Lori Santoli, Vice President of Global Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) at IFF, brings over 30 years of experience advancing workplace safety, operational excellence, and sustainability. Her career began on the shop floor, working directly with employees to address real-world challenges. She has grown into global leadership roles where she develops strategies that protect people, strengthen operations, and safeguard the environment.
Santoli has shaped EHS programs at organizations including Johnson & Johnson, Estée Lauder, and IFF throughout her career, blending technical expertise with a people-centered approach. She ensures safety is embedded into daily operations rather than treated as an additional task. By integrating safety into how employees work daily, Lori demonstrates how operational excellence and safety can reinforce each other. Her work has built a culture of safety that is both strategic and practical, producing measurable results across diverse operations worldwide.
Following is the conversation that we had with Santoli.
From the Shop Floor to Global Leadership
I started in junior site-level roles, often as the “EHS person on the floor,” working directly with employees to address immediate safety challenges. That experience grounded me in what matters most: listening, observing, and understanding how decisions affect the people doing the work.
Over time, I moved into campus leadership, then regional and ultimately global roles. I’ve worked with Johnson & Johnson, Estée Lauder, and now IFF, each step expanding my ability to create a broader impact while staying true to that people-first mindset. What has always driven me is the opportunity to keep employees safe while protecting the environment.
As Vice President of Global EHS at IFF today, I oversee our strategy across manufacturing, R&D, creative centers, and offices. My focus is on embedding safety into our operations so it’s not an add-on but part of how we do business every single day.
Setting Standards, Respecting Local Context
One of the most essential lessons in global leadership is striking the right balance between consistency and local relevance. At IFF, we define our Life Saving Principles, which are non-negotiable standards around critical risks such as lockout/tagout and hot work . These principles set the baseline across all regions, ensuring that employees are protected against our most serious risks no matter where we operate.
I’ve had the privilege of helping companies shape cultures where safety and sustainability are central to strategy. I’ve seen firsthand that when companies commit to protecting employees and the environment, they not only reduce risk but also unlock engagement, strengthen operations, and drive long-term success.
But global standards alone aren’t enough. Implementation must respect regional regulations, cultural differences, and local realities. To ensure our programs are inclusive and practical, I’ve built a diverse team with representation from across the world. We also developed a five-year EHS strategy through collaboration with our stakeholders. That input was critical, not just creating a plan that looked good on paper but one that everyone agreed addressed the company’s most pressing risks.
Keeping People at the Center
It’s easy in EHS to get caught up in the technical side. And yes, much complexity goes far beyond “common sense.” But at the end of the day, safety is about people and ensuring they go home safely every day.
That means involving employees directly. Safety cannot be something “done to them.” It only works when they are part of the conversation, engaged in identifying risks, and empowered to make safe choices. My role, and that of my team, is to create systems and processes that support people, not replace their judgment or responsibility.
Technology is part of this evolution. Artificial intelligence, for example, is beginning to play a role in root cause analysis and predictive insights. These tools help us spot risks faster and make smarter decisions. However, employees remain at the center no matter how advanced the tools become.
Building Safety into How We Work
One shift I’ve been particularly focused on is integrating safety into our operating system. That means embedding it into routines such as our tier meetings and Gemba walks. Safety isn’t a side agenda; it’s part of how we run the business.
When safety is woven into the daily rhythm of operations, it drives stronger compliance, lowers risk, and strengthens company culture. More importantly, it reinforces to employees that their well-being is not optional or secondary; it is fundamental to our success as an organization.
Advice for the Next Generation of EHS Leaders
If I had one piece of advice for emerging leaders, it would be this: don’t let safety stand alone as a separate initiative. Build it into how people work every day. Partner closely with operations and business leaders so that EHS is not perceived as an extra task but as part of the systems that support performance and our long term sustainability as a company.
And just as importantly, involve people. An authentic safety culture happens when employees feel ownership, speak up about risks, and know their voices matter. That engagement differentiates between programs that look good on paper and workplaces where people are genuinely safe.
A Career with Purpose
For me, EHS has never been just a job; it’s a mission. Over the last three decades, I’ve had the privilege of helping companies shape cultures where safety and sustainability are central to strategy. I’ve seen firsthand that when companies commit to protecting employees and the environment, they not only reduce risk but also unlock engagement, strengthen operations, and drive long-term success.
That belief has kept me in this field for so many years, and it continues to inspire me every day: creating workplaces where people are safe, empowered, and valued and where protecting the environment is inseparable from how we do business.
