CHARENTON LE PONT, France— Essilor International announced that Jayanth Bhuvaraghan, president of its South-East Asia and India business unit, has been named to the newly created position of chief corporate mission officer position within Essilor’s executive committee. Bhuvaraghan, who will report to Essilor chairman and CEO Hubert Sagnieres, will be in charge of coordinating, supporting and fostering all initiatives that contribute to achieving Essilor's corporate mission of improving vision for the greatest number of people worldwide.

Essilor estimates that 4.2 billion people in the world require vision correction. That number may grow to 6 billion by 2030, representing a major social and economic issue, according to Essilor. The creation of this new position shows Essilor’s ambition to develop a global Corporate Social Responsibility approach directly related to the company’s long-term strategy, the company said.

Essilor has launched many initiatives to improve awareness and access to vision correction and fight poor vision, one of the most widespread disabilities in the world. These include mobile refraction vans in India, vision examination for children in the U.S. thanks to the Essilor Vision Foundation, and vision screenings in major Chinese towns. The company has partnered with the Special Olympics organization for years and is a founder member of the Optique Solidaire association in France. More recently, Essilor has supported the creation of the Vision Impact Institute.

In his role as chief corporate mission officer, Bhuvaraghan will coordinate and accelerate such initiatives, help create awareness by working closely with various global organizations that are already acting in this area and create new inclusive business models to address the needs of all hence bridging the gap of uncorrected visual impairment, Essilor said.

A seasoned Essilor executive with diverse experience in markets such as India, Asean, Middle East and Africa, Bhuvarghan has developed innovative and successful social business models like providing access to vision correction for remote populations, the company noted.