- [Nicole] Hi, again everyone. So this next lesson, we're going to be looking at how to actually research individuals. So we're going to get basic understanding of why researching individuals can be tactically useful. We're going to learn some basic skills on how to research individuals using company websites, LinkedIn and more. And we're going to understand what information could be particularly useful to ascertain about individuals within a company. 

So it's quite a famous quote here that we had stuck up in a corporate watch office, which was the earth isn't dying, it's being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses. So it's always worth really reflecting on, how these companies, they are products of a much broader capitalist system but they're also humans, right? That are making day to day decisions to buy arms or build prisons or sack 1000s of workers like there are people that are kind of culpable at the top of the hierarchies if that makes sense. 

So yeah, so why why might we research people? So I think the key point here is like you were aiming to identify decision makers and work out who actually has the power within a company or project hierarchy. So you might want to go do a protest at a construction site and scream at a bunch of construction workers that are just getting minimum wage and don't have any power to stop that project. Or you might choose to target a director who does have the power to cancel a contract or stop a project for a company, for example. 

So it's really worth thinking about who's got the power within a company. Knowing the individuals like managing a company or project can also give insight into its strategy and direction. Someone might have had kind of like previous backgrounds in other companies where they've like pulled certain stunts or they've made certain moves. So it's kind of useful to understand what could go on now that this person is like involved for example, when certain politicians get elected to certain positions like certain ministerial jobs you think, okay, well this is their particular worldview like they're really pro-prisons. So maybe we're going to look at a new prison expansion programme for example. Knowing who the individuals are means that you can also map out someone's network. So you can see kind of like who might be giving them contracts, who are their friends in high places so to speak. And I also think it's like really important to understand someone's worldview when you're kind of developing a campaign strategy to understand maybe their kind of personal influences whether they went to a private school or what's kind of shaped them. Whether they've got a lot of experience in the least there's like so many options but I think it's really useful to understand where someone is coming from when they're making their decisions. And yeah, and I'd like to highlight that campaigns have successfully leveraged actions against directors or chief executive officers to influence them or to win certain victories. And I'm going to give a few case studies in this lesson. 

Okay, so how do we find them out? So directors and board members will will commonly be on a website if it's a big multinational company they're almost always listed on there. The smaller companies might not have this information so we're going to go back to our company's house lesson where I introduce how to use Companies House and that's like the best place to find who an actual director is. So for example, G4S again, G4S again they've conveniently got a nice little overview here of who their group board are. So can you see a pattern here? Some white dudes. So yeah, they're kind of communicating who's on their board and there's also a section on who their directors are as well. So that's very useful. you can find out their Chief Executive Officer, and other roles. 

So yeah again, keep it simple check out the website it's very likely to be listed on there if not Companies House will definitely share who directors are. Okay so yeah, but if you can find something on Companies House so you want to find other information beyond like a company website there are various tools. So LinkedIn, you do need have an account I guess you could potentially set up a kind of new account with a different number or something. But if you are like part of a campaign or ideally work in an industry like maybe you've already got a profile. Again, LinkedIn is like a surveillance heavy platform you can generally generally see who's looked at you, for example. So have a bit of caution there depending on what your campaigns goals are. But yeah, it's an absolute goldmine of information who's working with who, who used to work on different projects, who's friends with who, it's really useful to find out where people have worked previously. And they're really showing off on there they've got their corporate profiles oh I've managed this project, oh I managed this project. And yeah, who knew that some unsuspecting anti-capitalists was was checking them out on there but I can assure you it's a really good platform. 


You might also look at their kind of personal social media profiles. So things like Instagram generally will be public will be available to look at by anyone. it's not necessarily like an invasive thing to do to look at someone's social media profile. Maybe they're like President Trump and they have a Twitter or they don't have a Twitter. But yeah, things like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram are really great ways to kind of understand someone's political worldviews, to understand who they're connected to who their friends are, what their influences are. And there's also the profiles of their friends and family. So a director of a board for example, who might not be like not every director is kind of like a power hungry celeb a lot of them are very kind of private. they're not on Instagram bragging about their yacht or whatever they're just kind of focused on their work. So it might be that their friends or family have more useful things to share or have more personal information about maybe where they're staying when they come for board meetings, for example. 

