About the Role
As the Head of Safety, you will set and steer national safety strategy, provide daily leadership to a team of 3 Regional Safety Managers, and embed best-practice safety leadership within operations. You’ll oversee governance, regulatory compliance, and high-risk oversight, ensuring people, systems, and contractors all meet and exceed safety expectations.
Your success will be measured by uplift in safety ownership by operational leaders, consistent use of our safety system of work (SSoW), high audit performance, and meaningful cultural change.
What You’ll Be Doing
Lead and Align the National Safety Team
- Provide strategic direction and daily leadership to the Regional Safety Managers.
- Set clear annual priorities, cascading goals into actionable regional plans.
- Facilitate fortnightly leadership huddles to track progress, resolve roadblocks, and reinforce a consistent national approach.
- Ensure consistent application of safety protocols, coaching regional leads to uplift performance and capability.
- Own and continuously improve the Safety System of Work (SSoW)
- Ensure documentation is up to date, practical, and reflects current legislation
- Partner with legal and compliance to proactively manage risk exposure
- Drive a robust safety governance framework that includes regular reporting, risk escalation, and compliance checks.
- Present monthly safety performance insights to the CPSO (CEO until CPSO is appointed), executive team and operational leaders, highlighting trends, risks, and opportunities for improvement.
- Oversee the safety audit calendar, ensuring all sites are reviewed per schedule and corrective actions are tracked to completion.
- Provide expert input into board-level and ELT-level safety reporting as required.
- Coach frontline and site leaders in risk management, legal obligations, and team safety performance
- Integrate safety into operational routines (e.g., pre-starts, hazard ID, leadership walk-throughs)
- Partner with P&C to embed safety into learning and development frameworks
- Personally approve high-risk projects >$250K and verify WHS planning
- Vet contractor management plans and oversee compliance through site visits
- Ensure all works are delivered with clear safety oversight and controls
- Use data, incident trends, and frontline insights to identify and act on improvement opportunities
- Benchmark against industry standards and introduce initiatives to keep us ahead
- Encourage innovation, share learnings, and amplify what works
Experience & Expertise
- 15+ years leading WHS across national, high-risk, multi-site operations
- Proven WHS systems design and implementation, incident response, regulator engagement
- WHS Diploma or higher (Degree preferred)
- Leads with authenticity, clarity, and integrity
- Builds high-performing teams and holds them accountable
- Coaches others to own and lead safety in their space
- Embodies integrity, responsibility, authenticity, and resourcefulness
- Practical, grounded, and respected in regional operations
- Calm under pressure, leads by example, drives improvement
- Experienced across full supply chain and contractor management
- Comfortable in remote, rural settings and frequent site travel
This is more than a compliance role. It’s a chance to lead real change, shaping a culture where safety is shared, owned, and embedded. You’ll work closely with the executive team, lead a committed national team, and make a visible difference to people’s safety and wellbeing.
For more information or a confidential discussion, please call Kerry on 0420 381 481.
