Public speaking for leadership, safety culture, and decision-making under pressure.
Drawing from deep undersea operations experience, David turns high-stakes lessons into practical conversations for modern teams.
Biography
David Lochridge is a career submersible pilot and undersea operations leader with experience spanning the Royal Navy, commercial offshore diving, submarine rescue, and manned submersible expeditions.
His work has taken him into demanding environments where discipline, technical judgment, and trust in complex systems are essential, including roles leading and operating submersible teams from expedition vessels and superyacht platforms around the world.
As former Director of Marine Operations at OceanGate, David was responsible for safety and operational oversight and later became widely recognized for raising documented safety concerns before the Titan submersible disaster.
He has since appeared as an expedition expert in documentary and television projects including Netflix's Titan, OceanXplorers, and Inside the Red Sea Mission, and now serves as a Sub Team Leader with InkFish while continuing to speak about safety culture, risk, leadership, and decision-making in high-pressure environments.
Speaking topics
1) Safety culture that survives deadlines
- What “speaking up” looks like in practice (and what shuts it down)
- Why checklists aren’t enough without ownership and escalation paths
- How to develop a safety culture for your organization
2) Risk, incentives, and the stories organizations tell themselves
- How incentives quietly rewrite technical standards
- “Innovation” vs. disciplined experimentation
- What good governance looks like when nobody wants to slow down
3) Leadership under pressure
- How leaders create psychological safety (or destroy it) in one meeting
- Decision hygiene: who owns what, and how to document dissent
- Practical patterns that scale with growth
4) Moderated conversation / AMA format
- Ideal for conferences and internal offsites
- Works well with an engineering, legal, or ethics co-panelist
- Can be tailored to your industry without sharing confidential details
Testimonial
“Having David Lochridge deliver our keynote address for our Global Safety Day was truly impactful. He captivated our audience with his experience and personal stories. Following the event, David definitely left his mark, and staff members were grateful and genuinely inspired by his talk. His experience, combined with a touch of humour, made the event a real success.”Priscilla, Anglo American plc