Plugdin interview: The power of people-first leadership with Peter Connolly, Toro Solutions

After a successful career in the military, Peter Connolly has transitioned into corporate security as the founder and CEO of Toro Solutions. Now, he applies his leadership skills to a new kind of defence, protecting businesses from an evolving landscape of threats.

From organised crime and AI-driven scams to risks posed by rogue nation states, Peter navigates a complex security environment while also leading a fast-growing company. His approach? A strong commitment. to his team, a focus on company culture, and the leadership principles he honed in the British Army.

We sat down with Peter to learn about his journey, his leadership philosophy, and some of the growing threats he believes every business should consider.

 

Hi Peter, could you start by telling us a bit about yourself and your background before Toro Solutions?

Sure, so I spent 12 years in the British Military during a period that was defined by 9/11, and which included tours of Iraq, Afghanistan and East Africa. Like many veterans, when it came time to leave I wasn’t sure what to do next. I knew I wanted to stay within risk management and security, and through a mix of luck and support from others I found my way into the corporate world.

But that transition isn’t easy for a lot of people. One thing that stood out to me was how few UK military veterans ended up working in the tech sector. Looking at the stats, around 15% of veterans moved into manufacturing, 12% to transportation, but only 4% ended up in information, communications, and technology (ICT). Given the unique skills veterans bring to the table – problem-solving, leadership, communication, and innovation – it seemed like a missed opportunity.

That led me and three friends to co-found TechVets, a nonprofit aimed at inspiring service leavers to explore careers in tech. We wanted to show them that they didn’t have to be ultra-technical to succeed in tech, and that the soft skills they had learned in the military were actually critical in that sector. We scaled TechVets to a point where it had a full-time management team. Now, over 200 veterans land tech jobs each year through TechVets – all for free, with no recruitment fees or strings attached, just supporting good people into good jobs.
 

You then later founded Toro Solutions. How did that come about?

It stemmed from my interests in defence and cyber. I started off by performing penetration testing for clients, attacking them in the same way organised criminals, hackers or nation states would. I had no external investment, and the skills I had were either self-taught through books and YouTube videos, or learned from other people. Within a couple of years, I had a small team of ethical hackers, professional burglars and social engineers working for me, and we were running what’s called blended attacks – meaning we were combining both physical and digital attacks, looking for vulnerabilities in our clients’ defences.

That became our earliest USP, the fact that we understood the convergence of security where cyber, physical and people security meet, and recognising that criminals were becoming more sophisticated in their approach. The rules of engagement have changed. There’s now more of a kinetic aspect, so rather than dealing with espionage or cyber attacks in isolation, we’re dealing with more blended attacks. And of course these blended attacks require blended responses, which is what we specialise in.
 

That’s fascinating. Could you tell us a bit more about the state of the corporate security landscape, as you see it?

The security landscape is evolving rapidly, especially with the rise of AI. Businesses are generating and sharing more data than ever, often without fully understanding the risks. Many don’t yet have mature data management strategies or a clear grasp of changing compliance and regulatory requirements. This is a critical issue for any Chief Security Officer to navigate.

At the same time, cyber criminals are using AI to launch attack that are faster, more sophisticated, and harder to detect. In this AI arms race, smaller businesses – those without the resources for high-end security tools – are at the greatest risk.
 

Are there any other major threats on your radar?

Nation-state threats and disinformation are growing concerns. We’re in an era where misinformation spread rapidly, making public resilience and critical thinking more important than ever. This means getting people to consider the sources of the information they consume, while we look for technological solutions to combat disinformation.

Another key risk area is the supply chain. This is what we call the “soft underbelly” of businesses and governments. Recent attacks have shown how vulnerable supply chains can be, and we’re seeing increased pressure on suppliers to meet stricter security standards. Going forward, third-party risk management will be essential to secure business operations.
 

How would you describe your approach to leadership, and how has it evolved since your time in the military?

My leadership style is very people-first. I believe people are everything in an organisation. They represent your business, shape its success, and reflect its values. Building strong relationships and fostering a culture that embodies the values you want to see are essential.

My time in the military has definitely shaped my approach. I quickly realised that many businesses lack the principles shared by those in the military—such as a shared culture, shared values, and creating a safe space for ideas to be shared. As soon as I realised this, defining a strong company culture became my top priority, and I’ve since build a leadership framework around it. Ultimately, I’ve found that whether in the high-stakes world of military operations or in a business environment, those fundamental principles of leadership don’t change.
 

On that note, what is it that you look for in your people?

I'm a real advocate for the idea that it's better to find someone with the right qualities and the right potential, and then train them to grow within the business, rather than recruiting purely for skills. The qualities I look for are shaped by our core values, which are very important to us. In fact, one of the things we assess for when recruiting is how aligned an individual is to our values.

I also look for people who I can trust to be representatives of the company. For this, they need certain qualities like adaptability, resilience when facing uncertain situations, and having the ability to innovate in tough situations. They need to care about our clients and understand what it is they need, understand their businesses, and trying to identify ways to deliver as much value as possible.
 

Does this approach extend to your leadership team as well?

Yes. I’m very fortunate, in that I’ve got a great leadership team within the business. We're all very open and supportive of each other, and we've got a series of mentors and advisors who've helped us along the way, too.

I never studied business, so I didn't understand the first thing about it when I left the military. But finding experts with like-minded values and partners who are willing to support each other in that ecosystem, I’ve found, is really important. That's one of my top pieces of advice for people looking to go out and start their own business, is to find like-minded partners and support each other along the way.
 

Does that approach apply to your client relationships too?

Absolutely. We’re very much in the business of trust. Our clients are trusting us to perform highly sensitive tasks, so we never take that trust for granted. With that commitment to building and maintaining trust, we’ve found much of our business comes through referrals and word-of-mouth. That makes it tricky to scale, of course, so naturally we do marketing and sales outreach at the same time, but as our reputation has grown over 10 years, we’ve found our clients stay with us and make us their single trusted partner for all their security needs.
 

Looking back, what would you say is the most important lesson you’ve learned during your leadership journey?

Like many businesses, we had a moment during the pandemic where we had to take a long, hard look at how we could continue to support our clients. One of the reasons we not only survived, but thrived during the pandemic is that we adopted a dynamic mindset. We looked for ways to diversify, identified emerging risks, and forecast how the needs of certain sectors would change. Then we picked up the phones, spoke to our clients and let them know all the ways we could help them. It was that dynamic framework, quick communication, and dedication to our clients that ultimately helped us continue on the path to growth.
 

And finally, what’s next for Toro Solutions?

Firstly, we think there are huge opportunities to help businesses better understand AI risk, especially as new legislations begin to reshape resilience strategies. We’re developing our own smart tech to monitor and report threats in real-time, along with a 24/7 security support platform – Toros Secure 360 – which we’ll be launching in March.

Another focus is raising awareness of converged security – the intersection of cyber, physical, and human threats – and helping leaders develop frameworks and tools to be able to handle these threats. It’s an established concept but it's still dangerously underutilised in the business world, so we’ll be looking to raise the bar in the industry and push people to make it a priority.

 

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