The Health, Safety, and Enviroment space is made of everyday people who are real-life heroes, committed to creating a safe environment and engaging safety culture within their companies. Their priority is to ensure each and everyone of their employees gets to return home after a day’s work unharmed, and that both wellbeing and the planet are a core consideration: they are unsung heroes.
In fact, you never hear about them when they do their jobs right!
We want to celebrate these everyday people and inspire others in that space to look at things differently, improve their safety management plans and overall learn as a collective; making “HSE” a cornerstone of every company’s culture.
So let’s celebrate those leaders from the Health, Safety, and Environment space who stand on the frontline and the emotional/human implications of working in the safety space.
Site
RSS
Apple
Data updated on 05/10/2026
Recent rankings
Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.
Shared links between episodes and podcasts
Links found in episode descriptions and other podcasts that share them.
#60 - Amy Edmondson - Better Teams Made More Mistakes. Here's Why.
Season 2 · Episode 60
Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Duration 44:19
A young PhD student ran the numbers and found that the best-performing hospital teams had the highest error rates. That result made no sense — until she realized better teams don't make more mistakes. They report more of them.
Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and the researcher who coined "psychological safety," joins Mousa to trace that discovery back to its origin — and to break down why most people still misunderstand what psychological safety actually requires.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:19 — Introduction
00:25 — The role of compassion, trust, and heart in her work
04:02 — Defining psychological safety: the belief that speaking up is safe
05:45 — Hearing Buckminster Fuller speak at MIT — and writing him a letter
07:12 — Becoming Fuller's "chief engineer" at 1980
09:35 — Working alongside Peter Senge, Chris Argyris, and Edgar Schein
12:52 — The hospital study that started it all: do better teams make fewer errors?
14:34 — The counterintuitive finding: better teams reported more errors, not fewer
22:10 — Two broken failure cultures: "failure is not an option" vs. "fail fast, fail often"
22:59 — The three kinds of failure: basic, complex, and intelligent
27:52 — How leaders should respond differently to each kind of failure
31:06 — Todd Conklin's insight on blame: "it isolates the learning"
34:36 — What people get wrong about psychological safety — it's not about being nice
38:52 — The three faulty mental models that undermine safety: perfectionism, invulnerability, and individualism
44:53 — Her closing advice: pause, breathe, and choose curiosity
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 EPISODE SUMMARY
Amy Edmondson didn't set out to study psychological safety — she stumbled into it as a second-year PhD student trying to answer a simple question about hospital teams and medication errors. In this conversation she walks through that discovery from the inside, explains why the concept is so often misapplied as "being nice" rather than holding high standards alongside real candor, and lays out the three kinds of failure from her book Right Kind of Wrong — only one of which organizations should actually be trying to increase. It's a rare chance to hear the origin story of one of the most influential ideas in modern leadership, told by the person who found it.
🗣️ KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED
→ The origin of the term "psychological safety"
→ Why better-performing teams report more errors, not fewer
→ Basic, complex, and intelligent failure — and how to respond to each
→ What people get wrong about psychological safety
→ The mental models that undermine safety: perfectionism, invulnerability, individualism
→ Choosing curiosity over certainty as a leadership practice
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
#59 - Angelo Spingardi - Safety Has No Finish Line: 17 Years Running Safety at Saipem
Season 2 · Episode 59
Thursday, July 16, 2026 • Duration 35:54
Angelo Spingardi runs HSEQ — health, safety, environment and quality — across Saipem's 118 operational sites worldwide, from offshore platforms to construction sites across the energy transition. He's been inside the company for 17 years, starting as an environmental engineer before being embedded into Saipem's safety functions.
In this episode he shared the personal loss that shaped his career, the leadership question that reframes how you investigate every accident, and the story behind Fail Safe — the film Saipem built to make human performance principles real on the ground.
We also get into why vulnerability — not authority — is what actually gets people to admit their mistakes, why "safety is a consequence, not a target," and how Angelo has gone 17 years without ever having to argue for a safety budget.
