Who We Are: Brian Willingham, Recovering Private Investigator

His name is Brian Willingham, and he’s a private investigator. But he sometimes hesitates to say so.

Willingham, a New York investigator and Certified Fraud Examiner, has made it his mission to liberate the PI profession from the myth of the shady, swashbuckling shamus.

A few weeks ago, Brian Willingham sat down in a dark room, his face lit by the blue light of his computer. The 38-year old private investigator had done this many times before. The dinner dishes were clean. His two children were safely in bed. And now, Brian considered, facing a blinking cursor, it’s time to write.

“Hello,” he typed. “My name is Brian, and I am a recovering private investigator.”

Willingham is the bright-eyed, sometimes scraggly-bearded man behind Diligentia Group, a well-regarded company made up of exactly one investigator: him. After working for nine years with a New York investigative firm, Willingham established his own freelance business in 2009 with the intention of getting more work done on his own schedule, and the hope of increased efficiency and flexibility.

He has since worked on countless projects — investigations as notorious as the Bernie Madoff case. And though he is quick to point out that he was, “frankly, a very small part” of an investigative team of hundreds, Willingham says, “It was absolutely exhilarating to be part of something that was hands down the biggest fraud that has ever faced the earth.

“It was the opportunity of a lifetime,” he says.

That opportunity didn’t arrive at random. Willingham has spent years establishing himself as a competent investigator with integrity and credibility. He’s a Certified Fraud Examiner with a flair for the written word. (He writes for several industry publications {including this one} and for his popular company blog.)

What galls Willingham is that no matter the depth and breadth of his education, many outside the PI field see only what they want to see—the unscrupulous gumshoe stereotype. After conducting his own survey, Willingham discovered that most people describe private investigators as “shady; ” many assume investigators regularly break the law.

I’m a regular guy. I have two kids. I like sports. I never had a police background. I don’t carry a gun…And it’s not necessary for me to have this larger-than-life persona to be successful in this business.

It’s why he sat down in the dark one night and prepared his own “profession confession.” He hadn’t set out to lambaste his own industry. He loves his work. But then again, twelve years earlier, when Willingham began in this field, he didn’t know that his job would be so grossly misunderstood.

“Investigators don’t have a very good reputation, and it’s really unfortunate,” he tells me through the screen. We’re speaking on Skype, and Willingham is in the same blue-lit room where he wrote his admission just days earlier. He explains that dubious practices and pop culture stereotypes put forth a sexy, rough and tumble image for private investigators that he simply doesn’t see when he looks in the mirror.

Willingham castle“I’m anything but that, you know?” he says, stroking his chin pensively, a note of sadness in his voice.

“I’m a regular guy,” he adds, his voice quickening into defiance. “I have two kids. I like sports. I never had a police background. I don’t carry a gun. I am who I am, and I think I’m pretty damn good at what I do. And it’s not necessary for me to have this larger-than-life persona to be successful in this business.”

Willingham knows he’s struck a deep chord with his PI colleagues: When he published the post, dozens of other investigators promptly weighed in to agree. But no matter how long Willingham grapples with his professional title, he is successful in this business precisely because he’s redefining it.

Related articles:

What Is the Perception of a Private Investigator? (Survey results, Diligentia Group blog)

Hello. My name is Brian, and I am a recovering private investigator. (Diligentia Group blog)