The self-proclaimed ‘world’s greatest corporate spy’ has shared the tricks he used to get information from multi-millionaire companies.
Robert Kerbeck is an Ivy League graduate who tried and failed at being an actor. However, his career path took a sharp turn when he entered an apprenticeship as a corporate spy.
Amid the recent release of his new book Ruse: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street, Kerbeck spoke with the New York Post to lift the curtain on some of his techniques.
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Putting his acting skills to good use, the author made money by lying to people on the phone and charming businesses into giving valuable employment information – a method called rusing.
Headhunters would then pay big money for this intel about the structure of finance, healthcare and tech firms in order to poach their employees.
‘Let’s say the two top traders at a Wall Street firm are managing directors,’ the 58-year-old told the outlet. ‘They make a ton of money and would be expensive to hire. But if the number-three broker is an associate, he’s a rock star who’s unknown and won’t cost you the farm. I specialized in finding that guy for the headhunter.’
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Kerbeck went on to reveal that the ‘funniest ruses’ were the ones where he put on fake accents, adding, ‘I was particularly good at sounding German.’
He would say things like, ‘I am calling from Frankfurt. The regulators are breathing down our necks. I need everyone in the department and their internal rankings.’ If asked why he needed the information, Kerbeck would reply, ‘As you say in America, killing all za birds with one stone.’
In a separate anecdote, he described a time he pretended to be an IT worker amid the Y2K panic, using the air of concern to find out how much money certain employees generated.
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As discussed in his book, Kerbeck tried to make a name for himself in the acting world, moving to New York in the late 1980s where he struggled to make a reliable source of income.
So when a friend introduced him to a woman who hired actors to do corporate spy work, he was more than happy to oblige.
Fast forward to the 90s and Kerbeck moved to Los Angeles where he bounced between acting and corporate spying, but after a failed pilot for a show called NightMan, it became clear that the latter was the better option.
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Of course, there were some ups and downs along the way, and Kerbeck eventually left the rusing business to pursue a career in writing and day trading.
When asked about whether corporate spying still happens, he said, ‘It is down-and-dirty, alive and well.’
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Daisy Phillipson