Timestamps
00:00 — Cold open: why empathy is the foundation of safety leadership
01:47 — Trust, empathy, communication: anchoring 17 years in HSEQ
03:09 — From environmental engineer to Group Director HSEQ — the accidental path into safety
04:25 — The personal loss that made safety personal: losing a friend at work
06:25 — Earning trust vs. imposing procedure: how to get a room to actually listen
09:55 — "Safety is a race without a finish line" — his CEO's metaphor
10:29 — Do leaders really see safety as an investment, or still as a cost center?
12:45 — The reframe: safety is a consequence, not a target
14:35 — 17 years, zero arguments about a safety budget
18:15 — The leadership accountability reframe: step back a week, a month, a year
20:39 — Inside "Fail Safe": how Saipem's near-miss reconstruction film was born
22:44 — Benchmarking against civil aviation and air traffic control
#58 - Kathy Seabrook - Put Safety on the P&L: How to Sell the Business Case for Safety to the C-Suite
Season 2 · Episode 58
Thursday, June 18, 2026 • Duration 46:27
Kathy Seabrook — Founder & CEO of Global Solutions Inc. and a standards architect on ISO 45001 and ANSI Z10 — joins Mousa to make the case that safety has always been the people side of sustainability. She walks through "impact valuation": putting the value workers create onto the P&L using data finance already understands. It's a conversation about money that keeps coming back to people as a great business decision.
In this episode: • Why the harm-reduction argument has run its course • "Impact valuation" — pricing the value people create, not the cost of harm • Discretionary energy and the cost of re-hiring: making safety measurable • Why "what gets measured gets managed" keeps teams stuck • The one question to ask when you hit the boardroom wall
⏱️ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:53 Heart, compassion and trust at the core of safety 06:17 The chemistry class that changed her career 09:42 "I just said yes" — ASSP, ISO standards, a career of saying yes 19:48 What impact valuation actually means 24:12 Discretionary energy: the 150% worker efficiency 26:16 Putting retention on the P&L (the $6,000 hire) 29:32 An ergonomics business case a CFO can follow 37:25 Why safety teams stay stuck 42:49 The one question for a stuck safety leader 47:01 Why safety is already inside human-capital metrics
#57 - Dan Hobbs - AI Vision = Guardian Angel: How Dan Hobbs Is Rewiring Safety with AI Vision
Season 2 · Episode 57
Thursday, May 21, 2026 • Duration 33:42
Dan Hobbs did not set out to build a safety company. He and his co-founder Ciarán O’Mara started with a question: why do so many workplace fatalities get called freak accidents, when the CCTV footage usually shows the same behaviour patterns happening every day on the same site?
Four years later, Protex AI plugs into existing CCTV infrastructure at Fortune 500 sites in 36 countries to surface unsafe behaviours before they become incidents. Computer vision. Privacy-preserving. Not a dashboard, a diagnosis.
In this conversation, Mousa and Dan go deeper than the product. They work through the three mental shifts that decide whether an AI-in-safety deployment actually changes anything: surveillance to systems, reactive to proactive, and procurement to partnership. Dan tells the story of walking on stage in front of 300 union members expecting resistance — and the single sentence, from a senior union official, that changed the room. He talks candidly about the scar tissue from building an enterprise AI company: 92 flights in a year, legal councils that feel like Star Trek, and the co-founder dynamic that keeps him from flying too close to the sun.
