David Hornus

Kidnapping and ransom negotiator - 25 years of experience in economic security and crisis management

I have experienced high-intensity crises from the inside: kidnappings, disappearances, arbitrary detentions, extortion, death threats, post-attack interventions. I know what happens when the unexpected strikes a business — I have seen the effects of the crisis on organizations, teams, leaders, and sometimes their loved ones. I developed the concept of Ruddership ® "the exercise of discernment driven by experience" which I express through the Greek approach of Mètis — Mastering, Training, Transmitting, Intervening, Healing. David Hornus is a specialist in risk governance, economic intelligence, and crisis negotiation. His career began in 1992 with a voluntary commitment for a long service (VSL) of 24 months as a called officer. Following his training as a Reserve Officer Student (EOR) at Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan — whose motto, "the Audacity to Serve", will never leave him, he was assigned to the Marine Infantry. After completing his military obligations, he engaged in humanitarian work. Trained at the Bioforce Institute, he went on missions to Cambodia and then to Georgia, in the Caucasus, between 1994 and 1996 — areas where humanitarian urgency coexists with armed conflict. Holding a postgraduate degree in economic intelligence strategy from the École de Guerre Économique (1999) and a diploma in "strategies, analyses, and prospects of the Mediterranean worlds" from the University of Toulon (2022), David Hornus founded and led for 18 years one of the first French Security and Defense Services Companies (ESSD) which he had certified ISO 18788 in 2018. For over twenty years he has been protecting his clients against economic crime in all its forms. A negotiator within "special risks" insurance policies for a global leader in risk management, he has been deployed on several high-intensity cases where human lives were at stake in complex and degraded environments: kidnappings for ransom, emergency evacuations, post-attack interventions, disappearances, social conflicts… A reserve officer for 15 years, he holds the Croix du Combattant Volontaire for external operations (ex-Yugoslavia, Ivory Coast, Haiti). He is currently an operational reservist in the National Police. Engaged in the governance of private security companies, David Hornus served on the board of directors of ICoCA (International Code of Conduct Association) from 2019 to 2023, the organization that oversees and regulates the sector, in Geneva, where he represents the European private security industry. In 2020, he led a "Territorial Contribution to the Security Continuum", a collective work dedicated to the articulation between state forces, municipal police, and private actors. From 2020 to 2026, he was deputy mayor in charge of security for a municipality of over 20,000 inhabitants in the Lyon metropolitan area. David Hornus is one of the few profiles to have practiced security in its four forms — military, humanitarian, private, and local public. He currently leads the Ruddership Conseil firm. He is the author of "Danger Zone: testimony of a crisis management professional (Balland 2022) and "Only God Sees It: hostage at the heart of the Syrian crisis" (Balland 2026)