Kathy Guillermo

As a senior vice president , Guillermo has directed PETA's successful efforts to uncover abuses in laboratories, to work with whistleblowers to expose violations of animal protection laws, to prompt federal and state agencies to cite laboratories for violations, and to replace animals in laboratories with modern, non-animal methods of experimentation.

A 22-year veteran of PETA, Guillermo was originally hired to head PETA's cosmetics-testing campaign in 1989. She spearheaded efforts to persuade major corporations -- including Revlon and Gillette -- to declare permanent bans on all animal tests. In the first three years of the campaign, PETA's list of cruelty-free companies grew from 50 companies to more than 300 and today lists more than 1,000. Under Guillermo's direction, the campaign drew headlines for staging colorful events, such as hanging banners from the Eiffel Tower and the Brooklyn Bridge, and enlisting the aid of celebrities, including Sir Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Kevin Nealon and Kim Basinger.

Guillermo’s 2011 campaign victories include pressuring NASA to scrap plans to radiate monkeys, and a precedent-setting case that closed a product-testing lab in North Carolina. Following a high-profile campaign by PETA that included scores of protests at NASA locations, online actions on Twitter and Facebook, and scientific arguments from former astronauts and NASA engineers, NASA canceled its plans to use monkeys in radiation experiments. Earlier this year, a North Carolina product testing laboratory, Professional Laboratory and Research Services, Inc. (PLRS), closed its doors and released for adoption hundreds of dogs and cats within six days of PETA's breaking investigation. A grand jury has since indicted four former PLRS workers on 14 felony cruelty-to-animals charges, marking the first time in U.S. history that laboratory workers have faced felony cruelty charges for their abuse and neglect of animals in a laboratory.

Guillermo's 1993 book, Monkey Business: The Disturbing Case That Launched the Animal Rights Movement (National Press Books, foreword by Oliver Stone), details the cruelty case that launched then-fledgling PETA into national prominence. The landmark Silver Spring monkeys case also led to the first-ever conviction of an animal experimenter on cruelty-to-animals charges.

Guillermo graduated with highest honors from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981. For several years before joining PETA, she worked as a spokesperson for one of the country's largest animal shelters. She is married to award-winning journalist Emil Guillermo and has three children and four rescued dogs.