For HSE directors, VPs of safety, and operations leaders trying to figure out what to do with AI before their executive team asks them again.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold open — Guardian Angel, not big brother
00:35 Who Dan is, what Protex AI does, where they operate
03:00 The founding story — the fatality that wasn’t a freak accident
06:00 The privacy reframe — see the forest, not the trees
08:00 The union stage and the Guardian Angel moment
09:45 ICP, deployment model, and what the first 60 days look like
13:00 Kentucky: the first site Dan saw someone nearly die
18:30 Build the plane as you’re flying — enterprise AI adoption
21:30 Protex Intelligence and the shift from dashboards to questions
#56 - Bryce Griffler - The Hidden Cost of Hiding: Authentic Leadership, Imposter Syndrome & Workplace Safety
Season 2 · Episode 56
Thursday, April 2, 2026 • Duration 56:04
What if the shell you've built to protect yourself at work is actually the thing holding you back — and putting others at risk?
Bryce Griffler is the co-founder of Safety Is For Everyone and Global Program Manager, Safety & EHS Assurance at Google. His journey spans systems engineering, leading critical national infrastructure manufacturing at BAE Systems through COVID, and building EHS programs at AWS.
His conviction: authenticity isn't a soft skill — it's a safety-critical one. The workers most likely to prevent your next incident are often the ones who don't feel safe enough to speak up. And imposter syndrome is quietly draining your highest performers every single day.
In this episode, Bryce shares the moment a senior leader challenged him with three words — "Why you, though?" — and how that shaped everything. He breaks down why psychological safety and physical safety are the same conversation, how to get buy-in from resistant supervisors, and tells the remarkable story of a Pride flag at a union plant during COVID that reminded him exactly why he does what he does.
Follow or connect with Bryce on LinkedIn | Learn more at safetyisforeveryone.com
In This Episode
You are not employee number 789054: why who you are is what makes you effective
The "Why you?" moment: the challenge that changed Bryce's career
Authenticity as a safety tool: how being yourself reduces incident risk
The shell we build at work — and why it's exhausting to maintain
Imposter syndrome vs. self-doubt: knowing the difference matters
Why imposter syndrome hits hardest on your highest performers
Getting resistant managers on board: lead with data, not ideas
Diverse tiger teams: why the uncomfortable room produces the best solutions
The Pride flag story: what true inclusion looks like in a union plant during COVID
Chapters
(00:00) — Welcome & introducing Bryce
(01:27) — Bryce's core philosophy: you hired the whole person
#55 - Thomas Krause - Decisions That Set the Stage: The Leadership Cultures That Make Incidents Happen
Season 2 · Episode 55
Thursday, March 19, 2026 • Duration 42:20
What if the biggest safety failures in history weren't caused by reckless workers but by leadership decisions made years earlier?
Dr. Tom Krause is the Founder of Krause Bell Group and one of the most respected voices in safety leadership. Over his career, he conducted over 2,300 consulting projects across 60 countries, and after the Columbia space shuttle tragedy, his firm was selected to lead NASA's safety culture transformation. He worked personally alongside Paul O'Neill at Alcoa.
His books 7 Insights into Safety Leadership and If Your Culture Could Talk are must-reads for any leader serious about building high-performing organizations.
Tom breaks down why blaming employees is the wrong reaction every single time. He shares the story of a plant manager changed forever by a 3 AM phone call — and how that moment turned him into one of the most effective safety leaders Tom had ever encountered.
We go deep on the hidden chain of decisions that precede every major incident, why your inner state as a leader ripples across the entire organization, and why most companies are measuring the wrong things.
We also get into AI — from cameras in factories to predictive risk modeling — and why Tom believes the question isn't whether AI is good enough, but whether we are.
Follow or connect with Tom on LinkedIn | Learn more at krausebellgroup.com
In This Episode
Nobody should get hurt at work: what real safety leadership looks like
The 3 AM phone call: the moment that changed a leader forever
Why blaming employees is always the wrong answer
Decision-making over behavior: the chain that leads to every incident
Paul O'Neill's legacy: what made his leadership so rare
The leader's inner state: how your energy shapes your whole organization
AI in safety: the one way to use cameras that will make things worse
Predictive risk: using AI to find the combinations of variables that accelerate danger
#54 - Ergin Akbaş - How to Set Up Systems for Success: On HSE and Systems that Work for the Frontline
Season 2 · Episode 54
Thursday, February 5, 2026 • Duration 47:06
Today, we're excited to share our latest Safety Heroes episode with Ergin Akbas.
