Environmental Health & Safety Director

Director, Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS)

Summary

The Director of Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) provides enterprise leadership and strategic direction for EHS across Worthington Enterprises. This role is responsible for protecting our employees, strengthening Worthington’s deeply rooted safety culture and establishing the systems, standards and accountability necessary to continuously improve EHS performance across the organization.

The Director serves as the senior EHS subject matter expert and strategic partner to executive, business and operations leadership. This leader sets enterprise EHS strategy and expectations while building the capability of EHS and operational leaders to effectively execute at the local level. The Director maintains a strong connection to employees and the work happening across our facilities, ensuring employees are actively engaged in safety, empowered to identify and raise concerns, and see meaningful follow-through when risks are identified.

This role also provides EHS leadership for mergers and acquisitions, including due diligence, risk assessment and integration of acquired businesses into Worthington’s EHS systems, expectations and safety culture. The Director also provides leadership and oversight for the company’s security function, ensuring appropriate programs and practices are in place to protect employees, facilities and company assets.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

EHS Strategy & Safety Culture

• Develop and lead the enterprise EHS strategy, governance and standards aligned with business priorities and Worthington’s commitment to protecting our employees.
• Champion a culture where leaders and employees take ownership for their safety and the safety of those around them.
• Build processes that actively involve employees in identifying hazards, solving problems and improving the safety of their work.
• Ensure employees have clear avenues to raise safety concerns and that concerns receive appropriate follow-up and resolution.
• Partner with business and operations leadership to embed safety into leadership behaviors, operational decisions and continuous improvement.
• Maintain visibility across company locations to understand employee experiences, operational risks and opportunities for improvement.

Enterprise Risk & Performance

• Provide enterprise oversight for compliance with applicable environmental, health and safety laws and regulations.
• Establish governance for risk assessments, audits, corrective actions, environmental requirements and EHS reporting.
• Provide leadership and oversight for significant incidents and ensure learnings and systemic risks are translated into action across the enterprise.
• Establish meaningful leading and lagging indicators and regularly communicate EHS performance, significant risks and priorities to executive and business leadership.
• Partner with Operations, Legal, Risk Management and other functions to address significant risks and determine appropriate investments.

EHS Leadership & Capability

• Lead and develop the EHS function, establishing clear expectations and building strong technical and leadership capability across the organization.
• Coach EHS, facility and operations leaders on their responsibility for creating safe working environments and engaging employees in safety.
• Drive consistency in EHS practices while allowing facilities to effectively address the unique risks of their operations.
• Identify and share best practices and lessons learned across businesses and facilities.

Mergers & Acquisitions

• Lead EHS activities related to mergers, acquisitions and other business development activities.
• Conduct EHS due diligence to identify environmental liabilities, regulatory risks, employee safety concerns and potential investment requirements.
• Lead post-close integration to align acquired operations with Worthington’s EHS standards, systems, expectations and safety culture.

Environmental Stewardship

• Provide strategic oversight of environmental compliance and environmental management systems.
• Ensure appropriate systems are in place to manage environmental permits, reporting, waste, emissions and other regulatory requirements.
• Identify opportunities to reduce environmental risk and continuously improve performance.

Security

• Provide leadership and oversight for the enterprise security function, including programs and practices designed to protect employees, facilities and company assets.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Health & Safety, Occupational Safety, Environmental Science, Engineering or related field, or equivalent experience.
• Significant progressive EHS leadership experience within manufacturing or industrial environments, including responsibility across multiple locations.
• Demonstrated success developing EHS strategy and strengthening safety culture within a complex organization.
• Strong knowledge of applicable environmental, health and safety regulations.
• Demonstrated ability to influence executive leaders, operations leaders, EHS professionals and frontline employees.
• Strong experience with risk management, incident investigation, root-cause analysis and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrated ability to develop leaders and build organizational EHS capability.
• Strong communication, analytical and executive presentation skills.
• Ability to travel regularly to company locations.
• M&A due diligence and integration experience strongly preferred.
• Professional EHS certification such as CSP, CIH or CHMM preferred.

Leadership Profile

The successful Director of EHS will be a visible and approachable leader who believes a strong safety culture is built with employees and owned by leaders throughout the organization. This individual will spend time where the work happens, listen to employees, understand the risks they experience and ensure their input helps shape solutions.

This leader will combine strong technical expertise with the ability to influence at the executive level, build trust on the plant floor and develop strong EHS and operational leaders. They will build upon Worthington’s established safety culture while continuing to evolve how we protect our people as the organization grows and changes.