Week one at Neotas

As the newest member of the team, let me introduce myself: I’m Sam and I started at Neotas a week ago. If you search for me online it’s likely that you’ll find several pictures of a man who is not me competing in Motocross competitions, or perhaps you’ll find a man in Utah who plays in a jazz band (also not me, unfortunately). If you’re lucky you may be able to find a twitter account which is possibly me, but with no real way of verifying.

I’ve learnt a lot in the last week, from experts in cyber-security, military techniques and law enforcement, but the thing I’ve learnt the most is that every piece of the internet is useful information if you know how to use it, and knowing how to use it will uncover entire worlds that even the subjects of investigations believe they have disguised. Neotas know how to use the internet. Before I’d even started here the team had found information about me that I didn’t know was online and had forgotten existed at all. Before I’d set foot in this building, the Neotas team knew me better than most people I’ve known for many years. Thankfully I have nothing to hide.

This is the power of OSINT, and in a world where businesses are held more and more accountable for the people they employ, OSINT is crucial in determining where to invest, how to invest and whether the character reference promising that a person is “honest and trustworthy” is realistic. Credit checks can’t tell you if your candidates are abusive online, criminal records checks say nothing about your company director’s hidden associates, and CVs don’t always enclose all the facts about the places your employee has worked. Traditional due diligence is no longer enough, and I am very excited to be part of a company leading the way in developing OSINT processes, because I am certain it’s not too long until OSINT investigations are the standard practice in due diligence.

At Neotas, we place people are at the core of everything we do, believe in and value. Whether it is the Neotas team, our clients, our advisory board of experts or the subjects we look at, each and every single day our focus is people.

When we consider our clients, it is obvious to understand why we value their involvement and spend considerable time nurturing and developing relationships. Our clients are joining us on a journey and to be their travel companion is an honour. They are breaking the norms and widely accepted traditional methodologies of tick box due diligence and employee screenings to embrace the digital information era. They are setting new standards in their sectors and embracing the principles laid out by regulators to go beyond. The willingness and drive of key individuals to embrace the future of due diligence is what drives us forwards each day.

Moving to our company level, Neotas is the accumulation of individuals who have spent their careers thus far realising that people are at the core of everything. From a Chief Information Security Officer, with the latest cyber security measures and endless budgets, who suffered a significant intellectual property breach at the hands of an employee to an officer within the Cyber Crime Unit of the National Crime Agency who spent his days fighting crime online – the consistent factor was always a person at the end of a computer keyboard. From the financial trader whose every decision was made and affected by the actions of individuals to the military officer who spent their career focused on counter terrorism operations overseas understanding and targeting individuals – people were at the core. Regardless of sector, people are the consistent factor. People affect the security and growth of every company and nation around the world, whether positively or negatively. Combining this realisation with our knowledge and experience, we have developed and grown Neotas and our platform to aid decision making across all sectors by providing increased situational awareness of people whether for business deals, security and background screening, or fit and proper compliance requirements.

When Neotas conduct due diligence research on an individual or company, we focus on the person. We unveil all active and passive content relating to the individual including networks, associations, interests, companies, motivators, and behavioural and personality traits plus so many other aspects. We don’t follow a set checklist and set of rules because each subject is unique and we treat their online footprint as such. By putting the subject first, we are able to develop a profile from which risks, flags, and areas of concern or conversely positive attributes can be highlighted. We approach each case as an individual and not a series of tick box confirmations.

So how do we do all of this? You’ve guessed it. People are at the core of our platform, company and research. Our propriety methodologies and platform have been developed by our amazing team. And while Neotas, like many other companies, have embraced the AI, Big Data, NLP, machine learning technology wave, we have also realised that all of these systems are only as good as the designer and the person driving them. This is why our team are so important to us. In order to produce the best research we must we continually train and develop methodologies and tools with the best analysts. And that is what Neotas does every day.

With people as our focus, our passion, and our enabler, Neotas are taking due diligence to the next level. To find out more about what we do and how we can assist with your due diligence and investigative requirements and procedures, please feel free to contact us and a member of our team will be happy to assist.