Meet our contributors.

The content published on Safety Differently is generously contributed by these authors. Posts are expressions of their opinions and are not necessarily representative of the viewpoints of the organizations the authors work in, nor of the administrators of this site.

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Adam Johns

Safety Practitioner, Cathay Pacific Airways

Adam has been working in the commercial aviation industry since 2009. In that time he has worked for two major airlines and a world-leading aviation regulator. His main interest is the application of contemporary safety and related sciences to the management of aircraft operations and people safety. This includes the ‘operationalisation’ of Safety-II and Resilience concepts into airline safety management. Adam is currently based in Hong Kong and works for Cathay Pacific Airways.

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David Slater

Chairman, Cambrensis Ltd.

Currently, David is the Chairman of Cambrensis Ltd., the strategic environmental and risk consultancy, where he has had involvement with Welsh, Dutch, Norwegian and Swiss Government Institutions on Science policy and safety (Aviation and Major Hazards). As an Honorary Professor in the School of Engineering, Cardiff, he is involved in projects such as Marine renewables, Systems Risk and Cyber security and has been responsible for coordinating a global network of university and industry groups researching and applying the newer Risk, Resilience Engineering and Human Factors techniques such as SAFETY –II, FRAM and Bayesian Belief Nets.

Marloes Nitert

Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland

She is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at The University of Queensland, specializing in the epigenetics of various diseases. She has a keen interest in researcher training and development, with a focus on enhancing people’s statistical literacy across a range of fields of practice and science.

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Andy White

Safety Professional

Andy craves to learn, innovate, and challenge our concepts of what safety is, and what it can be. As a qualified civil engineer and Antarctican he is only too aware of the operational challenges in continually balancing the various outcomes of work (safety, financial, environmental, quality, etc), particularly in the face of changing uncertainties that arise from the multitude of interdependent conditions we are often subject to.
This broad understanding of business, project management and more recently the social sciences, has provided Andy with a unique trans-disciplinary approach to safety leadership in which he invites diversity and inquiry into our concepts of safety; whilst his personal and professional achievements, as well as reflections on his own professional practice have helped countless others in achieving their own success.

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Simon Bown

Rail industry

A former international hammer thrower with a passion to continually learn and collaborate to encourage new approaches and ideas. Over 20 years
 experience in aviation for airport operators and currently working in the rail sector at Director level and on the board. Enjoys challenging current methods in collaboration with all levels of employee to identify better practices and reduce bureaucracy where possible.

Oversaw implementation to become the first airport operator in the UK to gain ISO45001 standard and one of the first worldwide to do this following safety differently principles.
All of my spare time is spent with my wife, daughter and dog!

Phillip Dowland

Senior HSE and Quality Advisor for Keller

Currently, the Senior Health, Safety, Environment and Quality Advisor (Major Projects) for Keller covering operations in the U.K. and Scandinavia. I have over 30 years experience in the earth moving and piling industries, both in operations and HSEQ. I recently ran the safety program for our Central Asian business unit in Kazakhstan as we undertook deep foundation work within several of the oil and gas production areas in the Caspian region. I am (obviously) deeply interested in finding ways in which efficiency and safety programs can be combined, utilising employees knowledge and skills to reduce all waste in the workplace. I hold CMIOSH status having completed my Post Grad cert at the University of Portsmouth. I currently live in Yorkshire with my Wife, 13 year old daughter and Skye terrier “Douglas”.

Guido Carim Junior

Aviation Professor

Dr. Guido Carim Junior is a Senior Lecturer in Griffith Aviation, where he teaches safety management systems in aviation and is an active researcher at the Safety Science Innovation Lab. His research is focused on developing the concept of procedures as resources for action, analysing human performance in high-risk industries, application of data analytics to safety, new methodologies for risk assessment and new pedagogies and immersive technology to enhance the training of pilots. Most of his research is influenced by his experience as an Embraer 190/95 pilot and the head of the human factors department.