And another really great tool is to get testimonies from ex employees or whistleblowers. So if you want gossip on someone you go to someone who doesn't like them, he's got a story to tell. And that's like a great way to get a bit of dirt about what someone is really like. But again, like with all of this stuff I'm going to say there's so much through the course what information is strategically useful for your campaign? Like what are your research goals? you might find out that a director has four ponies and three properties and is going to hold a try be thorough whatever but like are you going to use that with your campaign? Maybe you will but maybe you won't so just again, what is useful for your crew, for yourself, for your campaign, for why you were doing this research in the first place like make it strategic. 

Okay, so if we're looking at people some of the questions we might ask ourselves is like, do they have an interesting history? Is there like a record of scandals or controversies? Do they have any kind of other interests? So do they run other companies? Are they on any other boards? Maybe they contribute to a certain charity, for example. So all great ways of kind of getting information. Board members like companies will have certain people on their boards for a reason, right? Like what do you think that person brings to that board? Are they bringing huge amounts of money? are they bringing corporate contracts? Are they bringing relationships with certain governments? Like what do you think they bring to that board? What's their relationship to big shareholders? Again, what's their important interests? Like are they connected to politicians? Do they work for other corporations? Are they connected to charities? 

Okay so, I'm just going to give one example of a campaign which sadly ended because of a lot of repression. So this was a campaign called Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty and it was organised for a long time to try and close down Europe's largest animal testing company that killed over 100,000 animals every year, based up in Cambridgeshire. And yeah, shock this campaign, we're kind of very regularly like targeting company directors and shareholders and board members of HLS. So I'm not going to pretend that this was all like above ground 'cause it wasn't like there was a lot of naughty tactics shall we say. So for example, people if they knew where the shareholders were, they would go and literally have a protest camp outside their house until that shareholder sold their shares. Or they would do home demos so they would go to their house and stand outside with a megaphone and then go somewhere else. And they obviously like groups unconnected to this campaign but who were part of the same movement might do other actions. For example, people in Animal Liberation Front would sink like yachts of directors, for example they'd find out where they were going on holiday and then take an action like that, which obviously I'm not advocating any illegal stuff with Corporate Watch. But I'm just saying you can creatively impact these people. And the impact that it had on hunting in life sciences was HLS actually lost their licence to operate four times. People thought they were going to close down and then the government kind of rescued them. But they lost like hundreds of suppliers every year, loads of customers, they had to stop being a kind of publicly listed company, they got kicked off the London Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange. They lost loads of shareholders, they didn't have a bank anymore, and they had to bank with`the government, They didn't have insurance anymore, they had to have insurance via the government. And all of this was kind of through like strategic targeting of companies and individuals and really recognising that trying to see like the power relationships at play. So if a director, for example of a company that was supplying HLS was like particularly stubborn and wouldn't kind of shift like they were very happy to continue to make money from this kind of like mass like torture of animals basically. So people from SHAC might then speak to the wife of the director and she might have like more emotional influence on that director, and then that director might eventually kind of capitulate and stop working with HLS. 

So I remember one example of hearing about some people went to the hairdresser's of director of one of the companies that were being targeted at the time and told them all about HLS and gave them leaflets and information. And then this local hairdresser refused to serve this director anymore, and told everyone locally what they were doing and how they made money. And then finally this director stopped trading with HLS and that had a significant financial impact on the company. So it's very possible to kind of research individuals and campaign against them in different ways, as kind of pressure points in the corporate system. So yeah, so again, coming back to your practise best way you're going to get new skills is through doing this stuff over and over again. So please revisit the company you're researching try to find out who the Chief Executive Officer is, and maybe just write a little short paragraph about them. look at the questions I've included. So who are they? What are their influences? Who are they connected to? Are they connected to any particular charities? Do they work for any other companies? Maybe you need to look them up on Companies House, maybe you could look them up on social media, just see what you can find out. And similarly, like add to your your kind of mind map, who are the board members? What are their names? Can you just make a few comments about each of them just to cement these research skills. Okay.