Our Experts

Ian formed Vita Safety in early 2006 when he left DuPont Safety Resources. Prior to working as a safety consultant for DuPont, Ian was a senior consultant at Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and a safety engineer and advisor in the rail industry, engineering and manufacturing.
Ian’s specialisms include insurance surveys and projects, health and safety performance improvement (behavioural safety and culture), supply chain risk management, health and safety leadership and audit. Ian is a chartered member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (CMIOSH), a member of the Institute of Directors (MIoD), a member of the Chartered Management Institute (MCMI) and a member of the Institute of Consulting (MIC).
Ian is registered with the HSE’s Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR)

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Gillian is an experienced leader working as Head of Health and Safety for large, complex, multi-site organisations and has successfully implemented transformational health and safety culture change  whilst working in internal roles. Naturally curious, Gillian has a keen eye for detail and strongly believes that softer skills, such as coaching and mentoring, receive the best results when seeking to implement a positive safety culture. Gillian has assembled and recruited health and safety teams within her remit and a clear understanding of ‘what good looks like’ to create and evolve a robust health and safety support structure, enabling safety ownership.

Most prominently, Gillian was instrumental in driving health and safety cultural change at Liverpool Football Club, resulting in winning British Safety Council International Safety Award for Health, Safety & Wellbeing in 2019.

Gillian has transitioned from working in a corporate environment into consulting, with the aim of drawing on her array of cross sector experiences to help other organisations reach their desired safety culture.

After graduating with an honour’s degree in Business Office Systems Management, Jane started her career as an Analyst Programmer working for an IT subsidiary of Cadburys in Bournville, Birmingham. Here she gained a solid grounding in the fundamentals of computer programming, before moving to Manchester to further her career with the Co-operative Insurance Society.

Despite being outsourced to a European IT Consultancy firm, Jane continued to work within the Financial Services sector and in 2005 she moved into a Resource Management role. Leading teams both in the UK and India, she provided a vital service to many well-known blue-chip and FTSE100 clients.

Jane is a natural organiser, with a passion to deliver successful outcomes. She joined the Vita Safety team in October 2020.

Katy is the latest addition to the Vita Safety Team. She began her safety career in construction, learning on the job as her enthusiasm grew for health and safety performance.  She benefited from working for both a Principal Contractor and a subcontractor for a holistic view of the sector. More recently, as a civilian for the MoD., Katy has developed consultancy experience working for a variety of small to medium-sized business across the West Midlands and beyond.

Katy’s varied background and pragmatic approach feeds into her consultancy work including training courses, initial management system audits, risk assessment and COSHH assessment, and more recently qualified in fire risk assessment.

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Mandy holds an MSc in Environmental Management, a Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety and has Chartered Membership with the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. She is also qualified as a Lead Auditor for ISO 9001:2015, 14001: 2015 and 45001:2018. She supports businesses in environmental, health, safety and quality management by providing advice, auditing, training, project management, driving initiatives and writing policies and procedures.

One of Mandy’s greatest achievements was to develop and implement a safety culture programme for a national Maintenance and Repair organisation with over 600 employees. The year on year improvements within the safety culture and engagement of its employees enabled her to achieve back to back RoSPA Gold Awards for the organisation. Another of Mandy’s accomplishments involved developing and implementing an Occupational Health and Surveillance programme for a construction firm who, prior to Mandy’s appointment, had nothing in place to support or monitor their workers’ health.

Mandy is ferocious in her passion for the environment; encouraging and supporting others to lead sustainable lifestyles, with a particular focus on zero waste and plastic free thinking. This passion led her to complete her Masters dissertation on how to implement zero waste strategies in the maintenance and repair industry. This was hugely beneficial for her employer at that time, as the company adopted her ideas to the extent that 100% of their waste was diverted from landfill, their energy bills were reduced and they launched a fully electric fleet vehicle.

