Keepers of Confidence. Protectors of Legacy. Mastery in Craft.
Private. Invitation Only. Protection Reimagined.
Private. Exacting. By referral only. Membership is reserved for principals whose standards mirror our own.
Private. Exacting. By referral only. Membership is reserved for principals whose standards mirror our own.
Enter a Realm Reserved for Discerning Members
Net-worth individuals & family offices whose standards mirror our own.
Tailored. Unseen. Beyond Comparison.
Protection services for people, reputations, & estates
Built for your estate
Where legacies are shielded discreetly, and confidence is cultivated by design. Every environment, asset, and routine is different. So is our approach.
Where legacies are shielded discreetly, and confidence is cultivated by design. Every environment, asset, and routine is different. So is our approach.
Protection that moves with you
Continuity without disruption
Your life stays exactly as it is…only safer, quieter, and fully under your control.
Keepers of Confidence. Protectors of Legacy. Mastery in Craft.
Meet the Leaders behind 1823 Black Label
M. Todd Martin
Co-Founder & Principal
Co-Founder & Principal
Todd Martin approaches resilience as both a leadership responsibility and a systems problem.
As co-founder of 1823, his work focuses on helping organizations, family offices, principals, and leadership teams build synchronized protection environments capable of reducing risk. Before it escalates into disruption, crisis, or loss.
Those experiences fundamentally changed the way he thinks about protection.
In Todd’s view, most organizations still approach risks reactively. They wait for warning signs to become incidents, incidents to become crises, and crises to force change. By the time leadership recognizes the true scope of vulnerability, the damage has already begun.
That cycle is what ultimately led to the creation of 1823.
After years of witnessing repeated failures across both public institutions and private organizations, Todd became increasingly frustrated by fragmented systems. Siloed vendors, reactive security models, and leadership teams operating without a clear understanding of their actual exposure.
Many organizations had technology.
They had policies.
They had guards, cameras, access control, or monitoring.
But very few had synchronization.
Very few understood how infrastructure, intelligence, leadership, communication, and operational workflows needed to function together under pressure.
Fewer still understood how quickly human behavior, digital exposure, and crisis response failures could compound once those systems became fragmented.
That realization became one of the core philosophies behind 1823: Resilience only works when the layers protecting an organization operate as a coordinated system rather than isolated functions.
Todd often describes protection through the concept of layered architecture.
A resilient organization doesn’t rely on a single person, tool, or response mechanism. It builds concentric layers capable of identifying threats early, absorbing disruption, and creating time to respond. This reduces the likelihood that problems ever reach the core of the business, family, or leadership structure.
That philosophy extends far beyond physical environments.
It includes operational vulnerabilities, digital exposure, internal threats, communication failures, reputational risks, and the countless small breakdowns that compound over time when nobody is actively paying attention.
In Todd’s experience, the most dangerous failures begin long before an actual attack or crisis occurs.
They begin with complacency.
With fragmented communication.
With leadership assuming visible security equals preparedness.
With organizations becoming so focused on short-term operations that they stop recognizing emerging vulnerabilities around them.
That’s why Todd places such a strong emphasis on proactive leadership and synchronized protection systems.
He believes resilience is not created through fear, appearances, or overreaction. It’s created through preparation, clarity, repetition, communication, accountability, and leadership willing to confront uncomfortable realities before circumstances force those realities into public view.
His operational philosophy is also heavily shaped by what he calls the “Protector Six Cs”: courage, competency, communication, compassion, creativity, and collaboration.
Those principles emerged not from theory, but from analyzing real-world failures where hesitation, confusion, ego, complacency, or lack of coordination cost innocent people their lives.
Today, they continue to guide how he evaluates leadership, resilience, and operational readiness inside the environments 1823 supports.
For Todd, protection has never been about intimidation, status, or appearing secure. It is about responsibility.
Responsibility to think ahead.
Responsibility to prepare.
Responsibility to protect people who may never fully realize how vulnerable they truly are.
At the center of his work is a deeply personal belief: If you have the ability to reduce suffering, strengthen environments, and help protect human life, then you carry an obligation to do so with seriousness, humility, and discipline.
His perspective was shaped over decades spent inside military intelligence, undercover operations, violent crime investigations, tactical response environments, and leadership roles within the Texas Rangers Special Operations Group. Throughout that time, Todd worked in situations where preparation, communication, and operational discipline often determined whether people survived.
Those experiences fundamentally changed the way he thinks about protection.
In Todd’s view, most organizations still approach risks reactively. They wait for warning signs to become incidents, incidents to become crises, and crises to force change. By the time leadership recognizes the true scope of vulnerability, the damage has already begun.
