Issue 10 2021

20 CEO MONTHLY / ISSUE 10 2021 , Jul21249 Rising CEO Award: Jeff Ward An exemplary fall protection innovation supplier and training company, Guardian Fall has been providing its industry with the best safetymeasures in the business for those working at heights. Able to ensure safety in personal fall protection, dropped object prevention, foreign material exclusion, andmore, it is currently enjoying a trajectory towards greater success that shows no signs of slowing. Guardian Fall is a group that started in 2017. Beginning as a company called the Pure Safety Group, it was the culmination of a few different acquisitions, each with different specialisms that would allow the group to begin cornering the market and access all different areas of the segment. Guardian, one of the companies within this, was a scale and expertise fall protection business also with a strong custom engineered systems division, Checkmate was a cutting- edge fall protection design and innovation creator with UK manufacturing pedigree, and Ty-Flot was a pioneer in dropped object prevention, as well as foreign material exclusion. Therefore, with all of these various specialisms combined, it merged under the Guardian Fall banner in May of this year. Since then, it has succeeded in becoming the world’s largest independent fall protection and prevention brand, making working at heights safer, easier, and more efficient for workers. In order to do this effectively it combines scale, agility, and 360 degree thinking in order to let customers progress with what is most important to them across the different companies it serves and their myriad corporate goals and constructions. Fundamentally, its business offers the design, manufacture, and height safety training and engineered systems that will make a difference to the safety level of any operation – operating across the UK and North America – and supplying its full range through distribution partners serving the construction industry and health and safety experts. Its training has become lauded as the best in its class, too. Through this, it blends classroom, on-site, and on-line education, and works holistically to offer education and products in order to become the fall protection one-stop-shop. It holds to the principles that worker safety, focus, connection, support, and challenge are what have made it such a darling of its industry; in doing so, it removes unnecessary complexities and leverages the full potential of each of its businesses. This unification, in essence, has ensured it can serve its clients better than ever, strengthening its sales experts and operations team in order to bolster this. This has all been made possible by the exemplary drive of the CEO, Jeff Ward. Previously, he was the head of its international operations, and has 20 years of sales, marketing, operations, and general management experience under his belt, as well as tenure as the CEO of Centurion Safety Products and experience directing the British Safety Industry Federation. Jeff Ward’s academic track record has also allowed him to bring this dimension of knowledge to the company, with an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Warwick Business School. Internally, therefore, it has focused on resilience – allowing the team to rally around the cause – and striving for the establishment of new goals for 2022, such as anchoring itself in user insight, sustained investment in specialist roles, and empowerment by continued growth in operational excellence. It sees this strengthening its position in the US, Canada and UK in the next 3 to 5 years, hoping to expand further across the world and into more elements of its market segment, solving more problems for professionals in its industry. Excited about this bright future, it will currently keep pursuing its opportunities to expand into general industry and telecommunications, moving also towards the European and the Middle Eastern markets. Contact: Jeff Ward Website: www.guardianfall.com