David Weber

HOP Coach & Consultant, Southpac International

David is a Human Factors and safety specialist with experience across a range of industry segments, including aviation, oil & gas, construction, mining, and rail operation. David has the ability to apply safety, Human Factors and Human & Organizational Performance (HOP) knowledge and methodologies to everyday safety challenges to improve safety management within organisations. His recent efforts involve HOP coaching and consulting, as well as identifying and advising leadership teams on operational successes and challenges to promote organisational learning. 

David’s knowledge is founded on a PhD in Aviation and Safety Sciences by the Griffith University Safety Science Innovation Lab, a Bachelor and Master of Science in Psychology, and a Certificate IV in Work Health Safety. David is qualified as a private pilot.  

Gary Wong

Complexity Facilitator

Gary is a Canadian professional engineer with a Masters of Business Administration degree.

He has over 45 years of experience which began in the electric utility industry working in engineering, line operations, corporate consulting and training roles. He later joined Ernst & Young Consulting (now Capgemini Consulting) as a Senior Manager in Strategy & Transformation. Gary has operated his own independent consulting practice over the past decade focusing on complexity thinking and safety. 

He is a training associate with Cognitive-Edge Inc. and co-authors and delivers complexity courses and workshops. Gary is a regular contributor on the safetydifferently.comwebsite. 

Past notable facilitator certifications include FranklinCovey 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Edward de Bono Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking, and Aubrey Daniels Advanced Performance Management.

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Andrew Downie

Business Partner for Advice and Practice, IOSH

I am the Business Partner for Advice and Practiceat the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). The Advice and Practice team isthe central source of advice and thought leadership that feeds all of IOSH’s OSH information needs.
I was a retail manager with the John Lewis Partnership in the UK for 21years, working within the food retail side of the business with Waitrose. My particular interests as a manager were in co-ownership, customer service and retailing compliance. I left the business last year following a restructure and my interest in compliance management led me to retrain in Health and Safety, gaining IOSH Managing Safely and NEBOSH General Certificate qualifications.
I live in Lincolnshire (UK) with my wife, two boys, and a rather boisterous Cockerpoo. In my spare time I enjoy running and cycling, and I volunteer as a safety advisor at a village tennis club and for a local Scout Group.

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Andrea Baker

HOP Consultant

Andrea started practicing and teaching Human & Organizational Performance (HOP) principles while working for one of the largest multinational industrial companies in the world. As an environmental health and safety leader of manufacturing, assembly and distribution facilities, she worked through the complexity of adopting HOP principles from the ground up. In 2014, she was named the HOP leader for one of the company sectors. She taught HOP Fundamentals and Learning Teams around the US and helped develop and implement strategies to anchor the concepts in existing operating rhythms. She began extrapolating these strategies to a larger scale, and in 2015 became the HOP Senior Expert for the company’s 300+ multi-sector locations in Europe. In this position, she coached fatality and serious incident investigations while continuing to train and develop culture change strategies to help embed HOP principles into industrial day-to-day activities.

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Nicolaus Dmoch

Safety Investigation Manager, NetJets Europe

Nicolaus has been an airline pilot for twenty years. Ever since watching a documentary about the sinking of the Titanic as a child, he has a vast interest in the big question of why accidents happen. His personal safety journey took him from believing that strict SOP compliance was the best antidote to accidents to a fascination with how organizations attempt to be safe.
In addition to his flying duties, he works as a Safety & Compliance Officer at his airline. Among other responsibilities, this role includes editing the company’s internal safety publication, which gives him ample opportunity to research and write about organizational accidents.
In 2013, he graduated summa cum laude from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a Bachelor of Science, having specialized on Safety Management and Human Factors. In 2015, he graduated with distinction and, in the same year, received the Rudolf Kapustin scholarship sponsored by the International Society of Air Safety Investigators. He is also a Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) peer with Stiftung Mayday.

