Stephen Watson

Principal

United Kingdom

Stephen advises leaders in the transport, construction and energy sectors on safety leadership, culture and governance to improve business performance.

Education

University of Birmingham
BEng (Hons), Chemical Engineering

Past Experience

Shell International Chemicals
Process Engineer

Stephen is a Principal at Arthur D. Little, based in our Cambridge office in the United Kingdom.

Since joining Arthur D. Little in 1998, Stephen has worked internationally across the transport, process and construction sectors, leading independent review of safety arrangements at board, business-unit and operational levels.

Recent projects have included a review and benchmarking of the corporate safety governance of an international transport operator and reviewing how an industrial services company put people to work at their clients’ sites.

Prior to joining Arthur D. Little, Stephen was employed for over seven years with Shell International Chemicals, involved in refinery and petrochemical process engineering, operations and process design. 

Stephen is a regular speaker at conferences on safety culture, accident investigation and safety leadership, and is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Birmingham for teaching safety as part of the chemical engineering undergraduate degree program. 

Stephen volunteers for his local ambulance service, providing life-saving first aid in response to time-critical calls.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR RISK APPETITE?
DO YOU KNOW YOUR RISK APPETITE?
Today’s business environment is evolving at a fast pace, driven by rapidly emerging technologies, geopolitical upheaval, and other unpredictable events, making it increasingly difficult for leaders to navigate risks effectively. Organizations need to make risk-related decisions within a clearly defined risk appetite that is well understood across both strategic and operational levels.
Competence at the heart of a safe organization
Achieving consistently strong safety performance through a competent and capable workforce
Project crisis management
Energy companies are increasingly relying on extremely large-scale investment projects (megaprojects) to respond to the energy transformation, build capacity and replace depleting energy sources. Ever-increasing technical and commercial complexity, coupled with high political instability, economy and industry cycles, investor activism and tighter time constraints, make successful delivery of energy projects more challenging than ever.
Generating business value from data
With advances in technology, companies are now collecting far greater quantities of data about their business processes and assets than before. However, existing assurance processes rarely benefit from this data, which limits access to richer insight and may lead to false assurance on performance. There is also the potential for legal implications following an accident, in which a company may be judged to have failed to act on data that indicated an accident was foreseeable.
Escalating fines for safety offences
New sentencing guidelines are evidently changing the landscape for health and safety prosecutions. Executives should be aware of these changes and the potential implications on their business
Detection and prevention of risk from third parties
As companies’ reliance on third parties (such as contractors, partners and suppliers) increases, the need to both detect and prevent risk from these third parties becomes ever more important.
Process Safety Management
Effective safety management still remains a significant challenge to many operators in the process industry. From our strategic safety reviews and independent process safety management (PSM) system audits, we continue to detect significant weaknesses in PSM performance that are unknown to the senior management team.

Stephen is a Principal at Arthur D. Little, based in our Cambridge office in the United Kingdom.

Since joining Arthur D. Little in 1998, Stephen has worked internationally across the transport, process and construction sectors, leading independent review of safety arrangements at board, business-unit and operational levels.

Recent projects have included a review and benchmarking of the corporate safety governance of an international transport operator and reviewing how an industrial services company put people to work at their clients’ sites.

Prior to joining Arthur D. Little, Stephen was employed for over seven years with Shell International Chemicals, involved in refinery and petrochemical process engineering, operations and process design. 

Stephen is a regular speaker at conferences on safety culture, accident investigation and safety leadership, and is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Birmingham for teaching safety as part of the chemical engineering undergraduate degree program. 

Stephen volunteers for his local ambulance service, providing life-saving first aid in response to time-critical calls.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR RISK APPETITE?
DO YOU KNOW YOUR RISK APPETITE?
Today’s business environment is evolving at a fast pace, driven by rapidly emerging technologies, geopolitical upheaval, and other unpredictable events, making it increasingly difficult for leaders to navigate risks effectively. Organizations need to make risk-related decisions within a clearly defined risk appetite that is well understood across both strategic and operational levels.
Competence at the heart of a safe organization
Achieving consistently strong safety performance through a competent and capable workforce
Project crisis management
Energy companies are increasingly relying on extremely large-scale investment projects (megaprojects) to respond to the energy transformation, build capacity and replace depleting energy sources. Ever-increasing technical and commercial complexity, coupled with high political instability, economy and industry cycles, investor activism and tighter time constraints, make successful delivery of energy projects more challenging than ever.
Generating business value from data
With advances in technology, companies are now collecting far greater quantities of data about their business processes and assets than before. However, existing assurance processes rarely benefit from this data, which limits access to richer insight and may lead to false assurance on performance. There is also the potential for legal implications following an accident, in which a company may be judged to have failed to act on data that indicated an accident was foreseeable.
Escalating fines for safety offences
New sentencing guidelines are evidently changing the landscape for health and safety prosecutions. Executives should be aware of these changes and the potential implications on their business
Detection and prevention of risk from third parties
As companies’ reliance on third parties (such as contractors, partners and suppliers) increases, the need to both detect and prevent risk from these third parties becomes ever more important.
Process Safety Management
Effective safety management still remains a significant challenge to many operators in the process industry. From our strategic safety reviews and independent process safety management (PSM) system audits, we continue to detect significant weaknesses in PSM performance that are unknown to the senior management team.

More About Stephen
  • University of Birmingham
    BEng (Hons), Chemical Engineering
  • Shell International Chemicals
    Process Engineer