Brian Long

Group Health, Safety & Wellbeing Director

A highly successful Health, Safety, and Operational Risk executive with over 25 years of global experience across various industry-leading organisations.

Brian has operated at the corporate level, reporting to Group CEOs and corporate boards, and has also worked at the coalface on various complex, large-scale execution projects. He has a profound understanding of product lifecycles and their importance in Health and Safety, noting how critical the “upstream” stages are to successfully eliminating risks downstream.

Brian’s most outstanding achievement coincided with his time at Lendlease. It culminated in Lendlease (between 2013-18) operating globally, fatality-free, for four and a half years (including amongst contractor and subcontractor bases).

The significance of this milestone is reinforced by the fact that during the period immediately before 2013 (2002-2012), Lendlease experienced an average of six (contractor/sub-contractor) fatalities per annum over ten years.

Following 18 successful years at Lendlease, Brian joined AECOM, a global Construction and Engineering firm. During his 20 months there, he transformed the organisation’s approach to Safety, Security, and Sustainability, culminating in the introduction of a risk-based safety program and a commitment to deliver against the Science Based Targets Initiative in sustainability. He also partnered on several large transport and engineering mega-projects across Continental Europe and the Middle East.

Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brian returned to Australia to lead the Safety, Health, and Wellbeing at the Woolworths Group, Australia’s largest retail group, which at the time employed circa 195,000. Brian’s legacy at Woolworths is the creation of a holistic health, safety, and wellbeing support network that ensures crisis support is available to all Woolworths employees (and their families) at the touch of a button, 24/7, 365 days a year.

In December 2021, he joined Mirvac on the promise that he would transform the company’s approach to safety and wellbeing, innovating and setting new standards across the industry before finally returning to the UK in mid-2024.

He is a PhD candidate at Loughborough University under the supervision of Patrick Waterson and Thomas Jun.