Buried in this year’s proxy statements, in the same table that lists a CEO’s salary and stock awards, is a line most shareholders skip past: personal security costs. It is no longer a rounding error. At ExxonMobil, the 2026 filing disclosed $199,619 in security costs for CEO Darren Woods — $69,760 for residential security, $122,268 tied to personal travel, and $7,591 for a security-related vehicle.
That figure is not an estimate. It is an audited, board-approved, SEC-disclosed number. And it is one data point in a trend that is reshaping how New York boardrooms think about executive risk — not as a security department’s budget line, but as a governance obligation with a paper trail. We examined this threat environment in detail in The “Thompson Effect”.
The number that changed in two years
According to Goldman Sachs Ayco’s 2025 survey of 291 companies, 27% now provide personal security for their CEO — a 59% increase from just two years earlier. Cybersecurity protection extended to executives has more than tripled in the same window, from roughly 10% to over 30% for CEOs.
The most common measures the survey identified: a bodyguard for business travel or public appearances carrying elevated risk, and an armed chauffeur for daily commuting. These are no longer exotic arrangements reserved for a handful of high-profile founders. They are becoming a standard line item — and once a company provides them, SEC rules generally require disclosing the cost as a perquisite in the proxy statement.
Why this is disproportionately a New York story
New York is home to the highest concentration of Fortune 500 and financial-services headquarters in the country. That matters here specifically: every company incorporated or headquartered in New York that provides executive security is now generating a disclosed, public number describing exactly how much protection its leadership requires — and by extension, how much risk its board believes that leadership carries.
These filings are public. They are searchable. A competitor, an activist investor, or a journalist can read a company’s threat posture directly out of its proxy statement, which makes the underlying security program a matter of corporate governance, not just personal safety.
The gap the disclosures don’t show
Here is what the growing dollar figures obscure: according to a Pearl Meyer survey from December 2025, roughly 65% of organizations still have no formal CEO security program.
That is the real story behind the rising numbers. A large share of the security spending now appearing in proxy statements is not the output of a designed, risk-assessed program — it is reactive spending, assembled after a specific incident or threat, then disclosed because the rules require it. The dollar figure exists. The strategy behind it, in most companies, does not.
For a board, that is the exposure that matters. A disclosed security cost with no underlying program invites the exact question a plaintiff’s attorney or an activist investor would ask after an incident: what was the company’s process for determining this was enough?
What a defensible program actually requires
A documented risk assessment, not a reaction. The number in the proxy statement should be traceable to an actual evaluation of the executive’s specific exposure — travel patterns, public profile, industry-specific threats — not an ad hoc response to a single scare.
Consistency with the company’s own disclosed rationale. If the proxy statement describes the security as necessary for business purposes, the program needs to actually reflect that scope, not exceed it in ways that raise tax and governance questions, or fall short of it in ways that raise safety ones.
A program that survives turnover. Personal security tied to one executive’s preferences does not transfer cleanly to a successor and does not read, to a board, as institutional risk management. A structured program does.
Coordination with counsel and compensation committees, not just security staff. The number is now a governance artifact. Treating it purely as an operational security decision misses half of what it actually is.
The point
Five years ago, disclosed executive security costs were a curiosity in a handful of filings from the highest-profile companies. Today they are becoming routine, and New York’s concentration of headquartered companies means this region is writing a disproportionate share of that record. The dollar figure is no longer the risk. The absence of a program behind it is.
Worldwide Security Options is a 100% military and law enforcement veteran-owned protection firm serving New York and New Jersey, providing structured executive protection programs built to withstand board, counsel and shareholder scrutiny — not just an incident. Talk to our team about assessing your current program.