Mandy lives in St Helens with her husband. She is a fitness enthusiast who enjoys cycling in her local area, practicing HIIT, yoga and going out for long walks. She also enjoys the hustle and bustle of the nearby cities of Liverpool and Manchester. In her downtime, you might find her and her husband exploring new places to eat and sampling real ales!

Jayne is a proud Manchester girl who has worked in a number of industry sectors, whilst bringing up her three children. Those sectors include retail, warehousing and distribution and telecoms. After being made redundant in 2003, she decided to spend her money wisely to gain some formal qualifications and, after speaking to the head of health and safety at Manchester College, it marked the start of a huge career change for Jayne. This unexpected opportunity allowed her to gain some great qualifications; a Certificate in Further Education and health and safety qualifications including Nebosh National General Certificate and the Professional Diploma in Safety, Health and Environmental Management. Jayne also joined IOSH and is currently a GradIOSH member.

After delivering compliance training to NHS Trusts, local councils, the residential care sector and the construction industry, Jayne’s depth of knowledge and understanding of risk gave her the impetus to become a self-employed training provider in 2012. She later launched her own company, Jayne Joseph Training, in 2017. She really enjoys the flexibility that this has given her in supporting businesses with bespoke training solutions.

In addition, Jayne has provided expert testimony to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence [NICE]. The presentation to the panel was one of twelve expert papers that gave practical work based evidence towards NICE Guideline NG13 on Workplace Health: Management Practices. Her article on COSHH [Assessment of Chemicals and considerations under COSHH] was published in the Health and Safety International journal.

Jayne is proud of her journey so far, and is looking forward to progressing to CMIOSH and developing further into the field of consultancy.

Robert has over 17 years’ industry experience in providing a pragmatic and helpful approach to fire safety. He specialises in fire risk assessments, fire door and compartmentation inspections, fire safety training, fire safety management and fire protection equipment. He is individually registered as a Fire Risk Assessor (Life Safety Stream) with the Institution of Fire Engineers.

Robert has his own company (Ezra Safety Group), which has Third Party Accreditation under the BAFE SP205 scheme for Life Safety Fire Risk Assessments. This accreditation allows him to be listed on the National Fire Risk Register and will ultimately be published on the Fire Sector Federation website.

Louise Harris is a qualified coach and Mental Health First Aid Instructor. After a period in her life when she suffered with her own mental health, Louise trained to become a Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Instructor. This offered her a way to help and encourage others to speak up and seek support, and to help organisations and their leaders to take action around mental health. Louise is also a Lived Experience speaker for MHFA England. Qualified in Human Resources and Housing, Louise has worked in non-executive and executive roles as a Director and Managing Director and has led and managed teams within various sectors including housing, education and human resources.

Ben is a health and safety professional specialising in large events, venues, production and TV /Film industry. Originally from Wirral in Merseyside, he was based in Central London for several years returning to the north of England in 2012. 

He was then employed by one of Manchester’s largest and most prestigious venues, Manchester Central (formerly known as GMEX arena) as Head of Health and Safety, later to incorporate the role of Head of Security. 

His role offers business’, events and TV Production advice and support, including on-site planning and documentation across the UK and internationally.

Ben represents client/event producers at safety advisory (SAG) and licencing meetings whenever applicable or necessary. In addition, assisting event organisers to plan effectively for crowd management, site design layouts, safety plans and support with Construction (design and management) Regulations 2015 (CDM) duties. He is a member of key sub committees, setting industry standards, guidance documents and advice to the industry.

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Steven has worked as a safety and health consultant for over 15 years. In that time he has worked in a wide variety of businesses in all industries. He has previously worked for the HSE as an independent consultant for the scheme “workplace health connect”, has set examination questions for the British Safety Council and has been an assessor for the SSIP scheme CHAS.

He is a chartered member of IOSH and also a member of the Institute of Acoustics (MIOA) specialising in noise and vibration.