How to Become the Best Manager of the Year? Winners' Experience

Why Participating in the HSE Top 100 Rating is a Step Towards Industry Development

The issue of the image and authority of the Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) function remains relevant for many companies. Despite stricter controls and increased fines, safety issues are often not among business priorities. As Oksana Zalevskaya, Head of Integrated HSE Management Systems at Severstal, notes, specialists often have to spend a lot of time and effort to "sell" an initiative to management. This indicates a lack of trust and the low prestige of the profession.

Participating in professional ratings, such as the HSE Top 100, is becoming an important tool to change this situation. The rating serves as a marker of the correctness of the chosen path and allows specialists to evaluate their competencies against their peers. Increasing the personal authority of a manager directly affects the status of the entire HSE department in the company, which, in turn, contributes to the creation of a mature occupational safety management system and increases the reputational attractiveness of the business for investors and job seekers.

The Participant's Journey: From Doubts to Recognition

The decision to apply for the rating is often accompanied by typical fears: doubts about the value of one's own experience, fear of public speaking, and competition with recognized experts. However, as the experience of past winners shows, overcoming these barriers opens up unique opportunities for professional and personal growth.

Svetlana Vladimirova, Head of the HSE Days Academy, shares her story: participating in the rating helped her realize the significance of the implemented projects and gave a powerful impetus for development. Her initiatives to change approaches to occupational safety training received community recognition, and she herself became a co-author of a book and headed the educational direction of the project. This example illustrates how the expertise of one specialist can influence the development of a safety culture on a national scale.

Ivan Drepin, Head of the Safety Culture Department at Atlas Mining, emphasizes the importance of a supportive environment. Passing an interview with the expert council and subsequently speaking to an audience not only increases self-esteem but also energizes for further work. The rating provides an opportunity to find like-minded people and realize one's mission in the profession.

New Formats and Candidate Support

In the new season, the HSE Top 100 rating has undergone changes to make participation more comfortable and fair for specialists of different levels. Three independent streams have been introduced:

• Rising Star — for young professionals with 3 to 6 years of experience in industrial safety.
• General Stream — a classic format for professionals with 7 to 14 years of experience.
• Major League — for experienced managers with over 15 years of experience, ready to share unique cases.

This division allows candidates to compete with peers of equal experience and receive relevant feedback.

Special attention is paid to preparing participants for public speaking. Alexey Chistyakov, Head of Safety Culture Development at TOT Consulting, talks about the candidate support program. Experts help structure the presentation content, cut out unnecessary information, and focus on the main goal of the speech. Practical online training sessions allow participants to practice audience interaction skills and cope with anxiety, which significantly improves the quality of conveying ideas.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How does participation in a professional rating help increase the authority of the HSE department in a company?
• What fears prevent specialists from making themselves known and how to overcome them?
• What are the key changes in the structure of the HSE Top 100 rating in the new season?
• How to properly structure your speech and avoid typical mistakes when preparing a presentation?
• What tools for interacting with an online audience make a presentation more effective?