That cycle is what ultimately led to the creation of 1823.
After years of witnessing repeated failures across both public institutions and private organizations, Todd became increasingly frustrated by fragmented systems. Siloed vendors, reactive security models, and leadership teams operating without a clear understanding of their actual exposure.
Many organizations had technology.
They had policies.
They had guards, cameras, access control, or monitoring.
But very few had synchronization.
Very few understood how infrastructure, intelligence, leadership, communication, and operational workflows needed to function together under pressure.
Fewer still understood how quickly human behavior, digital exposure, and crisis response failures could compound once those systems became fragmented.
That realization became one of the core philosophies behind 1823: Resilience only works when the layers protecting an organization operate as a coordinated system rather than isolated functions.
Todd often describes protection through the concept of layered architecture.
A resilient organization doesn’t rely on a single person, tool, or response mechanism. It builds concentric layers capable of identifying threats early, absorbing disruption, and creating time to respond. This reduces the likelihood that problems ever reach the core of the business, family, or leadership structure.
That philosophy extends far beyond physical environments.
It includes operational vulnerabilities, digital exposure, internal threats, communication failures, reputational risks, and the countless small breakdowns that compound over time when nobody is actively paying attention.
In Todd’s experience, the most dangerous failures begin long before an actual attack or crisis occurs.
They begin with complacency.
With fragmented communication.
With leadership assuming visible security equals preparedness.
With organizations becoming so focused on short-term operations that they stop recognizing emerging vulnerabilities around them.
That’s why Todd places such a strong emphasis on proactive leadership and synchronized protection systems.
He believes resilience is not created through fear, appearances, or overreaction. It’s created through preparation, clarity, repetition, communication, accountability, and leadership willing to confront uncomfortable realities before circumstances force those realities into public view.
His operational philosophy is also heavily shaped by what he calls the “Protector Six Cs”: courage, competency, communication, compassion, creativity, and collaboration.
Those principles emerged not from theory, but from analyzing real-world failures where hesitation, confusion, ego, complacency, or lack of coordination cost innocent people their lives.
Today, they continue to guide how he evaluates leadership, resilience, and operational readiness inside the environments 1823 supports.
For Todd, protection has never been about intimidation, status, or appearing secure. It is about responsibility.
Responsibility to think ahead.
Responsibility to prepare.
Responsibility to protect people who may never fully realize how vulnerable they truly are.
At the center of his work is a deeply personal belief: If you have the ability to reduce suffering, strengthen environments, and help protect human life, then you carry an obligation to do so with seriousness, humility, and discipline.
Christian Petrou
Co-Founder & President of Protective Infrastructure
Co-Founder & President of Protective Infrastructure
Christian Petrou approaches resilience through the lens of systems, human behavior, and operational reality.
As co-founder of 1823, his work centers on helping organizations, estates, and leadership teams reduce the hidden vulnerabilities that emerge when infrastructure, technology, vendors, personnel, and operations stop functioning as a coordinated whole.
His background spans decades inside high-consequence operational environments, where surveillance systems, network infrastructure, physical protection, workflow management, and real-time decision-making all had to work together under pressure.
Early in his career, while overseeing complex technology and operational environments, he developed a reputation for solving problems that existed between disciplines. Christian finds the failures that occur—not because a single system broke—but because nobody was looking at how everything connected.
That systems-first mindset became the foundation of how he approaches risk resilience today.
In Christian’s view, most organizations aren’t lacking technology. They’re lacking integration, clarity, operational discipline, and honest assessment. Too often, companies mistake tools for preparedness, compliance for resilience, and visibility for understanding.
This results in fragmented environments where vendors operate in silos, leadership lacks accurate operational awareness, and vulnerabilities compound quietly over time until pressure exposes them all at once.
Much of Christian’s work focuses on identifying those blind spots before they become consequences.
That includes everything from operational workflows and escalation procedures to infrastructure visibility, human behavior, internal threats, communication breakdowns, and the unintended weaknesses created by rapid growth. He believes technology should support sound operational thinking… not replace it.
One of the core principles behind 1823 is that resilience cannot be outsourced through products alone.
Cameras, analytics, monitoring platforms, access control systems, and automation tools are useful. But they’re only as effective as the people, processes, and decision-making structures surrounding them. Christian has spent years testing technologies and operational models in live environments, often finding that systems which appear sophisticated in demonstrations fail quickly when introduced to real-world unpredictability.
That skepticism toward “security theater” continues to shape the firm’s approach today.
Rather than relying on rigid templates or one-size-fits-all solutions, Christian focuses on understanding how each organization actually operates.