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Terry Reis

Fauna ecologist 

Terry is a self-employed fauna ecologist specialising in the location of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians and the identification of suitable habitats and resources. He provides ecological consulting expertise and environmental advice in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Terry specialises in assessment of the likelihood of occurrence of conservation significant fauna species. He has a background in rainforest ecology, including assessment of the biodiversity values of rainforest revegetation projects. He also provides high quality wildlife guiding and ecosystem interpretation, locating and identifying animals and describing habitats, ecosystem processes and animal/plant interactions for the lay person.

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Tim Austin

HS Coordinator, Australian Agricultural Company

He is the WHS Coordinator for Australian Agricultural Company, Australia’s largest beef producer. After working for 12 years in commercial horticulture he made the switch to agriculture. He holds undergraduate degrees in psychology and safety and is currently completing psychology honours. His main research interests are in self-determination, psychological safety and occupational stress models. He also has broad interests in organisational culture and leadership. He applies critical thinking to old and new paradigms and enjoys exposing faulty reasoning and the application of pop psychology and pseudoscience to safety theory. Tim sits on a beef industry safety group that provides advice to regulators and the wider industry. He resides in sunny Brisbane, Australia.

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Geoff Hoad

Chief Safety Officer, Blacktown City Council

Geoff Hoad is an Executive OHS and Operational Risk specialist with National and International experience in Logistics, Transport, Information Security and Manufacturing with over 37 years’ experience. He has held senior Safety and Risk roles with Chep, Recall and Asciano before coming to Optus where he has been Director of Workplace Health & Safety for the last three years. He has worked in ANZ and across the Asia Pacific region with global project roles in the US, UK and Germany. Geoff has also consulted extensively specialising in developing strategy and turnaround solutions for safety and risk. He has constantly tried to improve the way we think and look at safety and through his career has sought to influence business leaders to think about safety in a different context.
Geoff has degrees, certificates and post graduate qualifications in Safety, Organisational Development, Industrial Relations and Mental Health. With his wife Geoff spends his time with a growing tribe of grandchildren and enjoys travelling.

David Provan

Founder, Forge Works

David has held Safety Leadership positions spanning many industries, including; oil and gas, energy, construction, rail, logistics, healthcare and manufacturing. David enjoys helping organisations focus on understanding and developing their strengths to enhance business and safety performance.
David holds a Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Psychology), Masters of Health Science (OHS), Masters of Business Administration (Finance). He is currently studying a PhD at the Griffith University Safety Science Innovation Lab to understand: “What is the role of a Safety Manager?”. This research will develop a model of the organisational and individual factors that affect a Safety Managers tasks and behaviours, and the resulting influence of these on the organisations safety performance.

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Tim Fleming

Safety Director, Macquarie Group

Tim started his career as a geologist and has worked across mining, emergency services and construction over the last 25 years mainly within Australia, holding senior safety leadership roles in a number of organisations. Tim believes passionately in the fundamental that people are there to be trusted first and enjoys the debate and challenges that comes with shifting health and safety away from traditional thinking.

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Nippin Anand

Founder, Novellus Soultions

Nippin is a master mariner and a social scientist with more than two decades of work experience that spans across hands on operations, academic research, consultancy and certification and regulation in the maritime, oil and gas sector. Nippin is extremely passionate about (socio-technical) systems safety, multi-disciplinary thinking (technical and social sciences), and resilience and risk management.
Starting from a deck cadet to becoming a master mariner he has worked for more than twelve years at sea. After an accomplished career at sea he took up a master’s degree (distinction) at Cardiff University with a key focus on economics and trade policy in global shipping. Next, he was offered PhD fellowship by the Nippon Foundation of Japan at the Seafarers International Research Centre at Cardiff University to undertake a study on the human element in the maritime industry. Shortly afterwards he worked as a research fellow at the University of Nottingham. The project was designed with the view to examining the risk and resilience of UK’s critical national infrastructure. The aim was to examine the relationship between risk and resilience with a key focus on human element.

