“Leonardo Del Vecchio”
President and founder of the world-class glasses
Luxottica
Leonardo
Del Vecchio (born 22 May 1935 in Milan, Italy) is the founder and chairman of
Luxottica. The firm owns the Sunglass Hutand Lenscrafters chains with a total
of over 6,000 stores and 73,400 employees. According to Forbes magazine, he is
the richest man in Italy with a net worth of $20.3 billion, making him 38th
richest person in the world as of February 2015.
Background and Early Career
Leonardo was born to a poor
Milanese family. Leading a fatherless childhood, he was forced to live in an
orphanage at the age of 7 under the care of nuns and at the age of 14,
circumstances required him to work in order to support his impoverished family.
His first job was in Milan working as a novice with a tool manufacturer. He
joined evening classes studying industrial engineering at the age of 19,
continuing working during the day all along.
With time Leonardo became fascinated and much passionate about glasses and
frame and this drove him into moving to a small village in Venice known as
Agordo, where one can find all the players of the eye glass industry offering a
lot to learn about the trade from design to marketing.
In
1967, Leonardo took the decision to enter the glasses assembly business. He now
had 6 years of experience but it was not easy due to fierce competition.
Expanding his work, Leonardo found his own company, Luxottica. Ten years
later in 1976, Luxottica stopped making frames for other brands and launched
its own eye wear brand. Using extensive research, the brand went on to become
the market leader. There was no looking back; Leonardo’s effective
strategies helped him in developing a successful sales network.
Leonardo’s futuristic approach, timely decisions and strategies helped
Luxottica to have full control and take over every stage of the eye glass
manufacturing process. The Luxottica group now also began acquisitions in areas
of distribution and retail. The group eventually took over some of the most
famous Italian brands such as Lens Crafters, Persol and Vogue moving on to
acquiring Ray Ban, the most famous American brand. Over the years, Luxottica
has been seen to acquire all major eye glass brands including Oakley which was bought
for $2.1 billion, giving Luxottica a major break in the sports segment. In
addition to this, Luxottica now manufactures for the world famous brands such
as Versace, Ralph Lauren, DKNY, Ferragamo, Prada, Chanel and Armani.
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