Join us in congratulating Kathleen — a first for Maple Leaf Foods and the only Canadian in this year’s class of future leaders within the meat industry!
We are delighted to recognize Kathleen Long, Vice President of Animal Care, as a participant in the Meat Institute’s 2025 Emerging Leaders Program. This valuable program promotes and develops future leaders in the meat and poultry industry.
Kathleen is not only the first representative from Maple Leaf Foods to be selected for the Emerging Leaders program, but she is also the only Canadian in her class of 25 fellow students. This year’s program began in September 2024 and will run until October 2025 when it wraps up at the Protein PACT Summit in Los Angeles, CA.
Applicants were chosen for their dedication to industry improvement, leadership potential, and personal initiative. The Emerging Leaders Program, now in its fourth cohort, is a one-year professional development program hosted by the Meat Institute and sponsored by Cryovac Brand Food Packaging, also known as the Sealed Air Corporation.
Kathleen has been with Maple Leaf Foods since 2013 when she joined as a poultry production veterinarian. In her current role as Vice President of Animal Care, she works within the office of Sustainability to implement leading animal care strategies across Maple Leaf Foods’ pork and poultry operations and throughout our supply chain, for the betterment of all animals.
Kathleen holds a BSc in Agriculture from the University of Alberta, a DVM from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, an MAHM from the University of Georgia, and an MBA from Queen’s University. She is also a diplomate of the American College of Poultry Veterinarians. As part of this 2025 Emerging Leaders Program, Kathleen is expanding her breadth of knowledge across the meat industry!
We sat down with Kathleen to chat about why the Emerging Leaders Program is such a pivotal moment for her career. Read on to learn more and join us in congratulating Kathleen on this exceptional accomplishment.
What are you planning to get out of the Emerging Leaders Program?
One of the big benefits of the program is the mentorship aspect. There’s a very structured mentorship program and I’m matched with an executive of a global company in a completely different area than I work in. I’m really excited to learn from this strong mentorship program.
Secondly, the program covers a lot of different topics through dedicated educational sessions. I’m eager to broaden my knowledge of the meat industry in other areas of processing as well as different areas of business management.
Lastly, the Emerging Leaders Program has the Washington, D.C. experience, which is the flagship event where we go for lobby training at Capitol Hill. I’m extra excited for this because we may make a stop at the Canadian Embassy since they have me as a Canadian in the class! This aspect in particular is a very well received part of the program and I’m looking forward to that.
What does this program selection mean to you? What does this mean for Maple Leaf Foods?
Being selected for the program is really meaningful to me because it’s a wonderful development opportunity and a chance to network well beyond my usual involvement in the industry.
I’m in a class with a group of amazing people and everybody is very positive about developing the future of a sustainable meat industry. I feel like I’m part of a group that’s working towards the betterment and the long-term viability of our industry and that’s really energizing and motivating.
Maple Leaf Foods has been a leader in promoting sustainability within the Meat Institute, in particular, in establishing the Protein PACT. The Emerging Leaders program is strongly connected to the Protein PACT and advancing sustainability. For me, being part of this program connects instinctively at a deep level with our organization because sustainability is so important to us — we are leaders in advocating for sustainability practices within the meat industry in a variety of areas.
This program is training leaders who can lead that change and help create that industry. It only serves to build that both within and outside of our organization.
How will this program impact or change you? How will it make you an even better leader in animal care at Maple Leaf Foods?
This program will first impact my leadership through the educational sessions that we’re completing. For instance, we’ve already had sessions on engaging and leading a team, executive presence, and crisis planning and communications. Being an effective people leader is a core tenet of the program.
I think it will also impact me in terms of being able to understand and advocate more effectively within the industry. For example, the Washington experience — there’s nowhere else that I would be able to get the exposure of how to lobby in D.C. That will be a very unique and beneficial experience that I can apply to both Canadian and American regulatory approaches.
And of course, the personalized mentorship and coaching that I’m receiving through the carefully matched mentor program is going to serve me to become a better leader.
Who is your mentor and how often do you meet? What are you learning from them, and why are you excited to be matched with them?
I’m matched with Shawn Harris, Executive Director of Product Marketing at Cryovac.
Shawn is very interesting in that he has been one of the key supporters of the establishment and continuation of the Emerging Leaders Program. He is deeply invested in this program and has mentored others in the past.
What I really appreciate about being matched with Shawn is that he works in a completely different area of responsibility than me and has a very broad background. Currently, he’s in marketing as a very experienced and versatile leader. We meet once a month for an hour and I send him a topic in advance that we cover in that session.
Things we’ve covered so far include managing through change and career development approaches. There are hard topics that you have to face as a leader, like people development and executive presence, and he’s really supporting me with learnings and experience from his own career. We still have a long way to go and I’m excited for what’s to come in our mentorship!
What are you hopeful for the future of the animal care industry by 2030?
I am hopeful that over the next five years we will see several big industry-wide animal welfare and sustainability commitments come to fruition. For example, the Canadian pork industry has made a commitment to achieve 100% open sow housing by July 1st, 2029, and I’m optimistic that with strong industry leadership, it can be achieved. We have also just kicked off a revision to the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) Code of Practice for poultry, which should be complete and implemented by 2030. This will establish a new standard for poultry welfare in Canada that both improves the wellbeing of our birds and increases the trust of our many diverse stakeholders.
I am also hopeful for the environmental sustainability of our industry. In 2030, a very important environmental deadline will be reached, which is halving greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement. I am optimistic that the meat industry, and Maple Leaf Foods as an individual company, will have made significant progress toward our individual and collective environmental goals by that time.
Ultimately, I envision and hope that by 2030, the Protein PACT and the work that companies like Maple Leaf Foods are doing will have strengthened our credibility and improved how we are perceived by our many stakeholders – both supporters and critics. I hope we are seen as an industry that is committed to improving animal welfare, the environment, human health and safety, and food safety in a meaningful way. I hope we build that credibility as an industry together and that we, as an Emerging Leaders class, can lead that change.