Craig Marriott

Safety Management Consultant

Craig started his career as a graduate physicist in the UK nuclear industry, writing safety cases for nuclear facilities. This background in technical and process safety, together with other operational and management roles, lent a different perspective to most when he transitioned into more conventional safety management.
Craig now works as a consultant, providing safety management and leadership advice to organisations with a particular focus on Executive and Board level support. He is a strong advocate of critical thinking in safety and the proper alignment and integration of safety with other business disciplines.
Craig is based in New Zealand.

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Rosa Antonia Carrillo

President, Carrillo &
Associates

Rosa, M.S.O.D.,  is president of Carrillo & Associates and an internationally recognized thought leader in the field of safety leadership and organization development. Invited as a keynote speaker from Bahrain to Australia, Latin and North America, she has designed and implemented safety leadership development programs for major corporate and government clients, including Exxon-Mobil Chem, DuPont, Alcan-Rio Tinto, General Electric, Honeywell, Southern California Edison, Johnson & Johnson, UC Berkley, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. In addition, she has worked as a management consultant with family owned businesses.
She has been frequently published in the ASSE Professional Safety Journal as well as the National Safety Council Journal of Safety Research.
As a former adjunct faculty in the Pepperdine University Presidential Key Executive program, Ms. Carrillo worked in depth to develop leadership capability in high-level managers.  Her 20 years of experience at the operational level with managers, supervisors and union members around the world, brings her credibility with all levels of the organization.

Noel Hengelbrok

Founder, Collaborative Safety

Noel is the Director of Safety Analysis for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) and received his Master’s Degree in Human Factors and System Safety from Lund University. Previously, he was the Director of Safety Systems for the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD). Noel is dedicated to safety innovation and was a key developer for the Tennessee DCS Child Death Review, which is the first of its kind to use human factors and system safety analysis methods to review child deaths. In addition to his contributions in the area of child death review, he is focusing on improving safety in public human services organizations by increasing participation of employees in safety efforts that allow an organization to learn and improve. This involves researching and developing improved accountability systems to foster safety improvement.

Randy Cadieux 

Founder, V-Speed, LLC

Randy is the Founder of V-Speed, LLC,  a leadership, risk management, organizational resilience, and team performance consulting and training company, and is the developer of V-Speed’s Team Leadership and Resource Management training program. He is also the Program Manager and an Instructor for the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Master of Engineering in Advanced Safety Engineering and Management program. Prior to his current roles Randy spent 20 years in the United States Marine Corps, where his primary occupational specialty was as a KC-130 Hercules pilot. He served in additional roles in the areas of operations and safety leadership. While transitioning to civilian life Randy realized that his educational, personal, and professional interests intersected so he decided to pursue a multi-faceted career in education, training, coaching, and consulting, with the overall goal of improving organizational operations and safety performance. Randy feels that the most important parts of a system are the individual employees, teams, and crews, and his interests often focus on ways to help improve team and crew performance. Randy is the author of Team Leadership in High-Hazard Environments: Performance, Safety, and Risk Management Strategies for Operational Teams published by Gower Publishing.

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Ludwig Benner

Chemical Engineer, ISASI 

Ludwig, is a chemical engineer, ISASI and System Safety Society Fellow, and PE-Safety (retired) with experience including hazmat transportation equipment engineering, operations and regulatory liaison; corporate physical distribution management: transportation consulting; over 35 accident investigations with the NTSB; teaching accident investigation at USC and elsewhere; development of a new widely adopted paradigm for hazmat emergency responder decision making; design of an incident investigation system and investigation support software; Board Chairman of a safety consulting firm; webmaster of a pro bono investigation research support web site; and independent investigation process research. He is a practitioner, observer and analyst of accident investigation practices, and keen follower and analyst of national and international developments in this field for 45 years, with over 100 publications.

