Latest News Essilor Names Laurent Vacherot as President and Co-COO By Staff Wednesday, December 7, 2016 9:45 AM Laurent Vacherot. CHARENTON-LE-PONT, France—Essilor International (Reuters: ESSI.PA) announced today that it has appointed Laurent Vacherot, a longtime company executive, as president and chief operating officer. Vacherot has been co-chief operating officer since 2010. The responsibilities of Essilor’s two other co-COO’s, John Carrier and Paul du Saillant, remain unchanged, an Essilor spokesperson told VMail.Vacherot’s new role was proposed by Hubert Sagnieres, chairman and chief executive officer of Essilor, at yesterday’s meeting of Essilor’s board of directors, which unanimously approved the change.As president, Vacherot will take direct responsibility for Essilor’s operations, with all operational executives reporting directly to him, Essilor said in a statement. The finance, human resources, corporate mission, communications and strategy teams will report to Sagnieres, who was previously in charge of operations as well.Essilor said it made the moves in response to changes in its core businesses over the past several years. The company cited its sustained growth as well as new activities such as sunwear and online which have undergone increasingly rapid development. In parallel, the company's geographic expansion has opened up extensive new markets in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Essilor said it decided to realign its organization “to meet the growing operational needs resulting from this expansion and respond to the related strategic and managerial challenges.”"As industry leader, Essilor has been able to associate key strategic decisions with operational efficiency to carry out its mission of ‘improving lives by improving sight,’” said Sagnieres. “The exciting range of our key day-to-day operational challenges includes innovating, expanding in market segments complementary to our core businesses and gaining footholds in vast countries with extensive markets.“The realignment of our organization will help us accelerate the implementation of our strategy and lay the groundwork for the company and our teams to achieve meaningful and value-adding growth over the long term. I am delighted at the prospect of working even more closely with Laurent at the head of Essilor's operational management, in carrying out our mission on behalf of our customers and in the interests of our shareholders and employees."