With over a decade at AVANGRID managing EHS systems across wind farms, solar projects, and critical infrastructure serving 3 million customers, Ergin has learned one truth: systems only work when they're built WITH the people who use them, not FOR them.
He shares stories about achieving zero findings during ISO audits, why his 6-year-old thinks he "makes sure people don't get zapped," and how Learning Teams are transforming incident investigations from blame to real improvement. If you're trying to build safety systems that frontline teams will actually adopt, this conversation is packed with practical wisdom.
Time Stamp Guide:
(02:12) From Bridges to Wind Farms: How civil engineering led Ergin to realize safety is integral to everything
(04:34) Dual Risk Landscape: Navigating renewables construction and network operations across 26 states
(07:37) Systems 101: Why management systems are a journey, not software—and definitely not magic
(13:59) Beyond the Audit: Convincing leadership that real value happens every single day, not just certification time
(17:41) The Pencil Analogy: Why frontline workers are the sharp end—and must design systems WITH you
(24:03) Proving Effectiveness: Moving from training completion checkboxes to measuring actual competence
(26:26) Worker Voice in Action: Monthly Innovation Calls and Skilled Safety Panels that empower the field
(29:57) Compliance is the Floor: Breaking through the ceiling with risk-based thinking and proactive tools
(33:46) AI That Sticks: How supervisors kept using pilot apps weeks after the study ended
(41:46) Managing Change Methodically: Why telling people "what's in it for them" prevents reversion to old ways
#53 - Fuzzy Bitar - Putting Safety Back in the Line: On Proportionality, Supervisor Leverage & Point-of-Work AI
Wednesday, December 17, 2025 • Duration 32:48
Episode Summary
Fuzzy Bitar has led safety and operations at global scale, including serving as bp’s Senior Vice President for HSE & Carbon and chairing the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP). He’s known for a plain-spoken, human-first approach that keeps ownership where it belongs: in the line.
In this conversation, Fuzzy goes beyond slogans. He explains why “good operations is good safety,” how to keep controls proportional to risk, and why supervisors are the highest-leverage node for culture change. We dig into coaching vs. compliance, adoption that lasts beyond pilot buzz, and the practical reality that VR wowed—but mobile worked when you need scale on site. We close with point-of-work AI: 60-second SOP summaries, incident-informed prompts, and micro-learning that shows up exactly when the job needs it.
Line-owned safety: why safety leadership is just leadership
Proportionality > paperwork: more signatures ≠ more safety
Where culture is made: supervisors, wrench time, and coaching loops
Don’t weaponize observations: design for trust and adoption
Adoption > hype: VR wowed; mobile worked in the field
Point-of-work AI: summaries, lessons, and prompts in the moment
Stability over shiny objects: iterate without churning the agenda
Final advice: confident humility + scanning uncertainty hotspots
Chapters
(01:30) — The moment safety became human
(05:03) — Safety leadership is just leadership
(06:00) — From “fail-safe” to “fall-safe”
(10:50) — Proportionality beats paperwork
(13:52) — Where culture is made: the supervisor
(18:02) — Don’t weaponize observations
(20:30) — VR hype vs reality (VR wowed. Mobile worked.)
(21:38) — Simplify at the point of execution (point-of-work AI)
#52 - Tim Page-Bottorff - Game On for Safety: How to Drive Engagement for Zero-Harm Culture
Wednesday, July 23, 2025 • Duration 43:43
Tim Page‐Bottorff didn’t “choose” safety—he was drawn to it, and has spent his career transforming how organizations think about risk, culture, and technology. In this episode, the ASSP Vice-President of Safety shares the defining moments that shaped his journey from Marine‐trained leader to industry innovator. You’ll hear how he turned PPE drills into gamified challenges, built trust with a simple “REAL” framework, and now leverages AI to spot hidden hazards. Along the way, Tim explains why compliance alone isn’t enough, how to ignite genuine engagement (and cut injuries by up to 71%), and why every safety leader must embrace both data and empathy to make zero harm a reality. Whether you’re at ASSP Safety 2025 in Orlando or leading an HSE team anywhere, this conversation is your playbook for building a safety culture that sticks.
