What happens when safety requirements and operational deadlines collide? For Kristie Boissonneault, the answer isn’t to point fingers or shut everything down. It’s to find a way forward together.
In this episode of Facility Rockstars, host Jay Culbert sits down with Kristie Boissonneault, Associate Director of Environmental Health and Safety at Moderna, to explore what it really takes to build trust, influence others, and create a lasting safety culture. With more than a decade of experience spanning hazardous waste management, environmental compliance, sustainability, and EHS leadership, Kristie has learned that technical expertise is only part of what makes a great safety professional.
Kristie shares how she’s learned to embrace pushback, build confidence through taking risks, and work alongside facilities teams rather than acting as a roadblock. From finding creative solutions to complex compliance challenges to navigating a real-world hot work permit situation, she explains why curiosity, collaboration, and accountability can turn everyday challenges into opportunities for long-term improvement.
Takeaways:
The best leaders never stop learning. Kristie explains why humility and recognizing that you don’t have all the answers are essential to becoming a stronger leader and building trust with others.
Safety professionals should be partners, not rule enforcers. Understanding the goals and challenges of other departments helps EHS leaders create solutions that protect employees without unnecessarily disrupting operations.
Don’t take pushback personally. Resistance often comes from competing priorities, budgets, or deadlines. Great leaders work to understand those concerns rather than becoming defensive.
Confidence comes from doing uncomfortable things. Kristie shares how taking risks, making mistakes, and learning to recover from setbacks helped her become more confident throughout her career.
Technical expertise alone doesn’t create influence. Strong communication, relationship-building, and interpersonal skills help EHS professionals inspire action, even when the people involved don’t report directly to them.
Look for solutions before accepting limitations. When a refrigerant management program needed improvement but new software wasn’t financially feasible, Kristie worked with facilities to find a solution using existing systems.
Build a culture of learning instead of blame. Through a real-world hot work permit example, Kristie demonstrates how addressing process gaps collaboratively can create lasting improvements in safety culture.
Quote of the Show:
“What differentiates good leaders from great leaders are those who can work with the pushback and not take it personally.”
Links:
Website: https://www.modernatx.com/