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David van Valkenburg 

Human Factors and Safety Professional

David is a human factors and safety professional with a operational background as a seagoing officer in the royal Netherlands navy. His main interest is in using principles and theory of human factors in practice, bridging the gap between theory and practice.
David was a consultant with Advisafe risk management and in that role he was mainly engaged in incident investigations for all kinds of companies. On the first of April he started in a new role as human factors expert with the air traffic control organization in the Netherlands.

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Loren Murray

Head of Safety, Pacific Brands.

Loren currently works as the Head of Safety for Pacific Brands. Prior to this role Loren was the National Safety Manager for one of the largest Multi-National Transport Logistics Organisations in Australia and worked in senior OHS roles in the Construction Industry and Manufacturing sector.
Loren has been appointed an Adjunct Industry Fellow for a period of 3 years with the Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development at the University of Southern Queensland where she researches the impact of self-determination theory,  peer effect and the power of choice on safety behaviours & employee discretionary effort. Loren is also an advisor on HSE matters to the Board of Australia Zoos.
Loren is passionate about the future of safety in Australia. 

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Ben Seligmann

Chemical Engineering Professor

Ben has had a keen interest in complexity and complex things for many years. He studied Chemical Engineering and did a PhD in hazard identification, risk management and process safety which included utilising systems theory. It was here he first discovered the notion of a complex system, and it has captured his attention ever since. Through working over the last few years post-PhD, he has gained more experience in risk management and complexity science, partially through becoming a part of the Safety Differently community.
Soon to be embarking on a career in academia in process safety and risk management, he hopes to keep exploring the emergence of phenomena in the systems he studies to help people to understand and think through how to engage with a complex world.

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John Green

Director HSEQ and Corporate Responsibility for Laing O’Rourke

John has worked in the oil, gas, petrochemical, electronic and aviation sectors. He began his working life as a major hazards inspector for the HSE in the late 1970s. He then spent periods overseas with BP on Das Island, ADNOC in Abu Dhabi, CALTEX in Bahrain and Total where he was Head of Safety during the construction of the South Pars industrial complex. On returning to the UK John held senior positions with Motorola, British Airways and Board level positions with Severn Trent and Alfred McAlpine. He is currently Director HSEQ and Corporate Responsibility for Laing O’Rourke Australia having held the same post in Europe for 5 years
John holds degrees in Occupational Health and Safety, Integrated Pollution Mgmt, and Risk Mgmt as well as qualifications in Psychology, Law and Change Mgmt.

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Kelvin Genn

Director of Risk and Service Delivery Support, Cater Care Group, Board

Kelvin holds a board position with the Cater Care Group as the Director of Risk and Service Delivery Support. He also is a committee member with the Safety Institute of Australia. Most recently he worked for Sinclair Knight Merz as the General Manager for Safety and Wellness. Kelvin has worked with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care to develop a national accreditation system for all health care providers across Australia. He has also worked with the UK National Health Service Institute for Innovation and Improvement to deliver the Productive Leader and Productive Ward programs in Australia and New Zealand.
Kelvin is a strategic systems thinker with experience in Human Factors and organizational re-engineering. He developed his systems thinking approach working in the military aviation environment for 10 years with Royal Australian Air Force. Following this, for 10 years, Kelvin led a systems and risk management program across Asia Pacific and Europe with Compass Group, the world’s largest support service company.

