Shamir CEO Yagen Moshe

When Amos Netzer retired as president and CEO of Shamir Optical Industry in July after nine years in the role, the Israel-based spectacle lens manufacturer looked within to Yagen Moshe to take over the reins.

Moshe joined Shamir in 2005 as a financial controller and was quickly promoted to CFO the next year. He was named COO in 2013, and then in 2014 became deputy CEO and CEO of Shamir Asia.

EB visited Israel to tour the Shamir facility there, and spoke with Moshe about his plans for the company.

EB: What are your key goals as the new leader of Shamir?

YM: I see three elements that are very important. It’s the market. It’s our service. And it’s our innovation.

The market—it’s our mission to understand the needs of the consumer and the ECP and the solutions that we can bring.

The second element is service—we need to be on top of time, quality, consistency, and, most important, to provide customer service support—which means any question, any need, any education, we are there for you. The ECP is our partner.

The third is innovation. We have a lot of information that is allowing us today to create a new direction for personalized designs—to adapt it to the real needs of several segments of wearers. [The personalized designs] can be by age, by face, by where you live. So, we will adapt [personalized lens designs] not only by age, but also by culture. This is the personalized design that we are looking at for the future.

EB: Shamir has just launched Autograph Intelligence (see p. 66). How does this strengthen its portfolio?

YM: It’s a new launch of a new era of designs, which means it’s just a starting point. This artificial intelligence concept is in a learning stage. Over time, we will continue to adapt what we learn to create better products for the next generations.

We are positioning this product as our top level in the portfolio of Shamir products, while keeping the other designs that we have. The Autograph III is a great design and will continue to be a top-level PAL. But this new lens family will create a unique population of wearers.

EB: Please tell us more about what Shamir does to improve eye health.

YM: Shamir’s team is committed to improving the quality of life by improving poor vision. We do this through innovation, lenses focused on protecting vision, education, and most of all awareness of the importance that everyone in the world deserves a good visual solution.

Israel has emerged as a hub for new tech development; this is key as Shamir has a strong history of looking for new technologies that we can integrate into our offerings, such as big data and artificial intelligence. Our most recent advancements have been centered on protecting the eyes from different types of light (e.g. Shamir Glacier Plus UV, Shamir Blue Zero, Shamir Sun UV, etc.). We have made some very successful advancements and are committed to continue investing in our R&D efforts as we push endeavors around eye health forward.

EB: Tell us how InoTime, your same-day lab service, can benefit ECPs.

YM: InoTime is a concept where we deliver fast, stable, quality service to the ECP for the ECP to deliver to the consumer. If you want it in three hours, you will get it in three hours—any product, any level of design, any material.

In the U.S., we partner closely with the 440 U.S. lab distributors. In this partnership, we will continue to share our latest technologies, including fast service, to ensure that all ECPs and consumers have access to our advanced products and services.

Shamir will continue to focus on various initiatives that are aligned with our organization’s commitment that ties into our objective of assisting the eyecare professional in building an excellent customer journey for their patients.

EB: What do you consider to be one of Shamir’s greatest strengths?

YM: The most important thing to us is the team. We are family-oriented, and this is the feeling we want to keep with our partners, the ECPs.

—Mark Durrick + Susan Tarrant