You can track near-misses. You can log incidents. You can build a dashboard so detailed it glows in the dark. But here’s the thing: you can’t spreadsheet trust. And if your team doesn’t trust you, doesn’t feel seen, safe, or supported, all those beautiful metrics are noise.

Safety isn’t built on rules. It’s built on relationships. 

That’s what Johanna Pagonis figured out after a decade inside government and law. Her background wasn’t in hardhats and hazard zones. It was in leadership and emotional intelligence. It was in understanding why people either speak up or stay silent. She didn’t plan to enter the safety world. But when a former colleague (a safety lawyer, no less) told her, “This is exactly what the industry needs,” she listened.