As a world leader in process safety, Shakeel Kadri, Executive Director and CEO of the Center for Chemical Process Safety, brings over 40 years of broad industry experience, with a strong focus on improving process safety. Shakeel came to CCPS in January 2015 as their Executive Director. CCPS is an Industrial Technology Alliance of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. In nearly eight years at CCPS, Shakeel has been expanding CCPS globally and driving the CCPS Mission to help minimize significant process safety incidents globally.

Before this role, Shakeel spent 36 years at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. In his most recent role there as Director of Global Process Safety and Risk Management, which he held for twelve years, Shakeel was instrumental in building their global process safety team, raised company’s process safety risk awareness and focus globally, revitalized process safety performance measurement culture and developed a strong industry engagement. Prior to this role, Shakeel also held leadership positions in Process Engineering, Technology, Operations, Quality and HSE.

Shakeel is a Fellow of AIChE and a Fellow of CCPS. He is very engaged with the industry and its stakeholder. Shakeel has actively served on process safety committees of the American Chemistry Council, the American Petroleum Institute, the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, the International Council of Chemicals Associations, the Compressed Gas Association, the European Industrial Gases and Association, and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association.

Shakeel has a BS and MS in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Finance.

Shakeel will give this year's Trevor Kletz lecture in which he will talk about process safety leadership:

When Process Safety Becomes Personal: Lessons from a Leadership Journey
Process safety leadership is shaped not only by management systems and technical standards, but also by personal experiences, organizational culture, trusted mentors, and difficult moments that test a leader’s judgment.

Drawing on more than four decades of experience in engineering, process safety, corporate leadership, and global industry collaboration, this keynote traces the events and career transitions that shaped the speaker’s leadership philosophy. It reflects on the influence of a strong early safety culture, lessons from serious incidents—including the Bhopal disaster—and industry engagement through the CCPS.

The presentation highlights several enduring lessons: recognizing that risk is never zero, creating an environment where employees can confidently deliver “bad news,” learning from weak signals, welcoming dissent, and maintaining clear accountability for managing hazards. The central message is simple: process safety becomes truly effective when leaders make it personal through their decisions, behaviors, and priorities.