Corporate America gets more reclusive following CEO's killing

State of play: Since Thompson was shot by a masked man outside a Hilton hotel in New York City on Wednesday morning, companies are bulking up on executive security and scrubbing their websites of executive names.

• UnitedHealthcare "removed a page from its website listing the rest of its executive leadership, and several other health insurance companies have done the same, hiding the names and photos of their executives from easy public access," technology journalism site 404 Media reported.
• Others that have made similar moves include Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. Anthem had come under scrutiny as critics assailed its recent decision to limit coverage of anesthesia — a move it reversed on Thursday.
• And Centene Friday scrapped its planned in-person investor day next week in New York in favor of a virtual event.

Yale management expert Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who runs an annual summit called the Chief Executive Leadership Institute, told the NYT he has been deluged with calls about safety at the next edition of his event this month.

• At Premier, a $2 billion market-cap health care company in North Carolina, executives are formulating plans to bolster security: "Where it makes sense," chairman Rich Statuto said, responding to a question at its annual shareholder meeting Friday. "I don't think we want to overreact, but we do want to make sure all our senior executives and any of our employees are kept safe."

Threat level: Part of the challenge of protecting executives for publicly traded companies is that their public appearances are often known in advance.

• Disclosure rules require publicly traded companies to provide certain details about their public events, including investor conferences like the one Thompson was headed for when he was killed.
• It was not a secret that Thompson would be there — but he had no bodyguard when he was shot repeatedly in the back and leg.

Context: Fearing for the safety of their leaders, S&P 500 companies had already been boosting security before the Thompson shooting.

• S&P 500 companies spent a median of $98,069 on executive security benefits in 2023, up from $47,643 in 2021, compensation tracker Equilar tells Axios.
• "From the left and the right we've seen the frightening, uncanny conversion of angry and deranged people," Sonnenfeld told NYT. "Leaders in the corporate world are convenient targets."

Expect that spending growth to continue. Thompson's murder was "a very difficult wake-up call . . . a lot of security leaders in these organizations are getting attention on things that they were talking about for a while," Brian Stephens, senior managing director with consultancy Teneo's security risk advisory practice, told FT.

What to watch for: Whether companies begin to more actively track and respond to threats that pop up on social media.

• "We expect in the future for executive protection and digital executive protection to play a larger role in safeguarding the leadership and their families at prominent companies," Chris Pierson, CEO of security services firm BlackCloak, tells Axios.