TAMPA, Fla--At last month’s American Academy of Optometry (AAO) meeting here, CIBA Vision, the eyecare unit of Novartis, announced a realignment of management responsibilities for the Americas, effective Oct. 29.

Francesco Balestrieri is now president of CIBA’s North America region. Balestrieri, a 14-year CIBA Vision veteran, was previously general manager for the company’s markets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He took over responsibilities for North America from Henna Inam, who has been president of CIBA’s Americas region. Inam has now taken on the global role of chief marketing and innovation officer for CIBA Vision, leading the company’s worldwide marketing efforts.

At a CIBA Vision press briefing during the American Academy of Optometry meeting (l to r): Brian Holden, OD, of Australia’s Institute for Eye Research, with CIBA Vision’s Kevin Roe, OD; Andrea Saia; Henna Inam; and Rick Weisbarth, OD.

Responsibilities for Central and South America went to Tariq Aziz, who is now president of Latin America for CIBA Vision. Aziz, who will be based in Mexico City, was previously president of business development for CIBA Vision at its corporate headquarters in Atlanta. The Latin America operations will now be combined with CIBA’s emerging markets group, according to Andrea Saia, CIBA Vision’s chief operating officer.

Also at the AAO meeting, CIBA announced a new Visionary Partners program for eyecare practitioners, designed “to drive patient satisfaction and practice profitability” by offering help with patient segmentation, lifestyle dispensing, in-office marketing, professional education and practice building, according to Inam.

The Vision Partners program kicked off this summer as a test with a small number of practices. In early October, it was expanded with a mailing to 22,200 ECPs of a kit containing posters and other in-office materials.

“Our goal is to refresh these tools for ECPs every six to 12 months, and to broaden the number of ECPs participating,” Inam said.

Coming late this month from CIBA is another marketing tool, this one aimed at consumers and housed on the Web site for its FreshLook color contact lenses: www.freshlookcontacts.com. The new FreshLook Color Studio feature will allow consumers to upload photos of themselves to “try on” different colors of CIBA’s FreshLook CLs. --Cathy Ciccolella