Business Cards—Going out of Business?

“With the wave of kidnappings in Brazil, it is safer for executives not to go around with cards that reveal their job title and prestige,” says security consultant Carl Paladini, as reported in the Brazilian business journal Exame. To criminals, such personal information is a tip-off concerning one’s financial worth. Vagner D’Angelo, a director for Kroll, a large security firm, goes so far as to say that “the contents of your wallet can ruin your life.” He advises business people in high-risk countries to remove all references to titles and status from their cards and to “dispense with the sophisticated paper [and] embossed details” on their cards. Fearing that criminals will soon wake up to this tactic as well, some executives have done away with business cards altogether.