About Us

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Empower provides de-escalation and personal safety training for staff-facing roles.

Training focuses on practical communication, risk awareness, and clear decision-making in everyday workplace and public-facing situations. 

Empower was established by Karl Laaks, whose background includes close protection, security consulting, security training, and martial arts instruction.

He has developed and delivered personal safety and workplace safety programmes in South Africa and New Zealand, collaborating with international subject matter experts.

For more than ten years, he has been, and continues to be, a facilitator of industry-standard NZQA Certificate of Approval (COA) training for the New Zealand security industry.

Empower is committed to harm minimisation, duty of care, and responsible training practice.

All programmes are designed to prioritise safety, proportional responses, and sound judgement, while recognising the real pressures faced by staff in frontline and public-facing roles.