If you saw Sue Williams in the street, you couldn't possibly know what an important role she plays in society. She appears to be a nice but very normal English lady, with a faint London accent. However, as we found out during her keynote at ProcureCon Indirect last week, her work and experiences are totally out of the ordinary!
She is a professional hostage negotiator, having worked for the UK Metropolitan Police for many years, ultimately leading the Hostage Crisis Unit at New Scotland Yard. She has worked around the world and now operates as an independent, working mainly for NGOs and charities who themselves operate in dangerous parts of the world. She also lectures at institutions in several countries, including the Saïd business school at Oxford.
We wondered whether there was really enough work for a full-time “kidnap consultant”, but as she explained, it isn’t just hostage situations where her skills are utilised. She is really a crisis negotiator in a more general sense, so suicide interventions, which require listening, not problem solving, have been part of her work, along with domestic barricade situations, crimes gone wrong (bank lock-ins), or persuading criminals who have been located to turn themselves in.
Read more from Peter Smith/SpendMatters.com [HERE].