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.

Rhonda Brighton

Vice President, Human Resources and Communications

Rhonda’s career path began in HR and then progressed through to Divisional General Management Roles. From General Management to Specialist Organisation Development and then a six year “tour of duty” working in Europe and the U.S, loving every minute. Rhonda returned to Australia in 2006 to lead the people function for one of our best companies; Luxottica is entrepreneurial, fast, passionate and with a flair for imagination.

Rhonda 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 the global appreciation of the need to invest in people to get it right”.

Carl James

Vice President, Laubman & Pank

Currently Vice President Laubman and Pank, Carl began his career with Luxottica while studying Optometry at the University of Melbourne when he worked as a Customer Service Associate at OPSM. After graduating in 1998, he worked as an Optometrist in Victoria and then moved into retail, into an Assistant Manager and then Store Manager role.

Carl has since progressed through various roles including Regional Eyecare, Regional Sales, National Operations Manager, General Manager for Bright Eyes and most recently his new role as Vice President Laubman & Pank.

Ross Jewell

Vice President, Optical

Ross commenced with OPSM in 1983 at OPSM Mona Vale and then worked in various roles across Sydney’s north shore before being accepted into a management traineeship at head office in 1986. He started in the buying office and worked his way up to managing the entire buying function and then added logistics to his portfolio. After being seconded to play a key role in Luxottica’s SAP implementation, Ross continued in his role and added manufacturing. In November 2007, he moved across to his current role heading up the Optical Retail Operations.

The defining moment for Ross was being purchased by Luxottica Group. In addition to the strong balance sheet, cash flow, new ideas and various other resources, he feels this union has bought new challenges and a genuine feeling of international ‘belongingness’ to our already great business.

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.

Rob McKay

Vice President, Marketing

Rob’s original career aspiration was to play cricket for Australia! Like many, he had a back up plan, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what he was enrolling in at university. In 1988, he graduated with a Bachelor of Business in Marketing from the University of South Australia.
Rob’s first two jobs were with Coca-Cola Bottlers in Adelaide. He then moved to Chevron – the parent company of Caltex and Ampol – where he gained invaluable marketing experience in varied and increasingly more senior roles.

Rob spent 14 years with Chevron; in Australia, Bangkok, and most recently San Francisco as the Back Office Systems Manager.
With 20 years’ marketing experience under his belt, Rob returned to Australia with his wife and young children in 2008 to take up this role at Luxottica.

Rob’s marketing expertise is widely admired in the company; and most importantly, we’re glad he didn’t play cricket.

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!!!!

Paolo Sasso

Country Manager, Luxottica Wholesale

Paolo joined Luxottica in 1998 as subsidiary manager for Luxottica South Africa. He was responsible for the finance, customer service and warehouse departments. He oversaw the integration of the Ray-Ban business acquired in 1999. In 2001 he was transferred to Australia, in the same position. Initially his areas of responsibility were finance, customer service, warehouse. He then took part to the integration of the Sunglass Hut business in 2002. Starting January 2007 Paolo joined the position Country Manager, overlooking all the departments of the company, including sales, with a total of 45 people reporting.

Paolo most enjoys working for Luxottica because it is a company of constant growth and dynamism. It also offers a lot of opportunities for self development, exposure to the international environment, great brand and great products.

Mark Shaw-Taylor

Vice President, Property & Acquisitions

Mark joined Luxottica a short while after coming to Australia having had an impressive career in lead roles in a Big 4 Consultancy and major steel company in South Africa. His first role with Luxottica was facilitating the sale of Kays Optical to OPSM. He then worked on a number of similar projects leading to the acquisition of OPSM by Luxottica Group. He then transitioned into his current role, consolidating a number of functions within the business to a functional structure.

Mark most enjoys working for Luxottica due to the variety of stimulating opportunities and challenges constantly of offer in addition to the fact that we are an international company that is way ahead of the market.