At Hazardex Live 2026 on 25-26 February 2026, William Cowdroy, Consultant Director at ERM will be presenting on moving from compliance driven safety to intelligence driven risk management.

As Industry 4.0 advances with automation, smart technology, and big data, managing risk remains critical. Functional Safety, traditionally compliance-focused through standards like IEC 61508, now faces growing demands for innovative approaches. ERM advocates shifting from compliance-driven safety to intelligence-driven risk management by leveraging AI and Machine Learning to analyse vast datasets, uncover hidden risks, and transform “unknown knowns” into actionable insights.

About the speaker:

William Cowdroy is a Consulting Director at ERM leading their UK Technical Safety services in Diversified Energy, which includes Oil & Gas (upstream, midstream and downstream), Hydrogen (production, transport and storage) and CCUS. William specialises in Process Safety and Functional Safety, primarily supporting operators of high-hazard facilities to design, operate and maintain their plants and safety critical systems to protect people, the environment and their assets. He is also an experienced project manager for major capital and energy transition programmes with emerging regulatory frameworks. Notably, he led the Safety, Planning, Permitting and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Equinor’s Hydrogen to Humber (H2H) Saltend Project, one of the UK’s flagship blue hydrogen developments, delivering planning consent in 2024.