Our Exec Team
Take me to your leader – our Exec Team
Chris Beer
Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific, Greater China & South Africa
Chris joined OPSM 23 years ago and held senior executive positions in sales and operations before being appointed International HR Manager for the OPSM Group in 1999, and General Manager Retail for OPSM Australia in 2001. In 2004 Chris was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Luxottica Retail Asia-Pacific and more recently Chief Executive Officer Australasia, SE Asia & South Africa.
“I have enjoyed the journey and recognise the importance of managing one’s own energy to bring a profound sense of meaning and purpose to the business.” Chris believes strongly that performance is driven through the development of people through culture. He is strongly committed to the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility and heavily involved in OneSight, the flagship program dedicated to improving eye health in needy and remote communities.
Ant Hudson
Vice President, Optical
Ant commenced with Luxottica at the beginning of 2010 with a strong retail background of over 20 years experience across department stores, specialty retail, retail concessions and wholesale distribution. He has held senior and executive level management roles for global organisations in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions.
Ant’s passion for retail includes a focus on driving customer growth, strategic development and leading great people to their potential. He now plays a key role in building and developing the Luxottica business in Australia and New Zealand. On why he loves his job, Ant said:
“Because a key component of the Luxottica culture is appreciating great people who are given the space to build strong empowered teams to deliver outstanding customer service.”
Peter McClelland
Chief Financial and Administration Officer
Peter joined OPSM Group as Planning Manager in 2001 and enjoyed the opportunity to work closely with the senior management team in restructuring the Group to a core optical focus and the development of the multi-branded segmentation strategy. He then became involved in managing the acquisition by Luxottica of OPSM Group at which time he was appointed as the group’s Asia Pacific CFO. Since, he has had numerous challenges and exciting projects including building our businesses in China and South Africa.
Peter has most enjoyed being able to influence the growth and evolution of great finance, administration and IT teams that provide the backbone of this great organisation.
Melinda Spencer
Vice President, Marketing
Melinda has come to Luxottica with over 13 years of experience in marketing and brand management and her previous roles included senior marketing positions at Oroton and Woolworths.
Melinda works across all Luxottica brands, including Sunglass Hut, OPSM, Laubman & Pank, Budget Eyewear and Bright Eyes. Most recently she has driven expansion of the Sunglass Hut brand and business success across the region.
Luxottica Asia Pacific, Greater China & South Africa CEO Chris Beer said: “Melinda has done some fantastic work with Sunglass Hut over the past three years, and has a proven track record for succeeding wherever she has worked. Her significant retail brand experience will be key to Luxottica’s growth here in Australia and throughout the region.”
Sharyn Schultz
Vice President Human Resources & Communication
Sharyn joined Luxottica in 2010 as the Vice President of Human Resources and Communication. Sharyn’s career path began in IT and then progressed into HR working in Learning & Development, Change Management and organisational development roles initially. With 12 years working at Executive level, Sharyn has worked across a number of different companies and industries including Banking & Insurance, IT and manufacturing as well as time spent working in China.
Sharyn says: “I love working with Luxottica because it provides me with the best of both worlds: Local independence and the creativity to do great things within the Australasian businesses, backed by global appreciation of the need to invest in people to get it right. It’s such a great organisational culture – fast, entrepreneurial, passionate with a flair for imagination – that makes is so enjoyable to come to work everyday.”
Phil McNutt
Vice President, Sun
Phil joined the Luxottica family in July 2007, after 12 months of running his own successful US-based investment business (needless to say, this is quite hard to do at 3 a.m!).
Prior to that, Phil spent 25 years with Blockbuster in a variety of roles, including Executive positions in Operations, Product and the International Marketing Division. These roles gave Phil a great insight into international cultures which is of paramount importance for his role with the Sunglass Hut brand where he works across the Asia Pacific region.
Phil greatly values being a part of Luxottica’s high performance culture and he has a strong commitment to his people and talent development. He’s extremely proud of Sunglass Hut’s great brand heritage and excited by the talented group of people he works with every day.
Anthea Muir
Vice President, Product and IT
Anthea first started with OPSM as an Optometrist / Store Manager in a store in NZ. She was promoted to a role in to Sydney Nov ’98 as Eyecare Manager, looking after Professional Services and Optometry Licenses. Later, she moved into the Product Department as Lens & Contact Lens Manager and the rest is history – she became Frame Buyer, then Category Manager. While on maternity leave for the birth of her 2nd child, she was promoted to the Executive team in her current role.
Her favourite moment working at Luxottica would have to be the first time driving to the Agordo factory from the very small but quaint hotel in the mountains of Italy and seeing the sun reflecting off the snow on the Dolmites nestled around this huge factory producing beautiful sunglasses and frames thinking…. WOW I work for this company!!!!