Many people pursue an optometry career to improve the lives of patients, while others seek a work-life balance, safe work environment and stable employment. There are also opportunities to move into leadership and influence the eyecare agenda, as evidenced at EssilorLuxottica ANZ.
Ms Kirby Phillips had the mindset of most other graduates when she began her optometry career at OPSM Maroochydore in 2019: to become a highly effective clinician that improved the lives of her patients. But within four short years, her role at EssilorLuxottica has transformed into something far beyond what she imagined.
For starters, she has swapped out the consulting room in sunny Queensland for the group’s Australasian head office in North Sydney – and rather than building rapport with patients, she is now managing business-to-business relationships with private health insurance companies and educating policyholders on eye health.
In her new position as the EssilorLuxottica health funds relationship manager ANZ, she is also helping shape the company’s strategy for the region as part of the senior leadership team. Her appointment – in March 2023 – is part of a deeper commitment within the business to elevate OPSM and Laubman & Pank optometrists into more influential roles beyond the consulting room.
Mr Carl James, senior vice president of store operations ANZ for EssilorLuxottica, is helping drive this change, saying that the company has upped its investment within the eyecare team.
“Recently, we made the decision that our optometrists should be recruited by optometrists, managed by optometrists and developed by optometrists. In turn, we are seeing an expanded scope of responsibility among our optometrists, and it’s working with more optometrists joining us than ever before,” he says.
“We’re proud that we’ve now got a much more diverse representation of optometrists at the senior leadership level. It demonstrates our commitment to eyecare in Australia and New Zealand because we’ve now got around 10% of our senior leadership group who were clinicians. This means they’re informing our strategy to ensure we’re continuing to improve eyecare across our region.”
For Phillips, optometry is something she’s been passionate about for two reasons.
“Firstly, it’s about the people and the opportunity to connect and build relationships, and the other is the problem-solving aspect of the job; every prescription or set of symptoms is a puzzle,” she explains.
“Today, I take many of those problem-solving skills to my role working with the different health funds that EssilorLuxottica has partnered with. This involves nurturing the relationship and developing special offers for their members that health funds, in turn, make known to their members through communications. It also involves written clinical content for eye health awareness issues such as diabetes to help educate their members about the importance of regular eye tests.”
For Phillips, it has been a rapid rise through the ranks. Three years after graduating, she was promoted to the position of area eyecare manager for the Queensland North region. In this capacity, she acted as a “work coach”, helping set up optometrists for success whether it be navigating complex clinical cases, or ensuring their practices and equipment are fully functional, among other responsibilities.
But her big break came when she recently presented before EssilorLuxottica ANZ executives. Phillips was approached to join the company’s Accelerate Program that develops “high potential people” within the business. The course culminated in her taking part in a group business pitch on why EssilorLuxottica should have a greater presence in the metaverse.
Having impressed the executive team with her presentation, a few weeks later Kirby was mapping out her future within the business with James, leading to her recent promotion.
As is the case for many optometrists early in their career, Phillips wasn’t initially aware of the breadth of non-clinical opportunities for optometrists in Australia. During her studies, she thought the options were mainly limited to the consulting room or lecturing at universities. What she has come to appreciate is the number of transferrable skills her optometric experience has provided.
“Explaining complex clinical issues to a lay person is something that we do as optometrists all the time, and that’s a skill that I have been able to apply in this role speaking to health funds and their members,” she says.
“Having experience in the clinical environment also gives me exposure to many different departments within the business. For example, people in operations will have a concept and ask whether it could be feasible in our stores. EssilorLuxottica also gave me a scholarship to complete the Australian College of Optometry’s Certificate in Public Health and Leadership in Eye Care, which speaks to the role that optometrists play as leaders in the practice. Being an optometrist, we are that source of truth for patients and a reference point in the practice, so being a person people can go to has helped when transferring into the support office where we’re often looking for solutions to different problems or problems that don’t even exist yet.”
Why optometrists are great leaders
For James, the role of senior vice president of store operations for EssilorLuxottica ANZ is one that involves oversight of many functions: eyecare (arguably the most critical), franchising and business development, retail operations and services, store excellence (lens capability and dispensing), customer service, and project management (to deploy technology initiatives), and operational analytics, all come under his remit.
As a trained optometrist, he’s also helping advocate for and inspiring the next generation of EssilorLuxottica optometrists with an entrepreneurial streak. When optometrists graduate, at this early stage, their focus is often on passing their course, getting through their first year and learning to become a great optometrist.
“In my role, I’m lucky to meet each new graduate. We bring them together once a year and I get the opportunity to talk to them particularly about my career journey, and many are surprised at what those opportunities are and what’s available to them outside the consulting room,” he says.
“Over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a much greater desire among the new graduate cohort to have those discussions. When they realise those opportunities exist, the very next question is: ‘What do I need to do to get there?’. There’s been a shift from new graduates being 100% focused on becoming great clinical optometrists to now realising there’s a bigger world out there and other roles they can perform with their skillsets.”
