Zoetis: Awareness & Action Drive Impact: The Zoetis Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Journey (Practices)

Zoetis is driven by the purpose of nurturing “the world and humankind by advancing care for animals.” It makes sense that a company whose corporate mission is focused on caring would also prioritize the wellbeing and success of its colleagues, yet Zoetis has gone above and beyond in its efforts, ensuring that its Award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative reaches colleagues around the globe—from the front line to senior leadership.

Zoetis launched its Awareness & Action Drive Impact initiative in January 2020, when Kristin Peck became CEO. During her first month as chief executive, she worked to position DEI as one of five strategic priorities for the organization. To support this positioning, Zoetis created the role of Chief Talent, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (TDE&I) Officer as well as a team dedicated to TDE&I, which has expanded from an initial staff of three to thirteen.

Zoetis’ initiative has several governing bodies that work in concert. The TDE&I Center of Excellence, whose entire purpose is talent and DEI, is the primary entity providing oversight. The Executive Diversity Council consists of members of the Zoetis Executive Team (ZET) who oversee TDE&I, align their work with the company’s business strategy, and cascade goals throughout the organization. Zoetis also created a sustainability function that embeds DEI into its goals of Care and Collaboration for Communities, including reporting on how Zoetis prioritizes DEI in every talent decision across all business functions in the company.

Zoetis’ senior leadership team has driven and role modeled this initiative from the top. In addition, the company created systems that institutionalize DEI in business processes, embedding it in every corner of the business and ensuring that it is powered by colleagues at all levels. DEI progress is given the same weight as other business objectives, and a focus on equity is built into expectations around leadership skills.

Highlights of Zoetis’ initiative include:

• Global culture, regional customization: Zoetis’ core values serve as guiding principles for fostering a sense of belonging and taking new opportunities across the globe. At the same time, the company makes specific efforts to address the unique needs of different regions. As a result, regardless of the obstacles in a given location, colleagues reported that they felt safer at work than anywhere else—that being at work was actually “a relief.”
• Frontline employee inclusion: Women are found everywhere across Zoetis’ two primary frontline functions of manufacturing and sales, including in key leadership roles. Career ladders and paths are available to all frontline colleagues. Everyone has access to an individualized development plan, support, and an understanding of how to advance, as well as opportunities to work on different projects or roles.
• Colleague Resource Groups (CRGs) play a tremendous role in helping leadership understand the obstacles that different groups face; promoting allyship; generating ideas for solutions, sharing them with executive sponsors, and executing on them; and much more. Kristin Peck and the Zoetis Executive Team are extremely engaged with Zoetis’ CRGs.
• Talent processes, both external-facing and internal-facing, have a powerful impact on representation and inclusion at Zoetis. External-facing processes include partnerships with INROADS and MANRRS to share what it’s like to work in animal health and increase the pool of underrepresented talent. Internal-facing processes include strong, intentional succession planning that regularly plans for two–three roles ahead and provides access to sponsors, mentors, and leadership growth opportunities.

As a result of the initiative, women’s global representation from 2020–2023 increased at the target level of Band 1 (ZET, ZET-1, ZET-2) from 47% to 50% (3 percentage points), and in Band 2 (ZET-3) from 44% to 49% (5 percentage points). On the Board of Directors, women’s overall representation increased from 36% to 42% (6 percentage points), and the representation of women from marginalized racial and ethnic groups increased from 9% to 17% (8 percentage points).

About Zoetis

As the world’s leading animal health company, Zoetis is driven by a singular purpose: to nurture our world and humankind by advancing care for animals. After innovating ways to predict, prevent, detect, and treat animal illness for more than 70 years, Zoetis continues to stand by those raising and caring for animals worldwide—from veterinarians and pet owners to livestock farmers and ranchers. The company’s leading portfolio and pipeline of medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and technologies make a difference in over 100 countries. A Fortune 500 company, Zoetis generated revenue of $8.1 billion in 2022 with approximately 13,800 employees. For more information, visit www.zoetis.com.