Citigate Global Intelligence and Security

Citigate Global Intelligence and Security was created when Incepta acquired Global Intelligence and Security. CGIS was shut down in the process of the reverse takeover of Incepta by Huntsworth in spring 2005.

Ernest Brod was ready for a change. A longtime managing director of New York-based private investigations firm Kroll WorldWide Associates Inc., Brod watched the shares of the big advertising agency holding companies hammered last summer as ad revenues slipped.

Diversification, Brod thought, would benefit the earning power of those companies. As a specialist in business and competitive intelligence, he knew demand was significant for this kind of expertise, especially among the major public relations firms. Now with heightened concern over terrorism, Brod has found an unexpected niche. More ad companies appear to be expanding into security and business intelligence to bolster their bottom line. In addition, the Big Five accounting firms are preparing to shed consulting businesses following the Enron Corp. scandal, fueling speculation that more ad agencies might dip their toes into the protection and competitive intelligence talent pool.

As a result, at the end of last year, Brod and several other former executives of Kroll and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP set up Global Intelligence & Security llc. Shortly thereafter, Incepta Group plc, a London-based communications group which owns the Citigate corporate communications and advertising businesses, acquired the new venture. Brod's company was renamed Citigate Global Intelligence and Security, and now has offices in New York and Los Angeles.

Other companies moving in the same direction include Omnicon Group, which actually beat Incepta to the punch when its subsidiary, Fleishman-Hillard Inc., formed a strategic partnership with Fuld & Co., a Cambridge, Mass.-based provider of so-called competitive intelligence, in November. At the end of the year Omnicom launched its own security business, SafirRosetti, headed by former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir and Joseph Rosetti, formerly senior vice president of Alpharetta, Georgia-based security company IPSA International Inc.

One large company rumored to have seriously considered an acquisition in investigations/security in recent months is New York-based Interpublic Group of Cos. - although an Interpublic spokesman denied the company was pursuing such a venture. It's a different story at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, a unit of advertising giant London-based WPP Group plc. Ogilvy CEO Robert Seltzer said his company is not looking to move into business and competitive intelligence at this time. But on the security consulting front, Seltzer said, Ogilvy is about to launch a service on crisis management and terrorist preparedness in the wake of Sept. 11.

Kamer Davis, an Ogilvy senior vice president, said the company has been offering a similar service to government clients for nine years. The recent launch of this new service will consolidate and expand the service to the private sector, she said. The new program was undertaken after informal research among Ogilvy's existing clients following Sept. 11 found that many companies now recognize a need for improved internal communications in crisis situations. Many companies now accept the importance of planning how to contact employees, and how to maintain business operations in a disaster. (Source: Stacy Mosher Ad agencies move into business intelligence The Daily Deal 6 March 2002)

The industry website Intelligence Online reported in April 2006 that Incepta has suddenly closed CGI in the US. And Ernest Brod, one of the ex-Kroll Associates executives who started the operation, is understood to have told industry contacts of the closure and who his new employer will be. Later in the year it was announced that Brod was moving to become 'director in the Forensic & Dispute Services practice for Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP' at Deloitte TAS a subsidiary of Deloitte & Touche USA LLP