David Musgrave
Senior Vice President
DEKRA
Embracing the Exceptional: Creating Breakthrough Cultural Inflection Points
Co-presented with Adam Miklos
Most organizations can point to “good” safety performance. Some can even claim “great.” But making the leap to exceptional—the kind that sustainably hold up under pressure, survive change, where teams live company guiding principles that protect them—this requires more than another initiative. It requires precision: in leadership attention, in the metrics that guide decisions, and in the actions that create real traction where the work safely happens.
In this action-planning breakout, Adam Miklos, VP HSE International Paper, a global leader in packaging solutions, will be joined by David Musgrave, Global Head of Thought Leadership & Innovation in DEKRA North America’s Consulting & Training practice, a global leader in safety and organizational transformation. Together they will share a candid, practical playbook for creating inflection points—moments where safety and culture improvements don’t just emerge but rather are catalyzed purposefully and proactively.
Together they’ll explore with the group how to move beyond broad commitments and rather into the specific decisions, actions, and rigor that builds durable culture and its performance output—especially when organizational inertia, “status quo” thinking and shifting market headwinds, add friction to progress.
Key takeaways
A clear definition of what “exceptional” looks like in leadership action as defined by
1. How to strengthen board and executive depth of engagement so it drives sustained performance—not episodic attention
2. A practical view of precision metrics: what to measure, why it matters, and how it changes decisions
3. An “actions by level” framework: what the board, C-suite, site leaders, and supervisors must do differently to create momentum
“My goal is to develop leaders, teams, and organizations and to further reduce their exposure related to human performance error at work, at home, and on the road. Executing critical tasks correctly every time requires some applied science.”
David Musgrave’s clients tangibly benefit from his extensive experience in sustainable safety improvement through leadership development, cultural and operational reliability analyses, and human error reduction through applied and embedded knowledge of the brain.
As a trusted adviser and master facilitator, he has designed and implemented change initiatives around the world that have helped numerous large companies achieve set performance targets. David maintains that the human brain operates in predictable ways. He believes that it can be leveraged to prevent serious injuries and improve how team members detect and alert the organization to system gaps, which could lead to unplanned events and cultural issues.
David’s background is in psychotherapy and mental health assessment and diagnostics. He holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the University of Calgary and a bachelor’s degree in psychology (industrial organizational focus) from Saint Mary’s University. He resides in Florida with his wife and two boys who frequent Tampa Bay beaches when looking to recharge.