To earn the No. 1 spot again, Boone Tillman brought home total cash pay of $1,792,092. That breaks down to a $670,333 salary and $1,121,759 in nonequity incentives. She also received more than $1.4 million in stock awards last year. This increase in total cash compensation of nearly $400,000 from 2017 bumped Boone Tillman to fourth, up from 12th last year, place among top attorneys at public companies in the entire South.

Boone Tillman joined Columbus-based Aflac as a staff attorney in January 1996 and moved up quickly. By the next year, she was promoted to second VP of the legal department, and she became VP in 2000. She became SVP of human resources in August 2001 and EVP of corporate services in 2008. After spending 14 years outside the legal department running different business units of the company, she ascended to the top lawyer role in 2014.