger joined AG in 2010. He served 23 years in the US Army, beginning in the enlisted ranks and retiring as a lieutenant colonel. A Special Forces and Foreign Area Officer specializing in Asia, he served in the 1st and 7th Special Forces Groups, the 101st Air Assault Division and the 2nd Infantry Division. Following his retirement from the army, Krueger served as a project manager for security at the US Embassy, Bangkok, and as country manager for a security firm in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that provided security services throughout the country for all United Nations agencies and corporate clients. He has a B.S. in Business Administration from Indiana University, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Kansas and an M.B.A. from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Based in Bangkok, Krueger is fluent in Thai.
