Trust: the true currency of the security industry

Sharing Experience: Mario Garcia, Achilleus Security

Achilleus Security is a family-run, security guarding, stewarding and crowd management provider predominantly known within the entertainment, leisure industry. Based in Waltham Abbey, with offices in Hampshire and Colchester, we provide responsible and diligent team members who ensure our clients’ events, premises, customers and reputations are protected.

We are a specialist field and throughout what we do, the most important thing is trust. That’s why the theme of this issue resonated with me. Because when people buy security, what they are really buying is trust: trust in our organisation, trust in our people, trust that we will do the job they’re asking us to do. When somebody gives us the keys to their building, or care of their site, or responsibility for their brand, we understand that’s a great responsibility.

Our experience

A large percentage of our contracts come from football and sporting events in arenas and stadiums, but we also provide security guards, mobile security and crowd management services for concerts and events. We are an Official Security Partner for Essex County Cricket Club, Ipswich Town FC, Colchester United and Queens Park Rangers. Other clients include Wembley Stadium, Twickenham and AFC Bournemouth. These relationships don’t just happen overnight, or by chance.  

As an organisation, we believe strongly in the currency of security trust. That means we don’t just take, we also give back to our clients where we can, working together in partnership to achieve our aligned aims and objectives, and that way we build lasting relationships.

We have built Achilleus on a foundation of clear company values, and we are known for offering a high-quality, effective and professional service. With a strong work ethic and no-nonsense approach, it is that reputation that has fuelled our success.  

In the field

We’re not the most expensive and we’re not the cheapest, but we bring professionalism supported by integrity. Our clients know we will deliver all we have promised, and a bit more. 

With over 800 team members and growing, are we perfect? The simple answer is not always. We’re human beings dealing with human beings and mistakes happen sometimes. But the key is to be honest, open and transparent right from the start, learn from the issues and develop and grow from those lessons together. And, of course, it’s a two-way street. When it comes to my clients, I’m putting my team into a variety of situations and I’ve got to know that they are going to operate in the same way, especially when sometimes we are responsible for the safety and security of around 250,000 people. 

That’s why we are constantly recruiting, to sustain not only our current levels, but to also meet our future early 2026 requirements of over 1100 team members. We set the bar high. We don’t just take on anybody and our process is deliberately tougher than other companies – it’s always our aim to try to get the right people. The quality of team members is vital to us, along with strict vetting and training – that is a non-negotiable for me and my team.

It all forms part of our core values of going further to protect people. We protect our clients, we protect our staff, we protect ourselves and we protect the public. That’s what our clients trust us to do.