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Kim Flanagan 

Managing Director of New Age HSE Services

Kim left NBN Co Limited, the company building Australia’s National Broadband Network, in August 2014.  He was the General Manager of Health, Safety and Environment for 4.5 years and is now the Managing Director of New Age HSE Services.  Kim actively seeks out new sciences in health, safety and environment and he hopes these new sciences will lead to a revolution in managing risk to further prevent serious injury and fatal incidents in the workplace.  He firmly believes that the accepted paradigms of the past 15 years need to be seriously and systematically questioned. Before NBN Co Limited Kim worked for 1.5 years as General Manager Health, Safety & Environment for UGL Limited and 9 years as the Corporate Manager – Health Safety & Risk for Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited. Kim is trained in Six Sigma and Lean philosophy, Six Sigma Project Champion and is an accredited RABQSA Business Improvement Auditor and Skills Examiner. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Logistics and Transport, Fellow of the International Safety, Quality & Environment Management Association and a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

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Lincoln Eldridge

Organisational and Industrial Safety Specialist, SAFEmap

Lincoln, working at SafeMap International, is specialist in the area of organisational and industrial safety. He has worked internationally over the past decade in Australasia, Africa, Europe and North America. During this time he has worked strategically in the area of safety improvement and growth for multinational companies such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Anglo Amercian, Boeing, Peabody Energy, Aker Kvaerner and many others. Lincoln is currently working with a number of leading thinkers in the area of industrial safety in an effort to develop a new paradigm for how safety is practiced in Australian and International workplaces into the future.

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Shane Durdin

Senior Safety Professional

Shane been working as a senior safety professional over the last 9 years in mining services, engineering and project delivery organisations, but also had a number of other dual roles such as HR manager, process plant manager/operator, and shutdown crew supervisor. In his 18 years of military service Shane his roles included being a tradesman, workshop manager, operations officer and officer commanding to name a few. Experience has included a number of warlike and non-warlike operations, combat logistics support, and joint operations planning.

Brent Sutton

Founder of Learning Teams Inc.

Brent Sutton works in partnership with organizations in the commercial, government and education sector providing practical advice to address health and safety risks and develop strategies to drive improvements in organizational learning.

Brent is well regarded as a safety coach and for taking organizations on a learning journey to understand how people are seen as the solution, how to engage people and leverage their skills so that worker participation becomes a new way of running an organization, where everybody benefits without replacing your existing health and safety system.

Brent is one of the authors of the new book “The Practice of Learning Teams: Learning and improving safety, quality and operational excellence.”, with foreword by Dr Todd Conklin and the host of the weekly podcast series on Safety FM called “The Practice of Learning Teams”

Brent lives in Auckland, New Zealand and actively advocates for doing safety differently.

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Zinta Satins

HSE Professional

Zinta has long been interested in both art and science.  She studied art in high school, switching to science in her final two years.  On her first day at university a well-meaning student directed her to the art faculty.  She was there to study applied science.  (The mistake probably had something to do with Zinta’s love of dressing in second-hand clothes)  Zinta has been working in the field of safety for the past 15 years.  During this time she has gained experience in the steel, mining, construction and engineering industries.  In her role she draws on her creative side, helping organisations develop solutions and supporting them to be successful in achieving their business strategies. 

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Corrie Pitzer

CEO and Founder, SAFEmap

Corrie is a specialist in behavioural safety and strategic safety management, and is a leading consultant in this field throughout Australia, North America, South America and South Africa.  His work is based on extensive research which resulted in his establishing a new concept in safety: (Risk)Competency-based Safety (CBS). His company, SAFEmap International, is today regarded as the leading consultancy in this field, with several international corporations utilizing his expertise.

Clive F. Lloyd

Psychologist

Clive F. Lloyd is an Australian Psychologist specialising in Safety Leadership and Culture development. He was recently named among the top 50 Global thought leaders and influencers on culture by Thinkers360.  He is co-owner of, and Principal Consultant with GYST Consulting Pty Ltd and developer of the acclaimed Care Factor Program.  Clive has spent the last 20 years assisting organisations to improve their safety performance by developing trust and psychological safety and doing Safety Differently.  He has worked with global mining, oil & gas, construction and utilities companies in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, USA, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Singapore, China, UAE, PNG, KSA, United Kingdom and Costa Rica.  He is the author of “Next Generation Safety Leadership: From Compliance to Care”.