Blue Zones Appoints Brett McClung as New CEO

MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 5, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- Blue Zones, the global leader in longevity research and helping people live longer, healthier lives, has announced the appointment of Brett McClung as its new Chief Executive Officer and President. McClung brings more than two decades of executive healthcare leadership, a proven record of organizational transformation, and a deep personal connection to the Blue Zones purpose.

McClung previously served as President and CEO of Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida, where he led one of the nation's largest health systems and championed the introduction of the Blue Zones Project® to the Jacksonville community. Prior to Baptist Health, he held the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Leader at Texas Health Resources, where he was an executive sponsor of the Blue Zones Project in Fort Worth.

After his tenure at Baptist Health, McClung was selected as a Fellow of Stanford University's Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI), where he explored the transformation of healthcare and the opportunity to move the nation from a predominantly downstream model of treating disease toward an upstream approach focused on preventing illness and creating the conditions for people to thrive.

McClung's commitment to improving health at the community level and helping people live longer, healthier lives also extends to his experience as an American Marshall Fellow, where he studied comparative health systems and examined how different countries organize, finance, and deliver healthcare, offering lessons for improving population health.

McClung succeeds Ben Leedle, Blue Zones co-founder and former CEO, who remains with the company driving strategic growth and partnerships. Following Leedle's transition last May after nine years as President and CEO, the organization was guided by Scott Marcus, who served as interim president. Blue Zones extends its sincere gratitude to Marcus, who continues in his primary position as CEO of Blue Zones Kitchen, for his operational leadership leading up to this permanent transition.

Blue Zones will continue to serve its current communities and partners without interruption, and the company's ongoing research, led by founder Dan Buettner, is unchanged. The company's work is rooted in explorations and research done by founder and National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner in blue zones regions around the world, where people live extraordinarily long and/or happy lives.

Blue Zones employs evidence-based ways to help people live better, longer. The company's work is rooted in original Blue Zones research, which was released in Buettner's bestselling books including The Blue Zones Solution, The Blue Zones of Happiness, Blue Zones Kitchen, Blue Zones Challenge, and Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer, all published by National Geographic books. A hit docuseries, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, was released on Netflix in 2023. Using original Blue Zones research, Blue Zones works with cities, counties, and organizations to make healthy choices easier through permanent and semi-permanent changes to our human-made surroundings. Participating communities have experienced double-digit drops in obesity and tobacco use and have saved millions of dollars in healthcare costs.