Kristin Peck wants to change how you think about treating and preventing animal disease. Not only is their welfare an ethical obligation, it’s also inseparable from the environment, economics, and our own health. “Animals can help humans live longer,” says Peck, who is CEO of the global animal health company Zoetis. She helped launch Zoetis in 2012 because animal health “spoke to me personally,” after growing up with a family raising horses, dogs, cats, and birds. Her passion for protecting animals has translated into major achievements, including 25 million doses of Zoetis’ innovative arthritis medication given to dogs, starting in 2021 through the present. Zoetis has developed a new vaccine to protect chickens from the currently circulating Avian Influenza H5N1 virus that has infected 168 million birds in the U.S. since early 2022, decimating the poultry industry. In Feb. 2025, the U.S. government issued a license for the vaccine, though it has yet to be distributed for use in poultry farms. This followed the government’s use of Zoetis’ H5N1 vaccine in 2023 to protect endangered California condors.
Zoetis’ work pushes beyond U.S. borders: Zoetis distributes vaccines for eight animal species in more than 100 countries. In 2024, its H5N3 vaccine saved endangered birds in New Zealand. Peck’s favorite part of the job is traveling to rural Africa, Asia, and Latin America to see how Zoetis’ vaccinations are protecting livestock in low-income locales. “Keeping animals healthy makes such a difference for community health,” she says.