Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio is stepping down from his roles at EssilorLuxottica

In a letter to the chairman and chief executive of EssilorLuxottica, Francesco Milleri, and to the board, Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio announced his intention to step down from all his roles within the group – chairman of Ray-Ban and chief strategy officer – to focus on new business ventures. According to a report in Milano Finanza, Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio criticised the group’s corporate management in the letter, describing it as having become “distant” and “impersonal”, and above all disconnected from people – in stark contrast to what his father, Leonardo Del Vecchio, had built: “I do not want to become the founder’s son who is used to symbolise a continuity in which, on certain fundamental principles, I no longer recognise myself. People must be put back at the centre. Not in slogans. In our actions. Because my father did not merely build one of Italy’s largest companies. He built a place where hundreds of thousands of people believed they could build something together with him. Losing that would be far more serious than missing a budget target.”  

“My father built Luxottica by demanding a great deal from people. But he knew something we risk forgetting today: if you ask people for loyalty, sacrifice and a sense of belonging, you must be prepared to give them something in return. You cannot be a team only when you’re delivering results. You cannot celebrate your managers when they succeed and then suddenly put institutional distance between you when they are going through a difficult time. You cannot put people at the centre of presentations and then push them to the sidelines when they become inconvenient. This is not the Luxottica I grew up in. And it is not the Luxottica I remember alongside my father,” he wrote. 

The resignation was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Italian-French group: “We would like to thank Leonardo Maria for contributing to the group’s growth and to the realisation of the strategic vision envisaged by his father. We wish him every success in his new venture.”

However, Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio’s departure does not mark a farewell to the group. He made it clear that he will continue “to fully exercise my responsibilities as a shareholder through Delfin. I will continue to defend the company’s independence, its capacity for growth and the need for it to have stable ownership and a long-term vision”.