To understand the leadership options within EssilorLuxottica, James says it’s important to understand the career paths on offer.
The majority of optometrists are on a pure clinical path delivering community eyecare. However, those seeking to influence beyond the consulting room can start out by joining advisory panels for areas such as contact lenses, the eyecare strategy, and myopia management.
From there, EssilorLuxottica has around 50 managing optometrists in ANZ who work in larger locations alongside the store manager, in both a clinical and non-clinical capacity, to ensure those practices are maximising customer outcomes.
“This is an opportunity for optometrists to start developing more commercial acumen and become more involved more in the day-to-day running of the store. This role can be performed store-based, with 80-90% of their time consulting.”
From there, the company offers various “field-based roles”, which are the traditional succession path for optometrists – showing commercial or strategic aptitude – to move into leadership roles. This involves the area eyecare manager team, of which there are 11, and five professional services manager roles, and an eyecare country manager in New Zealand.
“This team is responsible for the recruitment, engagement, development and performance management. They essentially work full time with individual optometrists on improving their skills, ensuring they’re engaged and getting the development they want, while also supporting the commercial outcomes of the organisation. This is often the gateway to more senior roles in the organisation for optometrists.”
Today, the company has several recent examples of optometrists moving into leadership roles, including:
• Elizabeth Kodari, state director optical NSW/ACT
• Lucas Lister, retail projects senior manager
• Sephora Miao, senior manager of eyecare operations
• Astha Rai, professional services manager NSW/ACT (relocated from NZ)
• Hayley Gobell, professional services manager, SA
• Daniel Rezaeian, customer relationship management analyst
• Nina Chai, optometry engagement manager
James says the company is proud to have more optometrists influencing the eyecare agenda. Many of those have been identified through the Accelerate Program, the 12-month course that is available not only to emerging optometrists, but also dispensers, store managers, marketing managers, and more.
“The fundamental commonality across each of these examples is that they’re not just great clinical optometrists, but they also possess the necessary soft skills,” he says.
“Beyond that, they have an aptitude for leadership, a growth mindset and a strategic mindset. Communication skills are an absolute must, and in an organisation of our size, the ability to build and maintain relationships is key. A lot of these people are now working with important stakeholders in Milan, Paris or the US, so the ability to build those relationships – face-to-face as well as over a Teams meeting or email – is critical.”
Overseeing the New Zealand network
Born as a triplet, Ms Tegan Matheson learned from a young age the fine art of maximising different personalities and strengths within teams. It’s an attribute that’s serving her well in her new position as country eyecare manager for New Zealand, which has seen her relocate from Australia.
Similar to Phillips, it’s a quick elevation after graduating in 2017, but Matheson’s relationship with the company began nine years earlier in 2014 as an optical dispenser. During her placement as an optometry student, she upskilled in orthokeratology (orthok) and intense pulsed light (IPL) therapy for dry eye, which she completed upon graduating. By this point, her consults were also as long as well-established optometrists within the group. In other words, she was an eager and rising talent.
Matheson is also passionate about supporting other optometrists and has helped many develop their skills in the premium eyecare space. She then moved into regional relief work which took her stores across Victoria and Tasmania and tested the robustness of her clinical skills.
This saw her become the area eyecare manager for Victoria and Tasmania, which was the ideal introduction into the commercial aspect of optometry practices. Then, in March 2023, she started overseeing the eyecare operations for New Zealand, comprising around 50 practices.
“I say yes to every opportunity that comes my way, and I love a challenge. It’s been nice to bring a different leadership style to the role. I believe you can still lead with empathy, and we are getting really good results.”
In her current role, Matheson oversees OPSM’s eyecare strategy in New Zealand, with two area eyecare managers reporting to her, as well as six managing optometrists. In addition, she is leading myopia control for EssilorLuxottica Australia and New Zealand – leveraging her skills in orthok and with the new Essilor Stellest spectacle lens – and will continue offering her time to the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation that runs clinics for disadvantaged communities.
“One of the biggest differences in this role is the scope of responsibility, whether that’s running engagement events, having an active role in recruitment and analysing store data,” she says.
“As an optometrist, it’s more face-to-face and dealing with things on a grassroots level, which is equally as hard, but in this role I’m able to drive change on a bigger scale. In saying that I do love being an optometrist, so every time I visit a store, I try perform testing and offer support in the clinical space. And when I attend OneSight clinics, we can see up to 200 people a day, which keeps my clinical skills up to scratch.”
She adds: “I think it’s great the company is building an internal talent pipeline of optometrists. Being able to go into a store and still answer the phone, or do basic repair, makes you relatable as a leader. Your clinical experience makes you aware of the grassroots issues; if you don’t understand these, how are you meant to implement change? It’s inspiring for younger optometrists, or any optometrists, knowing there are opportunities to use and elevate their strengths outside the consultation room if they wish to go down this path within EssilorLuxottica.”
For more information about careers at OPSM in Australia, click here.
More reading
Why optometrist Bianca Romeo started her career in Alice Springs
Helping the world see more and be more
What optometry graduates want from their employer
