(Article taken from G4S International Magazine, June 2006)

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Celebrating an impressive career. As Jorgen Philip-Sorensen steps down as G4S chairman, we take a look at his half-century of achievement in the global security industry.

Security is most definitely in the blood of Jorgen Philip-Sorensen , who steps down this month as chairman of Group 4 Securicor after a remarkable career in the industry, spanning half a century.

In doing so, he can look back on a multitude of achievements, as he followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps, building the business into the world's largest private security company.

It became a public company only in 2000 after merging first with the Danish-based Falck Group and subsequently with Securicor - becoming Group 4 Securicor on 19 July 2004.

He remained as chairman after both events and the Board asked him to stay on longer than originally envisaged, through to G4S's annual general meeting in June 2006.

It is typical of JPS - as he is known to most of his colleagues - that in looking back over the five decades he has spent working in and shaping the security industry, it is the amusing anecdotes that he prefers to talk about, rather than his major achievements.

In September 1950, his father Erik decided that England was in need of industrial security services along the lines of the industries that were already thriving in Sweden, where he was running a very successful business, and Denmark, where his father Julius was looking after a subsidiary.

Against his father's advice, Erik Philip-Sorensen established Plant Protection Ltd in Macclesfield, Cheshire, with an office above a grocer's shop, on 20 June, 1951 and in time handed the running of the business to Nils Gosta Trollstad, its first resident managing director.

The company prospered and by 1957 had moved to Birmingham and expanded from guarding into cash-in-transit.

It made its first small profit a year later, at which time the name As Jorgen Philip-Sorensen began appearing on memos from the wages department. Having absorbed the basics of the industry in Sweden, his father had decided that a secondment overseas was needed for his elder son. And that meant working as a security guard, as well as taking on other roles.

"A personal milestone for me was arriving one dark Sunday night at a factory that made nuts and bolts - it was actually a converted church - in what was then a rough area of Birmingham," JPS recalls.

"On the doorstep were three large individuals who just stood there staring at me. My English was not very good, but I said, politely, 'I have a job to do in there. I'd be grateful if you could let me open the door.'

"And they did. They stepped aside and I unlocked the door and went inside and carried out my round of inspection. I confess that by then I was dripping with perspiration, but I knew if I had not done that, I would have failed in my duty."

In 1960, after two years of learning about how a security company was run, it was time for a new challenge. "I was given a ticket and £5,000 and told to go to Belgium and start a new business. I spoke neither French nor Flemish and had never been to that country before."

He recruited a salesman, Jacques Godefroimont, and they began calling unannounced on potential customers offering a mobile patrol service. The philosophy was simple: "Where there's a door there's an opportunity", but it didn't always work. One man threw JPS down the stairs, blaming him - because of his Swedish origins - for a business loss in the Belgian Congo.

But elsewhere he was successful. One of his first customers needed the service to start immediately - on New Year's Eve. That night, the owner visited the factory to check that the new security supplier was providing the service, as promised. He found As Jorgen Philip-Sorensen , dressed in a boiler suit, shovelling coal into a furnace.

"I don't understand:' said the owner. "When I first met you, you were wearing a uniform and selling me security. The next time, when we signed the contract, you were in a suit. Now, you're in a boiler suit. What company is this?"

JPS replied: "I am the company!" But not for long: new recruits were soon employed and the Belgian operations grew to become a very sizeable company.

1959: A young Jorgen Philip-Sorensen is pictured (in the background, left) in conversation with Nils Trollstad, Group 4's first managing director in the UK. In the foreground (right) is his father Erik Philip-Sorensen, with Securicor's managing director, Bob Godfrey. The event was a meeting of the Ligue Internationale des Sociétés de Surveillance in StockholmIn 1964, he returned to the UK - where the company had now changed its name to Factoryguards Ltd - to become operations director and personal assistant to Nils Trollstad. A year later he was appointed managing director and remained at the helm as chief executive of a rapidly expanding business which became Group 4 Total Security in 1968 - for the next 35 years, until the merger with Falck.

He and his brother, meanwhile, were able to acquire the business from their father in 1974. Five years later they divided it, with Sven taking the Swedish operations and JPS the rest of the world.

As well as finding time to manage his business and visit its many operations around the world, he was also instrumental in introducing quality security concepts to many countries. In the UK, he was a founder member of the British Security Industry Association and its chairman for a time. He has also played a leading role in The Ligue Internationale des Sociétés de Surveillance.

Running his own business gave JPS the freedom to make decisions that would probably have been unacceptable to public shareholders. Becoming the first company to win private contracts to manage prisons and prisoner transportation is a perfect example of that. So, too, are the many business start-ups in parts of the world that others considered not yet ready for a security industry.

"Opening up in Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics was a big challenge:' he recalls, "and a lot of people thought I was nuts to even contemplate it. I went there, first, before the end of communism - before Soviet troops had moved out. When the time was right, I was invited back. It was not without its problems. In fact, every acquisition and every new start-up has given me grey hairs, worries and sleepless nights.

"But they worked out for the best. I've enjoyed everything and I don't regret a thing:'

Although stepping down as G4S chairman, As Jorgen Philip-Sorensen has accepted the position of President Emeritus for the Group, and also has the satisfaction of knowing that he has made a monumental contribution to the success of a vibrant Group that employed only 200 security officers when he joined, but now has 400,000 full and part time employees in more than 100 countries on six continents.

Aricle by Roy Stemman - G4S INTERNATIONAL JUNE 06