How information flows.
Where friction accumulates.
How people behave under stress.
Where dependencies exist.
What happens when routine operations are interrupted.
He is particularly attentive to internal vulnerabilities. Not just malicious actors, but also the everyday breakdowns caused by poor communication, weak training, misplaced trust, and operational complacency. In his experience, the most damaging failures often begin long before an external threat ever appears.
This practical, systems-oriented philosophy is also why 1823 prioritizes open architecture and long-term flexibility over dependency-driven models. Christian believes clients should fully understand and control the environments they rely on, without being trapped inside proprietary ecosystems or vendor relationships that prioritize recurring revenue over operational effectiveness.
The organizations that tend to align most closely with 1823 are leadership teams and operators who understand that continuity, resilience, and protection are ongoing disciplines… not isolated purchases. They value honest assessment, operational maturity, and partners willing to tell them uncomfortable truths before those truths become expensive realities.
At the center of Christian’s work is a simple but deeply held principle: Leave people, systems, and environments better than you found them.
That philosophy continues to shape how he approaches leadership, resilience, and the responsibility that comes with helping organizations protect what they have built.
His background spans decades inside high-consequence operational environments, where surveillance systems, network infrastructure, physical protection, workflow management, and real-time decision-making all had to work together under pressure.
Early in his career, while overseeing complex technology and operational environments, he developed a reputation for solving problems that existed between disciplines. Christian finds the failures that occur—not because a single system broke—but because nobody was looking at how everything connected.
That systems-first mindset became the foundation of how he approaches risk resilience today.
In Christian’s view, most organizations aren’t lacking technology. They’re lacking integration, clarity, operational discipline, and honest assessment. Too often, companies mistake tools for preparedness, compliance for resilience, and visibility for understanding.
This results in fragmented environments where vendors operate in silos, leadership lacks accurate operational awareness, and vulnerabilities compound quietly over time until pressure exposes them all at once.
Much of Christian’s work focuses on identifying those blind spots before they become consequences.
That includes everything from operational workflows and escalation procedures to infrastructure visibility, human behavior, internal threats, communication breakdowns, and the unintended weaknesses created by rapid growth. He believes technology should support sound operational thinking… not replace it.
One of the core principles behind 1823 is that resilience cannot be outsourced through products alone.
Cameras, analytics, monitoring platforms, access control systems, and automation tools are useful. But they’re only as effective as the people, processes, and decision-making structures surrounding them. Christian has spent years testing technologies and operational models in live environments, often finding that systems which appear sophisticated in demonstrations fail quickly when introduced to real-world unpredictability.
That skepticism toward “security theater” continues to shape the firm’s approach today.
Rather than relying on rigid templates or one-size-fits-all solutions, Christian focuses on understanding how each organization actually operates.
How information flows.
Where friction accumulates.
How people behave under stress.
Where dependencies exist.
What happens when routine operations are interrupted.
He is particularly attentive to internal vulnerabilities. Not just malicious actors, but also the everyday breakdowns caused by poor communication, weak training, misplaced trust, and operational complacency. In his experience, the most damaging failures often begin long before an external threat ever appears.
This practical, systems-oriented philosophy is also why 1823 prioritizes open architecture and long-term flexibility over dependency-driven models. Christian believes clients should fully understand and control the environments they rely on, without being trapped inside proprietary ecosystems or vendor relationships that prioritize recurring revenue over operational effectiveness.
The organizations that tend to align most closely with 1823 are leadership teams and operators who understand that continuity, resilience, and protection are ongoing disciplines… not isolated purchases. They value honest assessment, operational maturity, and partners willing to tell them uncomfortable truths before those truths become expensive realities.
At the center of Christian’s work is a simple but deeply held principle: Leave people, systems, and environments better than you found them.
That philosophy continues to shape how he approaches leadership, resilience, and the responsibility that comes with helping organizations protect what they have built.
Susan McCormick
Susan McCormick
Chief Member Relations Officer
Chief Member Relations Officer
Susan McCormick believes trust is earned long before it is needed.
As Director of Client Relations for 1823 Black Label, Susan helps principals, families, and advisors navigate complex decisions with confidence.
At the center of those decisions is trust.
For decades, Susan worked in healthcare environments where families were often facing uncertainty, difficult decisions, and situations they had never encountered before. Whether supporting physicians, coordinating care, or helping families through some of life’s most challenging moments, she became known for a simple philosophy:
Take care of people first.
Everything else will follow.
That belief has guided her throughout her career.
Susan spent years helping families navigate situations they did not fully understand. Many were overwhelmed. Some were scared. All were making decisions that carried significant consequences for the people they loved.
