This article attempts to compare the results of two research projects conducted independently in Paris and Montreal on the same topic : the management of corporate security-safety understood through the eyes of risk managers who face a diversified pool of vulnerabilities, risks and threats. The French component of this article investigates the competencies and roles of security managers, based on their professional experiences (exclusively private, former police and military officers), while the Quebec component highlights how these individuals design and exploit their relational networks. The comparison revolves around empirical data drawn from two security regimes : the more violence-prone hospital environment and the strategic critical infrastructures of global mobility that are international airports. A more detailed understanding of these risk managers’ professional identity allows us to contribute to the plural policing approach, which in our opinion represents a more fertile interpretative framework than the privatization paradigm, whose heuristic value is losing its currency.