Career history

Four decades
in context.

From South African Special Forces service to Presidential protection, Iraq security leadership and the Mozambique LNG project.

Executive profile

Operational experience developed into leadership, instruction and analysis.

Johan Raath is a senior security, military-training and protection professional with approximately four decades of combined military and private-sector experience in demanding operational environments.

His career brings together South African Special Forces service, formal military instruction, Presidential and executive protection, high-threat security operations, critical-infrastructure security, crisis response, intelligence-led threat assessment and senior security management.

After operational service in 1 Reconnaissance Regiment, he became an instructor at the Special Forces Training Wing. He subsequently founded a specialist training and consultancy business, served on Presidential-protection assignments, managed major security operations in Iraq and applied his training and operational background across Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

His paramedic and security-management qualifications complement practical experience establishing security and emergency systems for remote camps, reconstruction sites, oil fields, port infrastructure and other complex projects. His work has consistently combined ground-level operational awareness with the development of people, procedures and protective systems.

40 yearsMilitary and private-sector experience

3 PresidentsProtection details and PPU support

10 sitesIraq reconstruction security responsibility

US$100m+Historical project assets protected

Career chapters

A career built across operations, training and command.

1986–1992 · Southern Africa

Special Forces operator and instructor

After completing South African Special Forces selection and individual training, Johan served operationally in 1 Reconnaissance Regiment, including as a team medic. He was later posted to the Special Forces Training Wing, where he qualified in military instructional methodology and advanced urban operations. His instructional and development work covered guerrilla and unconventional warfare, urban warfare and CQB, VIP protection, clandestine urban operations and specialist driving. He left the SADF in 1992 at the rank of Staff Sergeant.

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1992–2001 · South Africa and international assignments

Building a specialist training capability

After leaving Special Forces, Johan established a tactical training and security consultancy business. He developed and delivered executive-protection, tactical-weapons, urban-warfare, counter-ambush, anti-hijack and advanced-driving programmes. This period combined formal instruction with operational security work and laid the foundation for later military, Presidential-protection and high-threat assignments.

2001–2004 · Madagascar, Sierra Leone and Haiti

Presidential and aviation protection

Assignments included selecting and training an executive-protection team for a Presidential-election mission in Madagascar, aviation security and VIP protection in Sierra Leone, and service as a senior agent on the Haitian President’s close-protection detail. His duties included advance work, Counter Assault Team integration, armoured motorcades, helicopter missions and in-house Presidential Protection Unit training.

2004–2017 · Iraq

Reconstruction, oil fields and national operations

Across more than a decade on the ground in Iraq, Johan progressed through PSD team leader, site and country security management, senior project management and national operations roles. He protected engineers and reconstruction teams, established security for an oil-field project, managed security supporting the Al Faw Grand Port development and later oversaw Iraq-wide movements and project support from Baghdad. His responsibilities included force protection, convoy and route security, intelligence-led threat assessment, emergency planning, multinational guard-force development and government liaison.

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2007–2022 · Africa and international

Crisis response, advisory work and authorship

Alongside and between long-term deployments, Johan supported crisis extraction and evacuation planning in Africa and North Africa, threat assessment and VIP protection connected to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and specialist research into maritime counter-piracy concepts. After Iraq, he continued advising on conflict-zone security, counter-terrorism, Special Forces training and Presidential-protection capability. He also published Blood Money and A Breed Apart.

2023–Present · Afungi, Cabo Delgado

Mozambique LNG Security Operations Center

Since May 2023, Johan has managed the Security Operations Center supporting the TotalEnergies Mozambique LNG project. In an active insurgency-threat environment, he coordinates surveillance and incident monitoring, communications, movement and convoy tracking, emergency-response support and the integration of intelligence and threat reporting into operational awareness and senior-management reporting.

The continuing chapter

Experience becomes valuable when it can protect people, prepare others and place present threats in their proper context.

Four decadesin context.