Tera Ladner

Tera Ladner is the Senior Vice President and Global Chief Information Security Officer of Aflac.
She moved into the role from Deputy Global CISO at the insurer.

Career path

Before joining Aflac, Ladner spent nearly six years at SunTrust Bank as Group Vice President for Corporate Records & Information Management. She later joined Aflac and held the title of vice president of Risk Management and Governance within Aflac Global Security. In that role her team managed regulatory processes, protected information and looked for efficiencies across the organization. Her path into security runs through a degree in marketing, information governance work and a law degree, built across more than 25 years of leadership in cybersecurity, information governance and risk management.
She went on to serve as Deputy Global Chief Information Security Officer of Aflac, leading a 200-person security organization, before being promoted to Senior Vice President and Global CISO.

Recognition and projects

In October 2023, Ladner was named one of SC Media's Women in IT Security Power Players, one of 20 women recognized for leadership, contributions and impact in cybersecurity and information risk. Her team contributed to the cross-functional project Feathers and Firewalls: Aflac's Zero Trust Approach, which helped Aflac earn a 2023 CSO50 Award from CSO from Foundry. The zero-trust program was built around consistent controls, with communication routed through a cloud-based common exchange.

Public remarks and writing

On the Redefining CyberSecurity podcast with host Sean Martin, Ladner described security leadership as a translation job, turning technical events into business and resiliency impacts that executives can act on. She named curiosity as the trait she screens for first in hiring, and pointed to storytelling, relationship building and the ability to navigate ambiguity as skills the role now requires. She describes the team norms of transparency, integrity and care as what holds a security organization together in difficult moments, telling her people leaders that the culture a team builds shapes how that team operates. She also pointed to Aflac's Cyber Inspire and Empower Girls programs, which grew from 200 participants in their first local year to 815 in the second. In an article published through Aflac Newsroom in August 2026, Ladner described cybersecurity as a people opportunity rather than only a technical challenge, arguing that long-term resilience depends on whether the next generation can see itself as part of the field.