(03:37) The Calling to Safety: Why Tim “didn’t hesitate” when the industry chose him
(17:49) Beyond Checkboxes: Shifting from compliance to purpose-driven training
(14:00) Culture Through Competition: Gamifying PPE drills for “go slow to go fast” results
(35:36) The REAL Trust Framework: Respect, Empathy, Accept, Listen
(22:14) AI as Partner: From site photos to automated hazard reports
(15:32) Engagement Metrics: How driving retention over retraining cuts injuries by 71%
(26:41) Global Safety Lens: Navigating varied regional appetites for innovation and spend
(30:49) Final Charge: “Take the hill” with clear objectives, collaboration, and relentless discipline
Follow Tim on LinkedIn to keep up with his latest insights.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, , today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
#51 - Declan Davis - Bringing AI and Empathy to the Frontline: On Why Safety Is Human
Thursday, April 10, 2025 • Duration 45:15
Declan Davis isn’t just leading safety from the top—he’s walked the path from the site to the boardroom. As Health and Safety Director at Ferrovial, Declan brings a deeply human approach to leadership, shaped by years of hands-on experience in the field. In this episode of The Safety Heroes Podcast, he reflects on his journey from site engineer to safety director, sharing how his passion for connecting with frontline teams has become the foundation for everything he does.
Declan talks candidly about the moment he realised traditional approaches to safety—long documents, top-down processes, and complex systems—weren’t working for the people most at risk. That moment sparked a shift toward humanising safety: making it simpler, more personal, and rooted in the real experiences of workers on site. He explains how this philosophy drives his adoption of tools like immersive learning, AI-powered training, and multilingual communication strategies that break down barriers and build trust.
One particularly powerful part of the conversation explores the emotional power of storytelling in safety training—how placing a worker in a simulated incident, even virtually, can create anchor moments that stick for months and shape real-world decisions. Declan and Mousa discuss the neuroscience behind memory and retention, and why the combination of technology and empathy is such a game-changer for the industry.
They also reflect on how safety teams can bring frontline workers along the innovation journey—not just as end-users, but as co-creators and champions of change. Declan shares practical insights from his own experience: how to nurture buy-in, how to find internal champions, and how to scale solutions across a global, multilingual workforce without losing the human touch.
Whether you’re a safety leader, technologist, or someone passionate about improving workplace culture, this episode is a masterclass in what’s possible when you blend heart, strategy, and innovation. It’s a call to reimagine the future of safety—one that starts with people, and scales with purpose.
24:03 — Why storytelling and film beat slides and procedures
25:53 — What "Fail Safe" really means: humans err, systems must catch it
26:46 — Vulnerability as a leadership skill: "I screwed up"
29:11 — The "macho man" problem in construction, and why psychological safety is hard-won
30:02 — Playing the film for 55 distracted people — and watching the room go silent
31:24 — What makes a human-performance program actually work, beyond the video
34:05 — Staying grounded: how Angelo avoids burnout after 17 years running safety
36:00 — Close
Angelo Spingardi is Group Director HSEQ at Saipem, architect of the company's 2024–27 Safety Strategic Plan. In 2024, Saipem's TRIFR came in at 0.34 against a 0.41 target.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
If you like this podcast episode, subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest from our HSE community and guests. Connect with our CEO and host, Mousa, today to stay updated on Safety Heroes, Pixaera, and more.
Discover shows related to Safety Heroes Podcast With Mousa Yassin, based on actual content similarities. Explore podcasts with similar topics, themes, and formats, backed by real data.