Building Safety Into Systems, Not Onto Schedules with John Kanyan

"Never be afraid of what the three most terrifying words in our business are: 'I don't know’. Because if you don't know, you can find out." - John Kanyan, Director EHS PepsiCo Safety leadership is not about adding more rules to the schedule. It is about designing safety into the way work gets done. John Kanyan, Director of EHS at PepsiCo, brings more than 15 years of frontline experience across steel mills, power generation, manufacturing, and large-scale fleet operations to a conversation about making safety stick. In this episode of The Canary Report, host Michael Zalle sits down with John to explore how system safety and behavior safety work together to strengthen culture, why safety belongs inside SOPs rather than beside them, and what it takes to manage risk across 19 geographically dispersed facilities. John also shares a practical perspective on using AI in safety, the importance of human oversight, and why being willing to say “I don’t know” can lead to better decisions and stronger safety programs.