Key responsibilities include but not limited to:

Leadership & People Management

Safety Culture & Awareness

• Driving and promoting an organisation-wide safety culture founded on Just Culture principles, ensuring safety awareness is embedded across all operational areas and not limited to the safety function.
• Championing safety awareness programmes that equip staff at all levels to understand their safety responsibilities, recognise hazards, and report concerns effectively through formal reporting channels.
• Working with operational departments to ensure safety considerations are integrated into day-to-day processes and decision-making across the airline, not treated as a separate function.

Safety Management System

• Providing leadership and oversight of the Safety Management System (SMS) to ensure it is effective, compliant, and embedded across all operational areas, including hazard identification, risk assessment, mitigation, safety performance monitoring, and safety assurance in line with ICAO Annex 19, CAAF, and IOSA requirements.
• Overseeing the organization's safety risk management framework, including hazard reporting systems, risk assessments, safety risk registers, and mitigation tracking, ensuring risks are escalated when thresholds are exceeded and appropriately managed.
• Ensuring effective hazard reporting systems are in place to support proactive risk identification, and ensuring all reports are assessed and managed through formal risk processes.
• Overseeing safety assurance activities including occurrence reporting, investigations, safety reviews, and operational monitoring, ensuring corrective actions are implemented and lessons learned are embedded into operational improvements.

Safety Performance & Reporting

• Monitors safety performance indicators, trends, and operational risk data including occurrence reports and flight data monitoring outputs. Provides regular safety performance reporting to the Chief Corporate Safety, Security & Sustainability Officer.
• Overseeing the Flight Data Analysis (FDA) program to proactively identify operational risks and ensuring insights are integrated into safety management and operational improvement initiatives.
• Ensuring timely and effective investigation of safety events in accordance with regulatory and company requirements, including identification of root causes, systemic issues, and corrective actions, with follow-up to closure.

Compliance, Assurance & Continuous Improvement

• Ensuring security, quality, and occupational health and safety considerations are integrated with the SMS to enable consistent risk management across the organization and supporting regular SMS reviews at executive level.
• Ensuring compliance with ICAO Annex 19, CAAF regulations, and IOSA standards, supporting audits, inspections, and regulatory engagement, and maintaining strong relationships with authorities.
• Ensuring integration of the SMS with Quality, Security, and Occupational Health and Safety systems to enable consistent risk management across the organization.
• Supporting regular SMS reviews at executive level, ensuring safety performance and risks are continuously assessed, and driving ongoing improvement through safety data, investigations, and operational learning.
• Authorized to initiate safety risk assessments and operational safety reviews, escalate significant safety risks to the Chief Corporate Safety, Security & Sustainability Officer, access all operational safety data required for oversight, recommend corrective actions to address systemic safety risks, and provide independent safety advice to operational leadership.

• A degree in Aviation, Engineering, Safety Management, or a related discipline is preferred. Formal training in Safety Management Systems (SMS) is essential. Accident and incident investigation training is preferred.
• You will bring a minimum of 15 years aviation operational experience, with a proven track record in aviation safety management, operational risk management, or airline operational leadership. Demonstrated experience working within a regulated aviation environment is essential. Operational aviation experience, preferably a commercial airline pilot background, is strongly preferred to ensure credibility when engaging with operational leadership.
• The successful candidate will be a proven people leader with demonstrable experience managing teams of safety professionals. You will be comfortable operating across both the strategic and operational levels, able to receive direction from senior leadership, translate it into clear operational priorities, and hold specialist managers to account for delivery. Strong communication skills are essential, including the ability to present complex safety risk and programme performance clearly to executive audiences. Experience driving safety culture change and Just Culture implementation across a complex aviation organisation will be highly regarded.