About
Save Lives Global
Save Lives Global connects safety expertise, human factors, research, and practical education to help organizations understand exposures and strengthen how work is managed.
Advancing Human Performance. Preventing Serious Incidents and Fatalities. Building Resilient Organizations.
Save Lives Global is a research, education, and advisory organization dedicated to advancing Human Performance, preventing Serious Incidents and Fatalities (SIF), and strengthening organizational resilience in high-risk and mission-critical environments.
We believe that sustainable improvements in safety and operational performance require more than regulatory compliance, policies, procedures, and traditional approaches to managing human error.
They require a deeper understanding of how people, technologies, organizational systems, leadership decisions, and operational conditions interact.
As industries evolve, technologies advance, and operating environments become increasingly complex, organizations must develop new ways to recognize emerging risks, strengthen safeguards, and build the capacity to respond when work does not unfold as planned.
Save Lives Global exists to advance that understanding—and translate it into practical organizational capability.
Our Approach
Research | Education | Application
Our work is organized around three interconnected disciplines.
Research Institute — Advancing the Thinking
We develop and publish research, practical frameworks, and analysis addressing Human Performance, SIF prevention, emerging risk, contractor management, and organizational resilience.
Academy — Developing the People
We translate research and practical experience into education designed for executives, organizational leaders, supervisors, operators, and professionals working in complex environments.
Advisory — Strengthening the Organization
We work with organizations to understand complex operational challenges, assess organizational capability, and develop practical strategies that improve Human Performance, risk management, and operational resilience.
Together, these disciplines connect original thinking with education and real-world application.
Our Founder
Dr. Simon Goncharenko, PhD, CSP, CSHO
Author | Researcher | Educator | Speaker | Global EHS Executive
Dr. Simon Goncharenko is an internationally experienced Environmental, Health, and Safety executive, researcher, author, and educator with more than three decades of experience helping organizations improve safety, strengthen operational performance, and manage risk in complex, high-hazard environments.
His professional experience spans construction, oil and gas, critical infrastructure, and hyperscale data centers, with work involving multinational organizations and operations across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Throughout his career, Dr. Goncharenko has worked at the intersection of Human Performance, organizational systems, operational risk, and leadership—challenging traditional approaches to safety that focus primarily on individual behavior, regulatory compliance, and retrospective incident analysis.
His work emphasizes understanding the conditions that shape human decisions and performance, identifying credible pathways to serious events, and developing organizational systems capable of anticipating, adapting to, and recovering from operational variability.
He has held senior leadership and advisory positions supporting complex operations and major infrastructure programs, including work with globally recognized organizations.
In addition to his executive experience, Dr. Goncharenko contributes to professional education, industry discussions, and safety standards development. He serves on professional advisory and standards committees, including work associated with the American Society of Safety Professionals and Total Worker Health.
He holds the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) and Certified Safety and Health Official (CSHO) credentials and earned a PhD in Systematic Theology. His interdisciplinary background informs his interest in human behavior, ethical leadership, organizational responsibility, and the relationship between people and the systems in which they work.
Author and Researcher
Dr. Goncharenko is the author of multiple books and numerous professional publications addressing Human Performance, safety leadership, contractor management, and organizational improvement.
Selected books include:
- Save Lives: Pushing Boundaries in Human Factors
- Operationalizing Twenty-First Century Safety: A Humancentric Practical Guide
- Resilient Contractor Safety Management
His research through Save Lives Global examines how traditional approaches to safety can be strengthened through systems thinking, organizational learning, SIF prevention, and a better understanding of emerging operational risks.
Recent research explores resilient contractor management, care management and operational capacity, and the changing safety landscape associated with liquid-cooled AI data centers.
His work has also appeared in professional publications, including Professional Safety, the journal of the American Society of Safety Professionals.
Speaker and Educator
Dr. Goncharenko has delivered presentations, professional education, and leadership sessions for audiences across multiple industries and international venues.
His speaking addresses the practical and organizational challenges of Human Performance, SIF prevention, safety leadership, contractor management, emerging technology, and organizational resilience.
Rather than treating safety as a separate organizational function, his work challenges leaders to understand how safety, operational performance, decision-making, and organizational effectiveness are interconnected.
What we Believe
People do not perform independently of the systems in which they work.
Their decisions and actions are shaped by available information, experience, organizational expectations, competing priorities, equipment, procedures, leadership, and the realities of everyday operations.
Understanding those conditions is essential to preventing serious events and building resilient organizations.
We believe:
- Human error should often be the beginning of an investigation, not its conclusion.
- The credible potential for serious harm matters, even when the actual outcome is minor.
- Procedures must be executable under real operating conditions, not merely technically correct.
- Emerging technologies can create new risk pathways through interactions among existing hazards.
- Organizational resilience depends on the capacity to anticipate, adapt, respond, and learn.
- Effective leadership changes the conditions that shape performance, not merely the expectations placed on people.
These principles inform our research, education, and advisory work.
Our Mission
To advance Human Performance and organizational resilience through research, education, and practical application—helping organizations prevent serious incidents and fatalities while strengthening the systems that support people and operational performance.