Insiya Lokhandwala, business development, Google Glass.
NEW YORK—With leaders in their fields discussing Millennials, Big Data, omnichannel retailing, and wearable technologies, the 8th annual Vision Monday Global Leadership Summit once again showed how the future is now.

Anticipating which innovations will impact the optical profession, the VM Summit hosted a sold-out crowd of 400+ of the industry’s leading executives. Sponsoring this year’s “Future/Now” Summit were Premier supporters,Essilor and Luxottica, Signature sponsor  VSP Global, along with Adlens, Alcon, CareCredit, DAC Vision and ThinkAboutYourEyes.com.

One of the highlights of the event was a one-on-one interview Axelrad conducted with Andrea Guerra, CEO of Luxottica. “We’re living in a world fantastic and full of global opportunities,” he said, citing an unprecedented two to three billion new global consumers. Other trends he observed were 3-D printing changing R&D and the doubling or tripling of business in the last six years in emerging markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, India and China. Overall, he predicted substantial sunglass growth in both emerging as well as established markets. “It has the smallest market penetration in the biggest markets in the world,” he said.

For a slideshow of the day's events, click here.