FAQs

Dispatch Risk Advisory has regional operations based in Tunis, Tunisia, with a network of elite partners across the globe. That combination gives clients on-the-ground presence in emerging and frontier markets alongside the reach to support operations and interests wherever they extend. While our roots are in the Middle East and North Africa, we support clients in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Dispatch Risk Advisory doesn’t typically call itself a security firm; the focus is boutique risk and security advisory, not the gates, guards, and guns end of the industry. Rather than selling a fixed service like physical security posts or hardware installation, Dispatch Risk Advisory builds tailored, scalable risk capabilities around a client’s specific operations, combining intelligence, judgment, and program design. The goal isn’t a report or an installation, it’s a client that understands and can manage its own risk over time.

Building an in-house risk function takes time, specialized expertise, and ongoing investment that many small and mid-sized companies can’t justify for a single market or project. Dispatch Risk Advisory acts as an embedded risk partner instead, and helps clients navigate that process directly, whether that means functioning as their risk capability entirely or working alongside a team they’re building internally. Clients get senior-level judgment on demand, scaled to what their operations actually need.

Every company’s exposure in an emerging market depends on its industry, footprint, and specific operations, so a standard package almost always leaves gaps or wastes budget on risks that don’t apply. Dispatch Risk Advisory designs each program around a client’s actual operations and exposure rather than offering a one-size-fits-all product. That tailored approach is what makes the difference between a report that gets filed away and a program a client actually uses.

Dispatch Risk Advisory works with companies and organizations across a wide range of sectors operating in emerging and frontier markets, including oil and gas, manufacturing, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, investors, and private family offices. What matters isn’t the industry label, it’s the client’s specific exposure on the ground, which is why the approach adapts to each sector’s particular risks rather than applying a single template.

Dispatch Risk Advisory was co-founded in 2020 by Ben Todd and Adrienne Todd. Ben is a former U.S. intelligence officer and diplomat with a background spanning counterterrorism, intelligence analysis, and Wall Street risk management. Adrienne is a former FBI Special Agent with law enforcement and federal investigative experience. That combination of government intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement backgrounds shapes how Dispatch Risk Advisory approaches client problems: rigorous, discreet, and grounded in real operational experience.

Risk management in emerging markets means building a company’s ability to anticipate, understand, and respond to the political, security, and operational risks specific to the markets it works in, rather than applying a generic global framework and hoping it fits. It spans intelligence and early warning, physical and personnel security, crisis response planning, and the judgment to know which risks matter for a specific operation in a specific place. Done well, it’s a continuous capability, not a one-time assessment.

Yes. Physical security measures are one layer, but effective security in emerging markets depends just as much on culture, systems, and leadership. That means staff who understand and follow security protocols, systems that surface warning signs before they become incidents, and leadership that treats risk management as a standing priority rather than something addressed only after something goes wrong. Guards and cameras protect a location, culture, systems, and leadership protect an organization.

Every emerging market carries its own political dynamics, security environment, and regulatory landscape, and a program built for one country or sector rarely transfers cleanly to another. A generic framework tends to miss the risks that actually matter in a specific location while spending attention on ones that don’t apply, leaving real exposure unaddressed. Effective risk management has to be built around the specific market, industry, and operation a company is actually running.

Companies without a risk management program tend to find out about risks only after they’ve already become incidents, whether that’s a security event, a regulatory surprise, or a disruption to operations they didn’t see coming. Without early warning and a plan for how to respond, even manageable situations can escalate into significant financial, operational, or reputational damage. A risk program doesn’t eliminate risk in emerging markets, it gives a company the visibility and readiness to respond before a manageable issue becomes a costly one.

Yes. Some of the most valuable work happens before a company has any physical presence in a market, when the decisions being made (where to locate, how to structure an entry, what risks to plan for) are still open. Dispatch Risk Advisory helps companies understand a market’s political, security, and regulatory landscape early enough to shape those decisions, rather than reacting to problems after operations are already underway. Getting risk management involved before entry is often what makes the entry itself go smoothly.

There isn’t a single right stage, since the value of engaging early is different from the value of engaging once operations are already running. A company exploring a new market benefits from risk input during planning and entry, while a company already operating benefits from an ongoing program that catches issues before they escalate. The common thread is that the earlier a company brings in risk management, the more options it has to shape its approach rather than simply respond to it.

Design starts with understanding a client’s actual footprint: where they operate, what they do, who’s exposed, and what’s specific to their industry and markets. Dispatch Risk Advisory uses that picture to identify which risks genuinely matter for that client, rather than working from a generic checklist, and builds a program structured around those specific exposures. The result is a plan built for the client’s real operations, not a template applied from the outside.

Once a program is designed, Dispatch Risk Advisory helps put it into practice: standing up intelligence and early warning capability, establishing physical and personnel security measures, and building out crisis response plans specific to the client’s operations. This is hands-on work, not a handoff of a report, so the client ends up with functioning capabilities rather than just recommendations. Dispatch Risk Advisory stays engaged through this phase to make sure what’s built actually works in the client’s real environment.

As a client expands into new markets, adds operations, or grows its footprint, Dispatch Risk Advisory extends the existing risk program to cover that growth rather than requiring a new program built from scratch each time. That might mean adding coverage for a new country, adjusting for a different industry risk profile, or increasing the depth of monitoring and response as exposure increases. The program is built to grow with the client, not to be replaced as they do.

Both, depending on what the client needs. For companies without any internal risk capability, Dispatch Risk Advisory can function as that capability directly. For companies building out their own team, Dispatch Risk Advisory works alongside them, providing expertise, structure, and judgment while the client’s internal team grows into the role. Either way, the goal is giving the client real risk management capability, not a one-size-fits-all engagement model.

An oil and gas company’s exposure looks very different from a logistics company’s or an NGO’s, so Dispatch Risk Advisory builds each program around the specific risks a client’s industry actually faces. That means different priorities for intelligence coverage, different physical security considerations, and different crisis response planning depending on what the client does and where. The underlying process, design, build, scale, stays consistent, but what gets built looks different for every industry.

Dispatch Risk Advisory maintains ongoing intelligence and monitoring capability rather than relying on periodic reporting, so developments are tracked as they happen rather than caught up on after the fact. That’s supported by a network of contacts and partners embedded in the markets Dispatch Risk Advisory covers, giving access to ground-level insight that isn’t available through public reporting alone. The result is judgment that reflects what’s actually happening in a market, not what’s already been published about it.

Dispatch Risk Advisory has regional operations based in Tunis, Tunisia, with a network of elite partners across the globe. That on-the-ground presence in emerging and frontier markets is what allows the firm to provide ground-level insight rather than generic reporting produced from a distance.

Engagement starts with a conversation about a client’s operations, markets, and specific concerns, giving Dispatch Risk Advisory the context needed to understand what kind of support actually fits. From there, the firm designs a program tailored to that client’s exposure, then works with the client to build out the capabilities the program calls for. As the relationship continues, the program scales alongside the client’s operations, so the engagement evolves rather than ending at a fixed deliverable.