The Canary Report: Safety & Risk Management · 2025-08-07 · 34 min
Treating safety as just a compliance box to check is a mistake, especially at scale. In this episode of The Canary Report: Safety & Risk Management , host Michael Zalle sits down with Heather MacDougall , former Vice President, Worldwide Workplace Health & Safety at Amazon, to talk about leading 9,000+ safety pros across 1,000+ sites, navigating the chaos of COVID, and reshaping how we think about risk. From "two-way door" decisions to building real partnerships, it’s a candid look at safety leadership in complex and high-stakes environments. Topics that we discuss: Structuring safety teams with the “four-legged stool” model that actually works Balancing compliance with operational needs and getting things done Why OSHA needs an upgrade, and how public-private partnerships help Using “two-way” vs “one-way” doors to make smart safety calls Shifting from checkbox safety to performance that sticks Letting data and tech drive risk decisions before things go wrong Moving past TRIR and bringing more voices to the table Knowing when to build safety expertise, and when to bring it in Heather MacDougall, Esq.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
The Financial Stakes of Risk Management in a Self-Insured Captive77 / 100
Systems Over Signs: How James Ferrell is Engineering Out Workplace Hazards79 / 100
How Vulnerability Beats Authority in Workplace Safety Culture with Lori Elam45 / 100
How to avoid the $300K premium trap in workers' compensation with Todd Thams60 / 100
Human First Safety Leadership and Scaling Culture with Derek Cox53 / 100
