How data center leaders can build risk, resilience and human performance into how work is planned and delivered, instead of adding it on afterward.
As data centers scale to meet AI-driven demand, the industry’s default response to risk is often to add more process: more policies, more audits, more compliance checkpoints. This session challenges that model. Chris Pendergrass, VP of Environmental Health and Safety at Montera Infrastructure, argues that safety and operational resilience should never be treated as a standalone function bolted on after design, construction or commissioning. Instead, risk should be considered at every stage of the infrastructure lifecycle, from concept design through construction, commissioning and operations.
Drawing on his systems-led approach, Chris will explore why the people closest to the work, not policies and paperwork, are often best placed to identify where systems can be strengthened. He will share how Montera integrates risk-informed design, competency verification and operational feedback loops to build infrastructure and organizations that perform reliably as complexity and scale increase.
Attendees will leave with a practical view of how to embed EHS into the way a business designs, builds and operates, turning it from a compliance function into a genuine driver of efficiency, resilience and long-term performance.
Three Key Learning Outcomes
- How to move EHS from a compliance function to an embedded design and operations discipline across the infrastructure lifecycle.
- Practical frameworks for designing risk out during design and construction, before work ever reaches the field.
- How to build systems that listen to and learn from the people doing the work, creating self-aware, high-performing organizations.
