Catherine Hernandez-Blades is Aflac’s Golden Duck
Catherine Hernandez-Blades is Aflac’s Golden Duck
Summary
Unstoppable throughout her career, Hernandez-Blades applies her forward-thinking communications strategies to groundbreaking social good campaigns like the company’s My Special Aflac Duck initiative
By Sara Deeter
No one has been quite ready for Catherine Hernandez-Blades. When she was appointed executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, she was the youngest director of a state agency since the Reconstruction. In the aerospace and defense companies she worked for, she was the youngest executive ever promoted to her positions. At Aflac, Hernandez-Blades’s leading-edge environmental, social, and governance (ESG) program has led to the invention of the award-winning social robot known as My Special Aflac Duck, which helps pediatric cancer patients in the US and Japan find comfort and joy in supporting their communication and treatment efforts.