Leadership

The team behind the work.

Shadow is led by a senior team with deep federal protective service, intelligence, and event operations backgrounds. Hosts hire firms. Hosts trust people. Below are the people behind Shadow's work, the disciplines they own, and the doctrine they apply.

Michael de Geus, Founder & CEO, Author & Speaker, Shadow Protection Group
Founder & CEO / Author & Speaker

Michael de Geus

Twelve years U.S. Secret Service, Presidential Protective Division. Six years private sector. Five hundred-plus events secured. Zero-incident record. Operations across four continents.

Michael de Geus spent twelve years as a U.S. Secret Service Special Agent on the Presidential Protective Division, the unit charged with protecting the sitting President of the United States. The work was proactive by training and doctrine: see the threat before it forms, build the plan that prevents it, brief the team that executes it.

After his Secret Service career, de Geus spent six years in the private sector running global security for an entertainment company, leading protective programs across four continents and securing more than five hundred events without a single incident.

He founded Shadow Protection Group to bring that same standard to a private market that had never before had access to it. The Shadow Doctrine is the codification of how he was trained and how he has worked across nearly two decades.

Federal Service
U.S. Secret Service / Presidential Protective Division
Tenure
Twelve years federal / six years private
Operating Range
Four continents, US and international
Record
500+ events, zero incidents
Publications

The Shadow Playbook series.

Three books on event security, executive protection, and operational doctrine, written by Michael de Geus from nearly two decades of field experience in federal service and the private sector. All three titles publishing in 2026.

The Corporate Safety & Security Playbook cover
Book One

The Corporate Safety & Security Playbook

Advance methodology, venue operations, crowd dynamics, command and coordination, and mass casualty planning. Nearly 200 pages of operational doctrine drawn from 500-plus events across four continents. Written for event producers, security directors, and anyone responsible for keeping a large gathering safe.

Publishing 2026
Read Excerpt
The Executive Protection Playbook cover
Book Two

The Executive Protection Playbook

The complete methodology for close personal protection: the principal relationship, detail design, advance, motorcades, arrival and egress choreography, and the moments of greatest exposure. Written from U.S. Secret Service PPD training and a decade of private-sector principal protection.

Publishing 2026
Read Excerpt
The Event Safety & Protection Playbook cover
Book Three

The Event Safety & Protection Playbook

The third title in the Shadow Playbook series. The series covers the full scope of Shadow doctrine: events, executive protection, and the intelligence and advance work that governs both.

Publishing 2026
Read Excerpt
Senior Team

The directorate.

Each Shadow engagement is led by a named senior owner. Five directorates govern the work across the firm.

Chief of Staff

Rob Poland

Rob is a former U.S. Secret Service Special Agent who served on the Presidential Protective Division. After federal service he served as Director of Executive Protection at Western Union and then as Assistant Director of Global Security at Redrock Entertainment before joining Shadow. He serves as Chief of Staff, owning Shadow's operational architecture, partner standards, and senior point of escalation across international deployments.

Director of Intelligence

Blair Brown

Blair is a former U.S. Secret Service Special Agent who served in Protective Intelligence and on Presidential Protection. He owns the Picture pillar of the Shadow Doctrine. Threat assessment, open-source and proprietary intelligence collection, principal-specific exposure analysis, and the threat picture brief that initiates every engagement. Briefs hosts directly.

Director of Events

Bradley de Geus

Bradley is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who participated in and led maritime security operations and drug interdiction missions before transitioning to a distinguished career with the California Highway Patrol. He leads Shadow's event practice as the senior point of contact for tour producers, festival organizers, venue operators, and event hosts, owning the engagement from first conversation through after-action.

Director of Executive Protection

Clint Howard

Clint leads Shadow's executive protection practice. Detail design, agent selection and training, protective driver standards, and the close-personal-protection doctrine that governs every Shadow detail. Senior agent on the highest-profile principal engagements.

Event Medical

Cliff Krieg

Cliff is a U.S. Navy Corpsman, nationally licensed EMT, and Firefighter Paramedic. He leads event medical integration across Shadow engagements: medical posture matched to event size and risk profile, on-site medical coordination, EMS liaison, and the medical contingencies built into every operations order. The discipline that ensures the worst case is already rehearsed.

Director of Product Development

John Cramer

John Cramer leads Shadow's product development function: the design, prototyping, and production of custom protective equipment, field gear, and specialized tactical tools. He brings deep experience across the full product development cycle and maintains international and domestic manufacturing relationships built through work with brands including Oakley, Leatherback Gear, and Force Multiplier. Where the rest of the Shadow directorate comes from federal service and the military, Cramer comes from the bench. He is Shadow's Q: if the team needs it built, Cramer builds it.

Engagement Architecture

Named senior owner on every engagement.

Every Shadow engagement is led by a named member of the directorate, supported by senior agents, advance leads, and protective drivers from a vetted network. Hosts know who is accountable for the engagement before the first advance team deploys.

Operational Pedigree

Trained at the highest standard.

Shadow's leadership and senior team carry training and operating experience drawn from the most demanding programs in the federal government and the U.S. military. The bar for joining the Shadow team is set by the founder's own standard, which is the standard of the unit that trained him.

USSS
United States Secret Service
NSA
National Security Agency
CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
DHS
Department of Homeland Security
DEVGRU
Naval Special Warfare Development Group
SOCOM
U.S. Special Operations Command
USN
United States Navy
USCG
United States Coast Guard
CHP
California Highway Patrol
EMS / FIRE
Emergency Medical Services & Fire
SWAT
Special Weapons & Tactics

Talk to Shadow leadership.

Initial conversations are reviewed by the founder and a member of the directorate. Confidential, short, and useful. We respond inside 48 hours.

Open Inquiry