From the Marines, to a call center, to president of Aflac. Meet Virgil Miller.

He barely has a moment to himself, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries with VIPs ahead of a college football season kickoff game sponsored by the insurer. Aflac took over as title sponsor of the Labor Day weekend series from Chick-fil-A in 2023.

Women’s basketball legend Dawn Staley is there, as are University of South Carolina President Michael Amiridis and Gary Stokan, the president and CEO of Peach Bowl. Miller jokes about joining the players on the field. His colleagues egg him on: Come on, show ‘em what you’re made of.

“My mind wants me to run in for a play, but my body says no,” Miller said.

Miller is at the center of the game when it comes to Aflac, an insurance powerhouse based in Columbus that is in some ways still shaking off the lingering affects of the pandemic. The company, founded in 1955, is the largest provider of supplemental insurance in the U.S., which are additional plans designed to pay for health care costs not covered by primary insurance. Their policies include cancer, dental and life insurance, among others. It is also a top provider in Japan, a market it entered in 1974.

Following the pandemic, the company lost accounts because of businesses closing, as well as veteran agents from retirement. Aflac’s U.S. business had flat-to-negative growth in 2024. The company has spent much of 2025 maneuvering to rebound. It enhanced and revised some of its existing policies to accommodate for new methods of treatment and rolled out new ones.

The two Aflac-branded college football contests over Labor Day weekend were Miller’s first as the president of Aflac, a role he was appointed to in January, where he coordinates both the American and Japanese arms of the insurance company.

Miller previously served as president of Aflac U.S. for about two years, and the new role is the culmination of about 20 years of work for the company. It’s the latest height in a long business career that began at a call center, where he often worked beyond his shift to learn every trick of the trade and practiced both his voice and scripts in the mirror.

The company is run by CEO Dan Amos, 74, who is the son of co-founder Paul Amos. Having served in his position for 35 years, Amos will become the longest current tenure CEO in the Fortune 250 when Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett retires at the end of the year.

Miller, 57, joined Aflac in 2004 as a manager of policy services and worked his way up to several leadership roles, including head of client services, chief administration officer and chief operating officer of Aflac U.S.

Miller grew up in Gray, a sleepy, close-knit town in Jones County near Macon with a population of 3,500. During his school years, it was even smaller. His father worked for ceiling product manufacturer Armstrong World Industries and his mother worked at the state hospital near Macon.

But Miller’s journey to leadership begins with his uncle, who was an auditor for the Internal Revenue Service. He recognized Miller’s strengths at an early age. He was good at math, comfortable with problem-solving and cordial with strangers. He told Miller that he would be a business owner one day. Miller didn’t know what that meant — he just knew his uncle wore gray slacks, a blue jacket and white shirt every day.

He told Miller he’d help him build a strong foundation and mapped out the steps to a career in business. Major in accounting and minor in finance. Begin working on the finance committee for his church so he could understand how to collect money, take it to a bank and write checks.

“He said, ‘You’re never going to be an accountant. That’s not what you’re going to be,’” Miller said. “‘Use your other skills to build relationships, interact with people, build followership, to become a good leader in business.’ This was laid out when I was at an early age and I’m thankful that that plan has worked for me.”

The day after he graduated high school, Miller, then 17, left for the Marines. It was his ticket to pay for college. As a reservist, at one point he was working five jobs at the same time, including stints at a local radio station, a cable company and shoe shop.

He quickly learned the value of hard work, relationships and reliability. In the Marines, everyone is dependent on other people doing their job. Lives depend on it, Miller said. No one person is greater than a team.

“I’ve taken pride and expertise in saying, ‘Be the best that you can be at what you’ve been given,’” Miller said. “When you’re good at what you’ve been given, opportunities may continue to open up for you. That’s how I’ve approached it in corporate America.”

He also learned the value of discipline. Early into his professional life, he codified a formula for success that he still follows now: He meets with his leaders, learns what is expected of him and turns the top priorities into a scorecard. He sends his leader the scorecard weekly, monthly and quarterly and reports on it, so he’s essentially writing his own performance as he goes along. He then ensures his goals align with his team.

“Some people meet with me and they say, ‘Well, Virgil, tell me what you did to get there.’ And I’ll tell them, don’t expect a big light bulb to go off,” Miller said. “It’s: Are you willing to do exactly what it takes? Are you willing to put forth that discipline?”

On the Mercedes-Benz Stadium field, wearing a blue checkerboard blazer, Miller stands out. The checker print is a visual cue for the launch of a new Aflac initiative about checking for the early detection of cancer.

The past year has presented a number of challenges for American businesses, including the introduction of new tariffs, an evolving policy landscape and persistent inflation. Businesses are having to face the challenge of absorbing higher costs or offsetting them by raising consumer prices.

Aflac is not exposed to fluctuations in the market in the same ways as other insurance companies, the company said during a recent earnings call. Its products are supplemental — it sells products with predefined benefits and premiums that do not increase over the lifetime of the policy. Or, as Miller puts it, “our products are built for long term sustainability.”

Still, Aflac understands rising costs will impact its customers in different ways, Miller said.

Miller’s goals for 2026 are to drive further sales of Aflac’s products, improving policyholder retention and maintain Aflac’s dominance in the individual supplemental insurance market.

He will also spend more time at the company’s Japan office, where he’s understanding the different market dynamics and strengthening relationships with his international team. In October, Miller hopes to play host to Gov. Brian Kemp and other Southeastern leaders during a Japan-U.S. Southeast summit.

If Miller has any personal goals any grander than that, he’s reticent to share them, which is only expected for a leader of a large, publicly traded company. It’s possible Miller will succeed Amos when the time comes for Aflac’s long-serving CEO to retire.

From the sidelines of the Aflac Kickoff Game, Peach Bowl leader Stokan says Amos and Miller are quite alike. Amos has a heart for people, and Miller is the same way, he said. Staley, raising her voice over the loud music, says Miller, despite his position, comes across as a friend.