Dr Megan Tranter has led safety globally for some of the biggest companies in the world, PepsiCo, Amazon and Netflix among them. She explains how safety professionals earn influence with senior leaders.
Megan starts with a 2024 paper on the blues of safety professionals. It found many of us feel misunderstood and short on influence. Her answer is context: understand the business and its pain points before you bring a solution. She talks about spending the first months in a new role observing and sharing a running document of those observations with her manager, the difference between a sponsor and a mentor and how she plans a hard meeting by deciding beforehand what a good, an okay and a bad outcome would look like.
What we cover in this episode
- Why technical knowledge is no longer enough
- Finding the business's pain points before offering a fix
- Sponsors versus mentors
- Production safety on film and TV sets
- Observing before acting in a new role
- Taking feedback without getting defensive
- Stretch goals and experimentation
- Taking control of your own career
Episode chapters
- 0:00 Meet Dr Megan Tranter
- 2:04 Why safety professionals feel unheard
- 5:07 Understanding the business's pain points
- 9:11 Field roles and strategic roles
- 12:19 Connecting the dots in a global company
- 14:21 Sponsors versus mentors
- 17:24 Production safety
- 19:27 Planning a hard meeting
- 23:32 Taking feedback
- 26:36 Observe before you act
- 29:38 The observations document
- 33:43 Consistency and stretch goals
- 38:54 Owning your career
- 40:56 Experimentation in safety
- 43:58 Megan's coaching work
- 49:05 Closing advice
Connect with Dr Megan Tranter
Find Dr Megan Tranter on LinkedIn.
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About the host
Matt Jones is the founder of Advanced Safety and a HASANZ-registered health and safety consultant. He's a Professional Member of NZISM, holds a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health and founded the New Zealand Health and Safety Professionals community. His book is Raise the Standard: Why Good Organisations Go Blind and How Leaders Restore Visibility.
Guests share their own views and experience. This page is general information, not legal advice. Latest update: 13 November 2026
