eyewear
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Roger Hardy and the art of coming back for more
He helped build Coastal Contacts, sold it to Essilor, and learned how quickly a second act can unravel. At KITS, Roger Hardy is back in eyewear, with an old competitive streak and a different appreciation for what holds a company together.
Anass Boumediene and the company that began over coffee
Before eyewa had a network of stores, Anass Boumediene built a network of people. His route from consulting to Gulf retail runs through shared lunches, a tested partnership and a willingness to keep changing the business.
Tibor Laczay and the art of selling less
He coded Zenni’s first website and helped build an eyewear business without venture capital. Tibor Laczay’s most revealing sales pitch was an invitation to spend less.
Mehdi Oudghiri and the long way downstairs
Eyewa began with a website and a trip to the shop downstairs. For co-founder Mehdi Oudghiri, the distance between a good idea and a working business has always been worth travelling.
Brigid Stevens Knows What an Old Brand Must Keep - and What It Must Risk
After helping flowers feel direct, denim feel current and purpose feel practical, the veteran marketer has taken on a new lens at DIFF Eyewear. Her career offers a useful lesson in how brands change without misplacing themselves.
Wendy Hauteman
Wendy Hauteman is Chief Marketing Officer at VSP Vision, the Rancho Cordova-based not-for-profit vision care company that serves close to 90 million members through a network of 40,000 doctors. She has spent more than two decades in the optical industry, moving from senior marketing roles at Pearle Vision, ILORI and EyeMed to leading global strategic marketing at VSP before her promotion to CMO in August 2019. Under her leadership VSP shifted its message from 'we help people see' to 'empowering human potential through sight,' anchoring the brand's purpose-first playbook.
Nathan Kondamuri
Nathan Kondamuri is the co-founder and co-CEO of Pair Eyewear, the customizable glasses company he started in a Stanford dorm room with classmate Sophia Edelstein. Pair sells base frames with magnetic, swappable 'Top Frames' that turn a medical necessity into a fashion accessory. Since pitching on Shark Tank in 2020, the company has raised about $148 million, including a $75 million Series C in 2023, sold millions of frames, and grown revenue more than 30x. A mechanical engineering graduate and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree from Munster, Indiana, Kondamuri runs the business in an unusual two-CEO partnership.
Sophia Edelstein
Sophia Edelstein is the co-founder and co-CEO of Pair Eyewear, the direct-to-consumer brand that turned eyeglasses into a fashion accessory you can swap as fast as your mood. She and Stanford classmate Nathan Kondamuri started the company in their senior year after interviewing 400 families about why kids hate their glasses, and built it into a vertically integrated eyewear company with the most automated lens lab in the United States. By late 2023 the company had raised roughly $145 million, grown revenue 24x in three years, and sold millions of interchangeable 'Top Frames'. Edelstein leads brand, creative, web and product design while sharing the CEO seat in one of the more visible co-CEO partnerships in consumer tech.