What I do
Five kinds of work. The first two normally need me in the room. The last three do not need me in the country.
1. Investigation support
Something has happened — a shortfall, a leak, a theft, a supplier arrangement that looks wrong — and you need to know what and who before you act.
I work on the whole enquiry, not only the examination: what can still be established, in what order people should be spoken to, what each conversation is for, and where the enquiry should stop. Where an examination is the right instrument, I conduct it.
What this gives you: a narrowed circle and a basis for a decision you can defend to a board. What it does not give you: a confession on demand, or a conclusion that replaces your own management decision.
2. Screening programmes
Not a test, but a process a company can actually run: who is screened, on what grounds, how often, what is asked, who sees the result, and what happens afterwards.
Most programmes I am asked to repair failed for the same reason — they were built around the instrument instead of the risk. The company checks everyone once a year for everything, learns nothing, and quietly stops.
What this gives you: something proportionate that survives contact with real operations. What it does not give you: a guarantee against dishonesty. Screening changes the odds. It does not remove risk.
3. Expert review — a second opinion
Another examiner has produced a conclusion, and either something about it does not sit right or the stakes are high enough that you want it checked.
I review the material: the questions asked, the method chosen, whether it fits the situation, and whether the conclusion follows from the data. This is done on documents and charts, in English, wherever you are — the one thing on this page that needs nothing from you but the file.
What this gives you: an independent professional opinion on the quality of the work. What it does not give you: a re-examination of the person in their absence. Where the material is insufficient to judge, that is itself the finding.
4. Training
For security teams, HR, investigators and lawyers: how enquiries are actually structured, how interviews are prepared, why the first twenty-four hours decide most of the outcome, and where these methods stop working.
In-house or remote, in Russian or English, as a half-day session or a longer programme.
5. Verification in the age of synthetic media
A voice, a face on a call, a signed scan — none of these establishes identity any more. I advise companies on building verification into the moments where it matters: hiring at a distance, payment authorisation, impersonation of executives, disputed recordings and documents. Where a claim about a recording or a document has to be assessed, I say what can and cannot be established — including when the answer is "not from this material".
How engagements work
The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing. If your situation is not one I can help with, you will hear that in the call rather than after an invoice.
Fees are quoted per engagement, before any work starts, once I know what is actually needed. I do not bill enquiries by the hour — it rewards the wrong thing.
Confidentiality is the default. Nothing from an engagement appears in my writing, teaching or conference material, with or without names removed.