ORLANDO, Florida, Fernando Maluf, Vice President of International Business Development at PremieRpet and NU Pet Foods, has been named a recipient of the prestigious Ladybird Excellence Award 2026, presented at the Pet Industry Rising Summit during Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Florida. The honor was conferred by Peggy I. Pleines, Founder and CEO of My Ladybird Enterprise AG (Zurich) and creator of the award.
Maluf was recognized under the award’s 2026 theme, “When AI Makes Pets Priceless,” for his disciplined, intelligence-first approach to artificial intelligence integration at one of Brazil’s most globally recognized pet nutrition companies. Under his leadership, PremieRpet has built a portfolio of over 400 SKUs, with distribution across Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and a proprietary veterinary platform, Premier Vet, that generated over 280,000 prescriptions in a single year.
“If you outsource AI to think, you become the same as the market.”
Fernando Maluf, VP of International Business Development, PremieRpet
Maluf’s philosophy, articulated directly at the summit, is not anti-AI, it is pro-intelligence. His team at PremieRpet writes their own communications and strategies first, then uses AI to refine them. Never the reverse. Having trained its people on AI tools for three consecutive years and deployed AI across Salesforce CRM, industrial manufacturing, and nutritional research spanning more than 50 sponsored universities, PremieRpet exemplifies what serious, responsible AI adoption looks like in practice.
Maluf also offered a compelling market observation at the summit: as technology drives greater isolation and digital consumption, demand for pets and the deep emotional connection they provide does not contract. It accelerates. His ability to synthesize technological and human behavioral trends reflects precisely the caliber of leadership the Ladybird Excellence Award was created to honor.
About the Ladybird Excellence Award
The Ladybird Excellence Award is not given for tenure or market share. It is earned through the quality of thinking and the integrity of leadership. Named for the ladybird, a universal symbol of resilience and quiet fortitude, the award identifies the clearest voices in the room, not the loudest. It recognizes pet industry leaders who act on a vision before the market confirms it, build what others are still debating, and lead from values, not just data.
About Peggy I. Pleines and My Ladybird Enterprise AG
Peggy I. Pleines is the Founder and CEO of My Ladybird Enterprise AG (Zurich) and founder of Decide with Grace, a proprietary executive decision-making methodology. With more than 20 years of direct experience in animal health and pet care, Peggy has founded and scaled three companies, growing one to $144MM in revenue, and held senior executive roles at Elizabeth Arden and Procter & Gamble. She is a Global Growth Strategist, M&A Partner, and International Keynote Speaker whose clients consistently achieve 20 to 30 percent revenue growth within 12 to 24 months.
The Ladybird Excellence Award was created by Pleines as an expression of that mission: to elevate the leaders who define the future of the pet industry rather than simply react to it.
“The Ladybird Excellence Award measures one thing: the courage to define the future instead of reacting to it. Fernando Maluf embodies that courage.”
— Peggy I. Pleines, Founder, Decide with Grace | CEO, My Ladybird Enterprise AG, Zurich
MEDIA CONTACT
Peggy I. Pleines | My Ladybird Enterprise AG, Zurich, Switzerland
Decide with Grace | Strategic Advisory and Executive Decision-Making
[email protected] | www.mypeggyleines.com
#LadybirdExcellenceAward #PetIndustryRising2026 #GlobalPetExpo #PremieRpet #AILeadership #DecideWithGrace