NEW YORK—A top IBM Healthcare executive involved with the company’s high profile cognitive system, Watson, and a noted business consultant and author who is an expert in management and business creativity will add new dimensions to Vision Monday’s 10th annual Global Leadership Summit and its theme, “BrainStorm.”

“We’re excited to announce that Michael Weiner and Ted Gioia have joined our Summit program, which will explore the incredible capabilities of our brains and how they work and how business execs can tap the growing connection between the brain, technology and leadership,” said Marge Axelrad, senior vice president and editorial director of the Jobson Optical Group, which includes Vision Monday. “Dr. Weiner will share his perspective on how IBM Watson is ushering in ‘the cognitive era’ using a new approach to capturing data to improve and impact health care. Ted, who has a deep background in optical and is an acclaimed author of books about music, will offer a holistic approach to creative thinking. They, along with our other Summit speakers, will show us some imaginative approaches being taken toward the social, customer and patient experience.”

The Vision Monday Global Leadership Summit is a daylong conference that will explore emerging technologies in commerce, health care, data and social interaction as well as implications for retail due to new research into human and computer intelligence. One of the most anticipated events in the eyewear and optical industry for senior level executives, the Summit will take place April 13, 2016 at The Times Center in New York.





The roster of Summit speakers now consists of six leading thinkers in their respective fields.

Michael S. Weiner, MD is chief medical information officer, IBM Healthcare. He previously served as the chief medical information officer and director of clinical informatics for the DoD VA Interagency Program Office, where he was responsible for creating a unified Interagency Electronic Health Record for over 125,000 providers and 18 million beneficiaries worldwide.

As the former director of the Military Health System Electronic Health Record Way Ahead Office Dr. Weiner was responsible for overseeing the development and deployment of the next generation of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) global Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.

Dr. Weiner’s experience also included serving as the deputy program manager and chief medical officer for the Department of Defense’s Defense Health Information Management System where he deployed the Military Health Electronic Health Record to 74 hospitals and 250 clinics worldwide and to the White House. He also was responsible for creating the chief information officer office at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Navy Medicine.

Ted Gioia is a jazz pianist, author of 10 books, and expert on management and business creativity. He has undertaken on-the-ground projects in 25 countries on five continents, and has consulted to Fortune 500 companies as a professional with McKinsey and the Boston Consulting Group.

Gioia previously served as a senior executive with Essilor International, and helped SOLA International do a successful IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. Two of his books have been honored on the New York Times list of the 100 best books of the year, and his jazz recordings have received airplay on more than 500 radio stations.

For a description of other Summit speakers, click here.

The Premier Sponsors of the Vision Monday Global Leadership Summit are Essilor and VSP Global . The Signature Sponsors are ACEP/ABS Smart Mirror, Adlens and Luxottica,. The Supporting Sponsors are Alcon, CareCredit and The Vision Council.

Click here to register for the Summit.