Catherine Hernandez-Blades — Senior VP and Chief Brand & Communications Officer at Aflac

Ms. Catherine Hernandez-Blades has been Senior Vice President and Chief Brand & Communications Officer at Aflac Incorporated since October 2017. Ms. Hernandez-Blades served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications at Aflac Incorporated since 2014 until October 2017. Ms. Hernandez-Blades has more than two decades of leadership experience in the field of communications. She served as chief communications and marketing officer at Flextronics where she was responsible for several areas, including corporate communications and public affairs. In addition to serving as Flextronics' international spokesperson interacting with a variety of constituents, Ms. Hernandez-Blades supervised cross-functional teams in Asia, Europe and the Americas with an emphasis on global brand and reputation management. She served as Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs at Raytheon Space & Airborne Systems since June 2008. She joined Raytheon from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, where she was director of marketing and international communications for a $12 billion aeronautics business. She oversees an extensive network of public relations firms. She led communications initiatives to identify and create opportunities to support capture, keep-sold and market-development activities in 40 countries. She also created and placed domestic and international advertising, served as managing editor of customer publications, guided trade show activities and directed marketing research and branding. She served as Director, Public Relations & Senior Communications Counsel of Neill Corp., a leading distributor of Aveda beauty products and manager of media and community relations for Stewart Enterprises, Inc., an international publicly-held company. Earlier in her career, she served by gubernatorial appointment as executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. She managed a staff of appointees and civil servants and a 17-member board representing a diverse cross-section of industry and community leaders. She also oversaw public and media relations, environmental and government affairs and the internal and external communications functions. She served in print and broadcast journalism. Ms. Hernandez-Blades has been the Chair of Operation Homefront, Inc. since January 2015 and previously served as its Vice Chair until January, 2015. She has been a Director of Operation Homefront, Inc. since 2009. Ms. Hernandez-Blades earned a bachelor's degree in mass communications at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and is a Loyola University Environmental Communications Fellow.