Oliver Gardiner

Managing Director

Active as a frontline operative within the security industry since 2002, Oliver spent several years working in a variety of environments and roles. He has gained experience in deployments as diverse as residential security teams (RST) for foreign dignitaries, at national and regional stadia, sporting and music events, backstage and front of house duties in concerts in London’s Royal Parks. He has also worked as part of specialist search teams working to ensure airline safety.

Drawing upon experiences within the industry both as a frontline supplier of a service and as a team member working for other providers, in February 2006 Oliver created Vespasian to establish a high quality service that he felt was missing within the market place. He wanted to attract motivated staff and to change the perception of private security within the community.

Ollie is passionate about Vespasian maintaining its family business roots and feeling, at the same time aiming for consistent business growth and developing  opportunities for operational team members to further their careers  through vocational training.

Ollie has always advocated further training and research within the industry.  Leading from the front, Ollie completed the industry renowned Bucks New University Foundation Degree in Crowd Safety Management in 2011 and has recently undertaken the BSc in Security Risk Management at Portsmouth University.

“The security and crowd management industries excite me. They are dynamic environments, ever changing to local, regional and national trends in society, politics, economics as well as the more obvious elements of threat and risk.

I love knowing that every day our team members are out working, helping people and making a positive difference to the lives of people they encounter.”

When asked about the future for Vespasian, Ollie goes on to say,

‘Vespasian is a family company and, as with all families, it is always growing and reacting to the changes of life. We have a great company with a brilliant group of people driving it forward. I see only great opportunities ahead.’

Fact about Ollie: Ollie built the first ever front of stage barrier to be deployed in South Sudan. He did this by hand and with minimal equipment for the We Want Peace concert in 2012.