Retiring Aflac executive leaving firm’s board, will remain consultant

Kriss Cloninger, the longtime president and former chief financial officer of Aflac, will be retiring from the insurance firm’s board of directors upon his full retirement from the company at the end of December, Aflac said Wednesday.

To fill the void on the board, the supplemental health and life insurer headquartered in Columbus said that Katherine T. Rohrer, a Princeton University vice provost emeritus and associate dean, will take a seat on the Aflac board immediately. She then will be put up for election with other directors at the Aflac annual shareholder meeting next year.

Cloninger, who will remain as a consultant to Aflac through 2018, has been with the firm 1992, when he joined it as senior vice president and chief financial officer. He was promoted to executive vice president the following year and to president in 2001, retaining the title of chief financial officer.

In anticipation of Cloninger’s retirement, insurance industry veteran Fred Crawford was hired in 2015 as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Aflac Inc.

“Kriss has been a key contributor to Aflac and the Aflac Incorporated Board of Directors for many years,” Aflac Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dan Amos said Wednesday in a statement. “His leadership reflects the best attributes of Aflac’s culture and vision, and his unique perspective and expertise in many areas has greatly benefited every aspect of Aflac’s operations. Not only have I have relied upon Kriss’ deep financial expertise throughout numerous financial cycles, but I have valued a strong collaboration with him, as his wisdom and insights have helped build and shape Aflac's leadership team. I am thankful for Kriss’ service to Aflac.”

Rohrer is vice provost emeritus and interim associate dean of the graduate school at Princeton University. The company said Wednesday that she will bring plenty of experience to the table with her more than three decades of experience in the field of higher education.

“Her operational expertise includes executing on institutional budgetary decisions; leading academic governance and priority-setting; spearheading the recruitment of deans and other senior academic administrators; developing university-level messaging and communications; and managing endowments, including payout deployment for a complex $20 billion endowment,” Aflac said in a news release.

“She served as chief adviser to three deans of the faculty and three provosts, as a senior member of the Princeton budgetary Planning Group, and as the senior administrator of the university-wide budgetary Priorities Committee,” Aflac continued. “She oversaw time-sensitive faculty start-up agreements with academic departments and was appointed the lead senior administrator for an arts initiative that included planning for more than $300 million in new facilities. Before assuming her current role at Princeton University, she served as vice provost for Academic Programs from 2001 until 2015. Prior to assuming this position, starting in 1988, she held several academic leadership positions at Princeton University, including associate dean of the faculty, assistant dean of the college, and director of studies at Wilson College. She also served as assistant professor at Columbia University from 1982 through 1988.”

Aflac does business in both the U.S. and in Japan, with one out of four households in the Asian nation purchasing one of its medical and cancer insurance policies. The company known famously for its comical duck advertising campaign says it insures more than 50 million people around the world.

This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 12:31 PM with the headline "Retiring Aflac executive leaving firm’s board, will remain consultant."