5 November Celebrating 25 years of LRB Consulting Ltd! Friday 07 November 2025 marks the 25-year anniversary of LRB Consulting Ltd. To mark the occasion, we spoke to our Director, Michael Ellerby to ask him about his health and safety journey, leading to this milestone. What inspired you to start your own health and safety consultancy? There were two complementary factors: some rigidity in approach where I was working, and frequently seeing people struggle with understanding chemical risks. I was working with a company that had some rigid approaches to health and safety that suited consultant productivity rather than the needs of the client. An opportunity came up that would allow me to trial a more flexible approach of working with clients, and I chose to do this – through LRB Consulting Ltd. My background, before a career in health and safety, was in chemistry. When I moved into managing health and safety in this role, I saw that there was disconnect between people managing the workplace and people understanding the risks from exposure to chemicals. I could see there was a real need for a health and safety partner who could understand and explain COSHH, not just in the chemical industry but across all workplaces. There is sometimes a negative perception that health and safety is all about telling you what you can’t do. This isn’t my experience or my approach. Health and safety is about preventing harm, pragmatic solutions, and keeping people safe. I started LRB Consulting Ltd to share that ethos, and provide a different approach. What are three of the biggest lessons you have learned over 25 years at the helm of the company? One of the things I’ve always enjoyed is that in health and safety, there’s always something new to uncover, or something new to learn. In order to work well with our clients, the three biggest learnings I’ve found are: Listen – Take the time to listen to clients, understand the nuance and understand their needs and concerns. It’s incredibly difficult to provide good advice if you don’t. The right approach for one company can be vastly different from another’s. Listening tells you how you can best support, and how you can give a company the right tools to succeed in keeping their workplace safe. Challenge assumptions – If you’re unsure of a client’s process, or something seems unusual, don’t be afraid to ask. Open questions, and listening to the responses, can help us answer the bigger question: ‘is this the right way to manage things, or just the way we’ve always managed things?’. Challenging processes can help us assess whether something is working well, or if a different approach might help. Teamwork – When I started LRB, I was working on my own. As the business grew and I hired my first employees, shifting from my independent mindset to leading a team of experts took time. Reminding myself that safety is a shared responsibility helped me embrace collaboration; sharing ideas, solving problems, and pooling experiences. The opportunity to work with colleagues with varied expertise taught me that true progress in health and safety comes from our collective strength. What piece of advice would you give to yourself if you could, in 2000? If you had told me, 25 years ago, that the small company I started from the box room of the house was where it is today, I would have been quite surprised. With three small children and a mortgage, setting up on my own was quite a risky move, and not without its challenges. I think the advice I’d give myself would be to treat challenges as a learning experience, stand by your morals, and remember why you’re doing it. Over the years, I’ve seen small companies reach out at the beginning to ask for support, and I’ve watched them grow, understand their responsibilities and strive for excellence. It can sometimes be difficult to make people want to make a difference. Remembering, quite simply, that we do what we do to keep people safe, and make sure people get home at the end of the day has helped stay grounded and build a business I am proud of. What are you most proud of over the last 25 years? I think the thing I am most proud of is the range of businesses and industries we have worked with and made a difference to. We have been able to make a real difference on the ground to sole traders, small businesses, national companies, and international organisations. We have taken on some niche projects – as well as helping people cope with the basics. This is all possible thanks to the diligence of the team, their willingness to learn, and their determination to succeed. Hearing accounts of site visits, receiving positive client feedback, and seeing real progress is incredibly fulfilling. Thanks from the team From the whole team at LRB Consulting Ltd, we hope you’ll share with us in wishing Michael congratulations on reaching this milestone with LRB Consulting Ltd. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and here’s to the next 25!