LifeShield names new CEO

LANGHORNE, Pa.—LifeShield, which provides DIY installed and professionally monitored security systems, today announced a new CEO, John Owens, as well as an enhanced business relationship with MasTec Advanced Technologies. LifeShield investor and outgoing CEO Mike Hagan will continue his role as chairman.

Culture is a primary task, Owens told Security Systems News. “I want to create a culture that is a winning culture—positive, optimistic and forward thinking.”

Prior to joining LifeShield, Owens was the CMO for financial services firm J.G. Wentworth, head of marketing for the digital bank ING DIRECT, and then became managing VP of bank marketing for Capital One when Capital One bought ING DIRECT.

Owens sees how his prior work experiences can impact LifeShield. “From a marketing and CMO perspective, one of the most important roles in a job is to really set the strategy of who you are, what you're one of, and why you're different,” Owens said. Evaluating the strategy is a critical first step, he said.

“I think in this space, customer experience is really critical. People, if they have an alarm system or home automation—they want it to work, they want you to be responsive, it has to be drop-dead simple so they don't need to think about it,” Owens said. “My experience at ING DIRECT was built on that; customer experience is critical, we sweated every detail—and the same at J.G. Wentworth.”

Owens added that the financial services world is a data-rich environment. “I think home security and home automation is the same, and we can get really thoughtful about how we use data to inform our decision and our strategy and our customer experience.”

Another strategic focus for Owens is building the LifeShield brand and reputation. “The focal point is to really focus on the reputation, and reputation is built out of experience, and experience is built out of sweating the details,” he said. When the company has that aligned, the next step is to make sure that, from a marketing perspective, LifeShield is finding the right consumers.

“Most importantly, I always work from the customer back—what does the customer need? And I love the fact that Doug [Bellenger, LifeShield's chief product officer] and his team think that way as well. We're really trying to find ways to differentiate by giving customers a very simple experience that they are super confident in,” Owens said.

MasTec and LifeShield started working together several years ago. The renewed partnership will mean that MasTec can install security and home automation systems for LifeShield customers. “We've built this product to be easy to install, and we've made it as simple as possible to come on board, but people also want to have confidence that they have the ability to use somebody else if they need to,” Bellenger told SSN.

LifeShield, now owned by Hawk Capital Partners, was formerly owned by DIRECTV.

“MasTec has been a partner of ours in the past, when we were with DIRECTV. We had a really great relationship. We have a ton of respect for their installers and their ability to not just put a product in a home but to get a consumer excited about it and make sure that they're fully secure … and they understand how to use the system,” said Bellenger.