About

Ombrex is an international security practice based in the Netherlands, co-founded by Björn and Mel. It operates through two connected functions: Ombrex Consulting, the strategic and analytical layer, and Ombrex Group, the operational layer. The applied research behind the practice is published separately at Protection in Shifting Domains.

How the practice is structured

Every client relationship begins and is held at Ombrex Consulting, which carries the analysis, the planning, and the contractual base of the practice from Eindhoven. Where an engagement requires operational delivery, that work is executed through Ombrex Group. The two functions are run by the same people to the same standard, so that what is designed and what is delivered never come apart.

Ombrex is structured deliberately as a senior practice rather than a large firm. Each engagement is led personally by one of the founders, who carries the relationship and the responsibility from first contact to closeout. Where additional capability is required, it is drawn from a vetted network of specialists, each known personally and selected to fit the assignment rather than maintained as permanent overhead. Senior clients do not want to manage a vendor relationship through three layers of account management. They want to speak with the person responsible.

For more information about the founders Björn en Mel please subscribe. This is for privacy and discretion in our world and clientele.

The founders

Björn Rifesser

Björn Rifesser co-founded Ombrex and leads its strategic and analytical function, Ombrex Consulting. He is based in Eindhoven.

From 2016 to 2023, he served as Head of Security to a royal household, where he built and led a multidisciplinary protection team of up to eleven commercial and governmental agents, developed the global security concept, and managed complex international travel and high-visibility operations, including head-of-state environments, annual United Nations General Assembly cycles, and official state visits.

Before Ombrex, he spent over fifteen years in close protection across Europe, the Gulf, the United States, and multiple international deployments, supporting clients across the HNWI and UHNWI spectrum, diplomatic environments, and royal households. He has lived on three continents and operated on five and works fluently in four languages.

An earlier foundation in project management and IT-related operational environments continues to inform the way Ombrex structures assignments: clear planning, disciplined coordination, information control, and an understanding of how physical, digital, and organisational risk connect. The academic foundation behind the practice includes an MSc in Diplomacy and Security Studies, with research in cognitive warfare, influence operations, and platform-enabled perception management. His applied analysis is published openly at Protection in Shifting Domains, where the working notebook of the practice is kept.

A long background in traditional Japanese martial arts, including jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, and aikido, and an earlier period as a dojo owner, continue to shape an operational philosophy built around discipline, calm presence, practical de-escalation, and risk-aware movement. The principles of budō and the Bushidō code, restraint, loyalty, courage, respect, and continuous self-correction, remain part of that outlook, as does shoshin, the beginner's mind: the discipline to stay teachable and to refine the fundamentals. Most recently this has continued through the practice of Kendo, approached as a study in timing, stillness, distance, and composure. That philosophy stands in deliberate contrast to the theatrical security the industry sometimes rewards.

Mel

Mel co-founded Ombrex and leads its operational function, Ombrex Group.

For the past ten years, Mel has served as a senior CPO, the most recent five as Head of Security and Protocol to a notable royal household, leading the protective architecture around the principal and the wider family across residential, travel, and high-visibility settings, a role that draws on a career built deliberately across the public and private sectors.

Before the current engagement, he spent over fifteen years in senior commercial protection, supporting UHNWI principals, public figures, and corporate clients across complex international operating environments. The work covered close protection, residential and estate security, secure travel, and the design and management of layered protective concepts for clients whose exposure required more than a single-discipline response.

The operational foundation beneath that career is unusual in both depth and breadth. Mel served in the Royal Dutch Marine Corps, with international crisis deployments and the discipline that environment instils. He then spent a decade with the Dutch Federal Police, Secret Service Unit, responsible for the protection of members of the royal house and senior diplomatic figures.

A former boxer and judoka, Mel brings the calm physical presence and quiet readiness of someone who has trained for confrontation and learned that the discipline is mostly in avoiding it. Time with family, travel, and distance from the operational tempo of the work matter to him. He speaks three languages fluently. Björn and Mel have worked together for close to a decade, first within the Gulf-based royal household where Mel was second-in-command during the build of the international protection programme, and now as co-founders of Ombrex. The complementarity is part of what defines the practice: the analytical and the operational, the strategic and the field, each carried by someone who has done it at the highest level.

The network

Ombrex draws on a vetted network of specialists across protective operations, intelligence and OSINT, cyber and digital risk, technical surveillance countermeasures, travel logistics, crisis communications, and adjacent fields. Network members come from specialist public-sector environments, law enforcement, intelligence-related roles, and senior private-sector protection practice. They are selected for judgment as much as for technical skill, and integrated into specific assignments rather than maintained as permanent overhead.

This structure allows the practice to operate internationally without the fixed cost base of a large firm, and to assemble the right team for each engagement rather than the team that happens to be available.

On references and discretion

Given the nature of the work, Ombrex does not name clients or detail past assignments in public. Detailed references and operational background are shared in confidence, on request, with serious enquiries.

For a sensitive enquiry, a direct conversation is the appropriate first step.