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“Some of the most advanced and exemplary organisations in terms of health and safety performance I’ve ever seen have been in the Middle East.”
NEBOSH Chief Executive, Teresa Budworth, is stepping down later this year, but before giving up the reins she chatted to HSME magazine and made one thing crystal clear: the Middle East showcases some world leading safety.
Teresa has led NEBOSH for the past 12 years and in that time she has transformed the charity into a global brand in the field of health, safety and environmental qualifications.
“Growing NEBOSH five-fold and achieving that commercial success is important because it helps us to meet our charitable aims, but what’s most important to me, as a career health and safety professional, is that we have enabled more people around the world to achieve safe and healthy working conditions.”
Teresa’s first visit to the Middle East came in 2006 when she started as CEO. She said: “Really it was a fact finding mission. We were starting to see some course providers out there, and I wanted to really understand how things worked in the Region and make sure NEBOSH met their needs for the qualification – that we weren’t taking an excessively UK-centric view. I also wanted to make sure that we were easy for them to do business with.
“I have a particularly close relationship with GPIC, Gulf Petrochemical Industries, in Bahrain. I met their president, Dr Abdulrahman Jawahery, years ago when they won the Sir George Earle trophy for RoSPA when I was on the judging panel. When I then went to Bahrain two years later I had the opportunity to visit their premises and honestly, their standards are absolutely amazing – the work that they put in to push them ahead of the curve has been great.”
Of other organisations in Bahrain, both Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) and BANAGAS are award winning. Teresa said: “They are leading the field in terms of their health and safety performance. I’ve been privileged to visit with both organisations and they are really great.
The other thing about all three organisations is that they’re great ambassadors for health and safety – not just within Bahrain but within their industry and within the region as well. They are world leading organisations in terms of health and safety, environment, availability, and worker wellbeing.”
On leaving NEBOSH, Teresa plans to focus on her non-executive roles, including as Chair of the Chief Fire Officers’ Association and to finish her second book on professional skills for the safety practitioner.
