Executive Safety Exchange members meet five times per year to share their knowledge and thoughts on leading health, safety and wellbeing in their respective industries. Previous events include guest speakers and discussion of topics such as: why leaders need to build businesses that 'fail safely', what does executive leadership of safety and wellbeing look like in 2021 and beyond?, COVID-19 best practice and recently, the successes and challenges of return to office and flexible work practices.
May 2022 - BridgeClimb & Managing Critical Risk
Hosted by BridgeClimb Chief Executive Officer, David Hammon and Head of Health, Safety, Environment, Quality and Security Simon Pitkethley, who provided their unique insights into managing critical risk at BridgeClimb. ESE members also completed a Summit Climb of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
March 2022 - Insights on Current WHS Research
Dr Martin O'Neil provided insights on current WHS research and practice, based on his doctoral research on the role of frontline managers in managing WHS.
October 2021 - Insights on on High Reliability Organisations
Guest speaker Dr Andrew Hopkins provided insights into High Reliability Organisations with a focus on principles of good "bad news" reporting systems. Attendees then participated in a roundtable on opportunities and challenges in their own organisations with Dr Hopkins.
March 2020 - Making Wellbeing Part of How We Do Business
Health & Wellbeing specialist Lucas Finch and Acting Head of Safety James Wallace from Sydney Water shared information and learnings from their award winning mental health and wellbeing program - 'Making Wellbeing Part of How We Do Business'. This program was the winner of the Australian Psychological Society’s 2019 Workplace Excellence Award for Workplace Health, Safety and Wellbeing.
This session was followed by a facilitated peer-to-peer discussion with a focus on managing mental health & wellbeing in the workplace during a crisis. Some of the crises that were discussed included the bush fires, drought and the recent development of COVID-19.
November 2019 - Model Health and Safety Legislation
Guest speaker Marie Boland addressed the group on her recommended changes to the Model Health and Safety Legislation with a focus on due diligence, psychological health & wellbeing, and industrial manslaughter.
This was followed by an engaging Q & A between Marie and the attending ESE members that provided those present with an insight in to the reasons why Marie proposed her changes as well as allowing members to provide valuable insights in to their own experiences and opinions regarding the subject matter.
March 2019 - Global Perspectives on Leading Safety
Dame Judith Hackitt DBE, FREng, FIChemE, FCGI is a British engineer, author and civil servant. A former Chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive, she led the independent review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety related to the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London.
This half-day event provided ESE members with an in-depth insight into the topics of 'Global Perspectives on Leading Safety' and 'Understanding Systemic Failures - Lessons from Grenfell'. Dame Judith also participated in a Q&A after both sessions, further allowing ESE members to engage in shared learning through experience. You can read Jessica Doyle's summary of Dame Judith's presentation - Safety Leadership and Getting it 'Just Right'.
November 2018 - SafetyWorks and UNSW WHS Research Seminar
During 2018, SafetyWorks teamed up with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to conduct a research project to explore the potential of peer-to-peer safety leadership networking groups for CEO’S and executives in Australia. For our November 2018 event, Dr. Sharron O’Neill from UNSW joined us to explore this critical aspect of workplace health, and safety (WHS) governance, leading an interactive discussion on world-class performance metrics and their application for leadership.
Sharron spoke about the fact that in order for officers to discharge their responsibilities effectively, they need timely, robust and relevant performance reporting and analysis. Sharron explored the question; What constitutes good quality reporting metrics and how do we know we have it right?
March 2018 - Managing Major Hazard Risks
International Process Safety Expert, Martin Sedgwick shared insights into the role of senior executives managing Major Hazard Risks. Martin drew on his extensive experience from a wide range of sectors around the world, including his contribution to the US Chemical Safety Board's investigation into the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling incident. He also demonstrated how this approach to understanding risk is critical in all organisations, not just major hazard facilities.
Martin and his team from Origin Energy shared a live online demonstration of the real-time process safety reporting metrics developed during a 2 year project.
Take a look at our summary article - 3 Questions Executives and Boards Should Ask Themselves.
October 2017 - Exploring Executive Leadership Behaviours
ESE Members John Barbagallo (CEO MolyCop), Tash Brown (General Manager Operations, Aurora Energy Tasmania) and Nick Roberts (CEO Forests NSW) shared their personal health, safety and wellbeing journey. The panellists then participated in a Q&A with members, with the theme 'what are the most critical executive leadership behaviours?'.
Francois Barton from the New Zealand Business Leaders Health & Safety Forum addressed the ESE about the history of the NZ Forum, its purpose, what has been critical to get it right and what lessons have been learned. Members were able to address questions to Francois.
May 2017 - Member Hosting of ESE
Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) hosted the ESE including a tour of the Northmead CCA bottling facilities for members.
David Grant, General Manager Supply Chain shared his leadership journey with the group, as well as providing insights into how CCA have continuously improved in the area of health, safety and wellbeing.
September 2016 - Member Presentation on Culture Change
Darren Ellis, General Manager Design and Construction, Scentre Group has worked in the construction retail industry for over 20 years, both overseas and throughout Australia.
Darren spoke about his experience building momentum for culture change within Scentre Group and the importance of uniting senior leaders to set commitments and expectations to generate health, safety and wellbeing culture change.
February 2015 - ESE Launch & Member Profile
SafetyWorks Group launched the inaugural Executive Safety Exchange (ESE) event in February 2015.
The inaugural meeting focussed around the coming together of foundational members in a bid to start the conversation around leading safety, health and wellbeing while also sharing and learning from the experiences of one another.
Dr Eileen Doyle featured as the first guest speaker at the Exchange. Eileen shared with the group her personal safety leadership journey, drawing on her extensive experience on a number of boards including OilSearch, Boral, CSIRO and Bradken Limited and that have the goal of ensuring safety, health and wellbeing in the workplace.