Welcome!

Dear Readers,

After a packed week of events in the UK, I’m now back in the US, recharged and ready for what’s ahead. It was an incredible week reconnecting with colleagues, attending industry discussions, and delivering training—all of which reminded me why I’m so passionate about safety and inclusion in engineering.

This week, I want to share an exclusive update with my readers—The SAFE Leader will soon be launching an open course, available to anyone interested in attending. This is something I’ve been working towards for a while, and I can’t wait to share more details next week on what the course will cover, how it will work, and how you can sign up. Stay tuned for more!

Speak soon,
Mark

Breaking Barriers and Building Careers

This week’s podcast features a fantastic conversation with Sally Walters, a civil and structural engineer with over 22 years of experience in the water industry. We discuss her career journey, the importance of mentorship and community building, and the evolving challenges and opportunities within the water sector. Sally shares valuable insights into barriers to retaining women in engineering, as well as the prevalence of harassment and discrimination, drawing attention to why these issues must be addressed with the same rigour as safety incidents.

A key theme in our discussion is the role of systematic change in improving workplace culture. Sally highlights the need to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion into everyday engineering practices, rather than treating them as separate initiatives. We also explore her role as a Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter and the ways academia and industry can work together to foster the next generation of engineers.

This episode is packed with practical takeaways and thought-provoking discussions on leadership, inclusion, and the future of engineering. If you’re passionate about making engineering a more equitable and supportive profession, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Watch on YouTube here.
Listen on PodBean here.

HSE Roundtable

Last week, I had the privilege of leading an HSE Roundtable, organised by Laura Aucott at Pinsent Masons in London. This event brought together HSE leaders from across industry for a powerful discussion on the evolving challenges in health, safety, and environment and the critical connection between risk and diversity.

One of the key themes we explored was how diverse teams contribute to better safety outcomes. When employees feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to raise concerns, report hazards, and engage in proactive risk management. Many leaders shared their own experiences of how inclusion impacts workplace safety, reinforcing the need for organisations to embed diversity considerations into risk assessments and safety strategies.

The discussion was incredibly insightful, offering a mix of new perspectives, shared challenges, and potential solutions for improving safety culture. It was also a great opportunity to reconnect with colleagues from across the sector, strengthening the network of professionals committed to driving positive change in HSE leadership. Conversations like these are essential for shaping the future of workplace safety, and I’m excited to keep the momentum going.

Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

One of the highlights of my time in the UK was attending the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering ceremony, where seven visionary engineers were recognised for their groundbreaking work in machine learning—a fundamental pillar of artificial intelligence (AI).

The 2025 QEPrize was awarded to:

• Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, John Hopfield, and Yann LeCun – pioneers in artificial neural networks, which are now the dominant approach to machine learning.

• Jensen Huang and Bill Dally – innovators behind the hardware advancements that power modern machine learning models.

• Fei-Fei Li – creator of ImageNet, a revolutionary dataset that has shaped the field of computer vision and AI research.

Their collective contributions illustrate the power of engineering solutions coming together to shape the future of technology, industry, and society. AI is now influencing every aspect of engineering, from predictive maintenance in manufacturing to autonomous systems in transport. As we embrace these advancements, it’s crucial to ensure ethical and responsible AI development that aligns with human values.

The event was also a fantastic opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues from across engineering. It’s always inspiring to be in a room with some of the brightest minds shaping the future of our industry.

Read more about the winners here.

Let’s connect

Please reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn if we are not already connected.

I love helping organisations where the angle I take with the work I do might help in someway have you make traction in your culture.

Feel free to get in touch here.

Stay SAFE!