ASIS UK Autumn Seminar: Community, Connection and Impact

The ASIS International UK Chapter welcomed members and guests to Hyatt Place London City East for its Autumn Seminar — an afternoon deliberately designed a little differently, with a focus on community, conversation and the impact we can have as a profession.

Opening the seminar, Chapter Chair Farah Benis reflected on what has already been an incredibly busy year for the Chapter, from the continued growth of Next Gen and the upcoming Security Is You(th) Innovation Challenge, to professional development, the Foundation Fitness Challenge and the Chapter's recent Special Recognition in the I.B. Hale Chapter of the Year Awards.

The afternoon also provided an opportunity to recognise members who have recently achieved ASIS certifications, celebrating the considerable work and commitment behind those professional milestones.

With September marking Suicide Prevention Month, the opening address also turned to wellbeing within the profession. Attendees were encouraged to take stock of their own mental health and that of the people around them, with recognition of the work being done by the Consortium for the Prevention of Suicide, Security Minds Matter and Running on Empty.

The message was that while policies, training courses and awareness programmes all have their place, practising empathy is something different. It requires us to notice people, listen to them and recognise that we rarely know everything someone else may be carrying.

An hour with Nazir Afzal OBE

At the heart of the afternoon was an extended keynote from Nazir Afzal OBE, and it was a genuine privilege to hear from someone whose work has had such extraordinary influence in the UK and internationally.

Over the course of an hour, Nazir took the room through his career and many of the cases and issues that have shaped it. He drew on those experiences to explore some much bigger questions about justice, leadership, institutional culture, accountability and what happens when organisations fail to listen to the people they are supposed to protect.

His reflections brought to life the very real human consequences behind subjects that can too easily become policies, statistics or case studies.

Across stories from his time as a prosecutor and his subsequent work examining organisational cultures, a consistent theme emerged: impact matters.

It is not enough simply to ask whether a process was followed, whether somebody technically fulfilled their responsibility or whether an organisation can demonstrate that the right policy existed. We also have to be prepared to ask what our actions — and our inaction — actually mean for the people affected by them.

Nazir spoke about trust and what happens when institutions lose it; about the importance of challenging cultures that allow poor behaviour to become normalised; and about the individual responsibility to act on what we see rather than assume that somebody else will.

For a room full of security professionals, there was a great deal to take away.

Security is ultimately a profession concerned with people. The decisions we make, the behaviours we tolerate, the risks we escalate or dismiss and the cultures we help create can all have consequences far beyond the immediate task in front of us.

Nazir's challenge was therefore a particularly relevant one: think about the impact of your work and your actions.

Not simply what you did, but what changed because you did it.

Creating space for community

That focus on people was also reflected in the format of the Autumn Seminar itself.

Rather than filling every available minute with speakers, the Chapter deliberately created more time for members to talk to one another, reconnect with colleagues and meet people outside their usual networks.

Attendees were encouraged at the start of the afternoon not simply to speak to the five people they already knew, but to introduce themselves to somebody new — particularly anyone standing on their own.

It was a simple ask, but one that reflects what the Chapter wants its community to be.

As Farah reminded attendees in her opening address, a Chapter isn't its Board, a logo, a LinkedIn page or four seminars a year. It is the people who show up and participate in it.

With Chapter elections and the AGM approaching, Security Is You(th) taking place in October, CPE Day ahead and the Winter Seminar still to come, there is plenty more to come from ASIS UK before the year is over.

Our sincere thanks go to Nazir Afzal OBE for giving us such a generous, candid and thought-provoking hour; to our sponsors, whose continued support makes the Chapter's programme possible; to our volunteer Board; and, importantly, to everyone who joined us and contributed to the afternoon.

The Autumn Seminar was a useful reminder that professional communities aren't built simply by bringing people into the same room.

They're built by what we do when we're there — and the impact we have when we leave.