Senior Director, Safety & Health

Scholastic

About The Position

Scholastic Children’s Book Group is looking for a Senior Director of Safety and Health (H&S), in this executive role, you will be responsible for setting the strategic vision and direction for the health and safety of our domestic warehousing and distribution operations. You will champion a proactive safety culture, ensure network-wide compliance, and drive continuous improvement. This role requires effective collaboration with cross-functional leaders in operations, distribution, fleet, risk management and HR partners to ensure strategic alignment of H&S with our overarching business objectives. The successful candidate will be a visible and influential safety leader who instills a culture of responsibility, ensuring all leaders take ownership of safety performance. Requires the ability to set clear expectations, hold teams accountable to high standards, and foster a culture where accountability is shared, consistent, and measurable. This position reports into the VP, Human Resources and Safety.

Requirements

Exceptional leadership and change management skills with the ability to influence and engage at all organizational levels.
Creates collaborative environment with cross-functional partners, assures regular/appropriate two-way communications flow, builds and maintains relationships with employees, peers and key stakeholders to align safety initiatives and ensure H&S considerations are integrated into business and facilities planning.
Strong analytical and critical thinking skills to interpret data and develop actionable strategies and solutions.
Uses positive, clear and understandable verbal and written communications to engage, motivate and influence at all levels of the organization.
Solid organizational and prioritization skills to include proven attention to detail.
Initiative-taking, positive and solution-oriented mindset with a commitment to continuous improvement.
Proven ability to lead a H&S function for a multi-site portfolio of locations and over the road truck fleets within a national/global organization.
Bachelor’s Degree in Safety, Industrial Hygiene, Occupational Safety, Environmental Health and Safety or related discipline strongly preferred.
A minimum of 10+ years of progressive H&S experience in large, complex, multi-site operations (warehousing, distribution, logistics or manufacturing is highly preferred).
One or more safety and/or environmentally-related professional certifications is required (i.e. CSP, CIH or CSD).
Deep understanding of health and safety regulations, standards, and best practices, including OSHA, DOT, FMCSA and ISO 45001.
Proven record of leading large scale safety programs that drive measurable results in and incident rates.

Responsibilities

Standardize and continue improving safety systems, policies, training, campaigns and programs to reduce risk and ensure compliance with federal, state and local laws.
Develop strategy and execute various H&S processes to include environmental compliance, occupational health and safety, workers’ compensation, transportation safety, contractor management, emergency response and business continuity.
Design and execute injury prevention programs and initiatives to motivate and influence the creation of a world class safety culture and minimize injury risk.
Lead and mentor the Distribution Safety function and manager, fostering a collaborative, high-performing safe driver culture focused on best practices, tools, preventative practices and excellent customer service.
Create a network of internal and external alliances to develop and implement H&S policies, programs, procedures, standards, training, and processes.
Analyze and identify trends of injury and accident frequency/severity; develop and direct the implementation of training programs using the appropriate media.
Identifies/anticipates potential problems, leads root-cause analysis, evaluates robustness of corrective action plans and oversees plan implementation.
Serve as the senior-most H&S authority, representing the company in regulatory, incident management and customer relationship matters.
Oversee training programs related to H&S compliance, emergency response, and core safety process and procedures.
Ensure teams are equipped to identify and avoid risks and respond effectively.
Travel required is expected to be between 20-30% but may flex up or down with the needs of the business.
Other duties as assigned.