Her role was never to simply provide information.
It was to provide confidence.
She became known as the person people called when they didn’t know where to turn.
She didn’t always have the answer.
But she was committed to finding it.
That commitment earned the trust of physicians, referral partners, patients, and families across every stage of her career.
For Susan, relationships are built on honesty, integrity, and follow-through.
She believes trust is lost the moment someone begins prioritizing their own interests over the interests of the people they serve.
That conviction has shaped both her professional career and her personal life.
Her strong reputation is one of the things she values most.
Susan’s connection to 1823 began through a lifelong friendship with co-founder Todd Martin.
As she learned more about the firm’s mission, she saw something familiar.
Just as families in healthcare often face challenges they don’t fully understand, successful families today face increasingly complex risks, responsibilities, and decisions that few people are prepared to navigate alone.
What resonated most was not simply what 1823 does.
It was how the firm approaches people.
She saw a team committed to telling the truth, doing the right thing, and helping families address problems before those problems become crises.
Living in the Park Cities, Susan has seen firsthand how success often creates complexity.
Families grow.
Wealth moves across generations.
Responsibilities multiply.
Travel introduces new concerns.
Relationships become more complicated.
Most families are prepared for some of it.
Few are prepared for all of it.
She believes many successful families know they should be thinking more proactively about these issues.
They simply do not know where to begin.
Today, Susan helps bridge that gap.
Her role centers on relationships, trust, and stewardship.
She helps families connect with the right people, ask the right questions, and gain access to resources that can help them protect what they’ve built.
She also serves as an advocate for the client experience, helping ensure every relationship begins with the same values that have guided her throughout her career:
Honesty.
Service.
Integrity.
And genuine care for people.
For Susan, success has never been measured by titles or accomplishments.
It’s measured by relationships.
By the people she’s helped.
And by the example she leaves for her children and those around her.
Her belief is simple:
Do the right thing.
Take care of people.
Leave them better than you found them.
Susan McCormick believes trust is earned long before it is needed.
As Director of Client Relations for 1823 Black Label, Susan helps principals, families, and advisors navigate complex decisions with confidence.
At the center of those decisions is trust.
For decades, Susan worked in healthcare environments where families were often facing uncertainty, difficult decisions, and situations they had never encountered before. Whether supporting physicians, coordinating care, or helping families through some of life’s most challenging moments, she became known for a simple philosophy:
Take care of people first.
Everything else will follow.
That belief has guided her throughout her career.
Susan spent years helping families navigate situations they did not fully understand. Many were overwhelmed. Some were scared. All were making decisions that carried significant consequences for the people they loved.
Her role was never to simply provide information.
It was to provide confidence.
She became known as the person people called when they didn’t know where to turn.
She didn’t always have the answer.
But she was committed to finding it.
That commitment earned the trust of physicians, referral partners, patients, and families across every stage of her career.
For Susan, relationships are built on honesty, integrity, and follow-through.
She believes trust is lost the moment someone begins prioritizing their own interests over the interests of the people they serve.
That conviction has shaped both her professional career and her personal life.
Her strong reputation is one of the things she values most.
Susan’s connection to 1823 began through a lifelong friendship with co-founder Todd Martin.
As she learned more about the firm’s mission, she saw something familiar.
Just as families in healthcare often face challenges they don’t fully understand, successful families today face increasingly complex risks, responsibilities, and decisions that few people are prepared to navigate alone.
What resonated most was not simply what 1823 does.
It was how the firm approaches people.
She saw a team committed to telling the truth, doing the right thing, and helping families address problems before those problems become crises.
Living in the Park Cities, Susan has seen firsthand how success often creates complexity.
Families grow.
Wealth moves across generations.
Responsibilities multiply.
Travel introduces new concerns.
Relationships become more complicated.
Most families are prepared for some of it.
Few are prepared for all of it.
She believes many successful families know they should be thinking more proactively about these issues.
They simply do not know where to begin.
Today, Susan helps bridge that gap.
Her role centers on relationships, trust, and stewardship.
She helps families connect with the right people, ask the right questions, and gain access to resources that can help them protect what they’ve built.
She also serves as an advocate for the client experience, helping ensure every relationship begins with the same values that have guided her throughout her career:
Honesty.
Service.
Integrity.
And genuine care for people.
For Susan, success has never been measured by titles or accomplishments.
It’s measured by relationships.
By the people she’s helped.
And by the example she leaves for her children and those around her.
Her belief is simple:
Do the right thing.
Take care of people.
Leave them better than you found them.
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Request a Private Consultation.
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