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Van Bemmelen appointed CEO of Blue Security

Henk van Bemmelen has been appointed CEO of Blue Security following the recent retirement of the company’s founder, Peter Anderson. Van Bemmelen previously held the post of managing director.

Henk van Bemmelen.

Van Bemmelen, aged 48, has spent his working career to fight crime, starting off as a young, armed response officer working for Sandton Sentry Security, which was then owned by Klipton Group in Johannesburg in 1991 and working his way up the ranks. He believes his passion and dedication to make a difference in the community in the fight against crime was what placed him on an upward trajectory in the businesses he has worked for over the years.

Van Bemmelen made the most of all the training made available to him and he was eventually promoted to operations manager to run a Durban office for Klipton Group, which later became ADT when the firm was bought by Tyco International. He joined Blue Security as operations director in 2011 and just three years later he was promoted to managing director.

But even at the top of his game Van Bemmelen believes one is never too old to learn. The rapid pace of the fourth industrial revolution which is constantly changing the security industry is something that he is harnessing to ensure the company remains firmly ahead of the pack.

“Staff training has always been top of our list because we are only as good as our people so we invest in ongoing training and development. Criminals are also constantly changing their strategies and if we don’t keep ahead of them we will get left behind.”

Some of the client-facing smart technologies now implemented by the firm in South Africa include the Blue Mobile App which allows users to remotely control their alarm systems, gates, doors, lights and geysers, CCTV surveillance cameras, instant photographic verification from the scene of a crime and number plate recognition cameras that are used to identify suspicious vehicles and to net stolen and hijacked vehicles.

“I think CCTV cameras are the next big phase of security and we are not far behind in South Africa as we already have a lot of smart solutions on the market as an alarm can now have a CCTV camera attached and video verification. Face recognition cameras are also starting to roll out into our systems,” van Bemmelen said.

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