A former army intelligence officer has decided to "take ownership" of his stammer after a live television appearance left him vulnerable to online trolls.
Forbes McKenzie, 46, originally from Hawick, , first became aware of his speech impediment at the age of seven when he was bullied by children at school. The chief executive of McKenzie Intelligence Services, an insurance company based in central London supporting businesses and individuals through global conflicts and natural disasters, he went on to spend 10 years in the British Army from 2001 to 2011.
He completed two tours in Northern Ireland, one in the Balkans, one in Iraq and two in . While serving in the Intelligence Corps, he was tasked with delivering daily presentations to his team, which caused him considerable stress. After returning from his first tour in Afghanistan in 2006, Forbes was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder due to being in constant fight or flight mode during active service.
This led him to focus on building his company from scratch in 2012, which is now a multimillion-pound enterprise. Given his background in intelligence services, Forbes is frequently asked to comment on conflicts and natural disasters in the media, most recently the Israel-Hamas war and Hurricane Milton in Florida.
In 2022, he featured on Sky News for half a year, from April until October, providing daily updates on the conflict. On October 10 that year, he struggled to get through one particular segment which he said was “paralysing”, prompting online trolls to circulate the video clip on TikTok and bully him – but Forbes is hoping to more raise awareness of speech differences.
However, Forbes aims to increase awareness about differences in speech. Speaking of his personal struggle with a stammer, Forbes said: "Speaking out about my stammer is a very personal thing and I want to take ownership of it and push myself out there.
"A stammer is something people carry with them throughout their lives and there’s a certain stigma attached to it. I get a really tight feeling in my chest when I’m talking about my stammer. I trip over certain sounds and syllables – words like ‘engineering’ or ‘intelligence’ are tricky, which is ironic considering it’s the name of my company. It’s only been later in life where I’ve mapped the correlation between points of anxiety and my stammer."
Forbes said he was around seven when he first realised he had a stammer. He added: "I first noticed it when I got bullied at school, I didn’t know I had a stammer and the first time I was told about it was from the other kids." Moving beyond his early life experiences, after completing his education at the University of Glasgow studying geography, he joined military training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on September 9, 2001, just two days before 9/11.
"It was a very different experience to the army we all thought we were joining two days beforehand," he said, recounting his Sandhurst days where the task of delivering a daily report to a staff member filled him with dread. "People who stammer often worry about speaking if they know they’ve got to say one particular word – you’ll get to that word, you’re so frighted to say it that you bypass it and then you end up going down a rabbit hole," he explained.
"In that situation at Sandhurst, it was impossible to replace a word because you’ve got a set script of things to report and if you screwed it up, everyone would know, and you couldn’t change or substitute words. I never actually did it in the end but I was terrified about that at Sandhurst."
Following completion of his training, Forbes served the British Army for 10 years within the Intelligence Corps as an intelligence officer and recounted his multiple tours including Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan, noting his speech impediment worsened with increased anxiety.
"You’re supposed to do one tour every three years but I’m not complaining as it’s made me who I am today," he stated. His role in 2008 Iraq involved direct communication challenges: "In 2008 when I went to Iraq, I was the intelligence officer for my brigade and part of my job was to speak to everybody once a day. I soon started to dread having to do a presentation as my stammer was getting worse at this particular point because I wasn’t getting enough sleep."
Forbes, who was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder after his first tour in Afghanistan in 2006, found it hard to unwind and "feel safe" upon returning home. "On operations you’re in fight or flight mode at all times – mostly fight mode – and coming home you’re not feeling relaxed or safe," he explained.
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It took about nine months of settling in London for his stammer to begin resolving itself. Forbes then focused on establishing McKenzie Intelligence Services from scratch in 2012.
"We’re a little company of 30 people looking after $250trillion worth of physical assets," he said. "I’ve always worried that I’ll do a presentation and stammer and people will think there’s something not quite right but some people say it’s endearing and it humanises me a little bit."
With his intelligence background, Forbes is frequently asked to provide media commentary on conflicts and natural disasters, recently discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict and Hurricane Milton in Florida. In October 2022, he wrapped up a six-month period on Sky News, delivering around 60 live briefings on the war in Ukraine.
On October 10, he gave five briefings without a hitch, but admitted one segment was particularly challenging. "I was giving a three to five minute presentation and behind me, the slides were not with what I was saying – I turned around and I’d been talking about something completely different," he recalled. "It just threw me, I had a block in my throat and I was not able to fix it – it was quite paralysing."
Forbes revealed how one individual on the internet shared a clip of the incident on TikTok, which led to a barrage of mocking from online trolls. "It’s frustrating because it’s not a fair representation, I’m pretty good at my job, and whoever that person was, they were just being really mean," he said.
In an act of defiance, Forbes donated £5,000 to Stamma, a charity helping to support those with speech differences, and £5,000 to Combat Stress, a mental health service for veterans. "It was just really important to say to whoever that was, that’s not cool, and to own it," he declared.
"I’m proud it was something I did to stand up to some bullies. Everybody’s story is very different. I wanted to push myself out there but for anyone struggling, I would make Stamma a first port of call."
Further information can be found by visiting stamma.org.
