EXECUTIVE TEAM
Leo Mac Canna (Chief Executive Officer & Founder)
Leo graduated in Electronic Engineering at the Dublin Institute of Technology in 1988 and began work in Tokyo, Japan, for Ricoh Company Ltd in their Image Processing R & D Department. In 1990, he went to work for Credit Suisse, Tokyo. In 1992 he returned to Ireland to study for an MBA at UCD. During this period of study he began to develop software for the local opticians market, trading as Mac Canna Software, later to become The Computer Department Ltd., and finally Ocuco.
David Lewis (Chief Technology Officer)
David graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology, Rathmines in 1990. He was employed by Siemens Nixdorf where he worked in the 'Professional Services' division on a wide variety of projects, covering all aspects of the development life cycle. He is trained in SSADM for software analysis and utilised this for designing and architecting solutions for many large contracts, typically for government departments and large financial organisations. He has been a relational database consultant/administrator on Oracle, SQL Server, MS Access, Informix and Siemens Nixdorf's own proprietary systems. David has been with Ocuco since it merged with Clinical Software in 1997 where he leads the development team in the role of Chief Technical Officer.
Jaswant Joshi (Chief Financial Officer)
Jas is an FCCA qualified accountant with a post graduate MBA from London Business School. He has worked in senior management positions for a number of major organisations including Burberrys, Laura Ashley, Avis, Hitachi Data Systems, C2000 and IBM. These roles contained an international element in responsibility leading to assignments in France, Netherlands and USA as well as 19 other countries covering the Americas, Scandinavia, Europe and the Middle East.
Prior to joining Ocuco, Jas was Group Finance Director and Board member for Batemans Opticians, a chain of 75 stores in the South of UK which was sold to Grand Optical.
Marcel Cézar (Non-Executive Director)
Marcel graduated in Economic Sciences at the Université de Liège (Belgium). He brings a unique wealth of experience to the Board, having been at the highest management positions for major players in the optical industry since 1974. His curriculum includes prestigious names like Briot, Grand Optical, the GrandVision Group and Vision Express. Today, he also operates his own chain of optical stores in France.
Arran Walsh (Marketing Director)
Arran graduated from University College Dublin in 1991, with a bachelor in Mechanical Engineering. He spent the next 15 years working for a Silicon Valley based Fortune 500 Semiconductor company, Applied Materials. His various roles as Technical Product Support manager and Global Field Operations Manager, saw Arran living and working in many countries around the world, including USA, Holland, Singapore, Taiwan and China. He spent some time in Applied Materials head office corporate marketing department, before returning to Ireland to complete a full time MBA programme. Arran has been the Marketing Director at Ocuco since 2008 and now also manages the Sales team for the UK.
Clodagh Doherty (Development and Programme Director)
Clodagh graduated from UCD with a B.Sc. and M.Sc. by Research in Geophysics in 1997. She moved to the U.K. in 1998 and joined Credit Suisse First Boston as a developer of Derivative Trading Systems. She moved quickly up the ladder to Vice President and before leaving C.S.F.B. was IT Manager of 30 people. She formalised her Project Management skills by becoming a Prince 2 Practitioner in 2004. Upon returning to Ireland in 2005 Clodagh took up various Senior Project Management contracts in Bank of Ireland and First Active before taking up a permanent role as Business Manager of Project and Programme Practice Management with OSL in 2007 where the focus was IT Process Improvement in companies such as BOI, AIB, E.S.B., Airtricity, EBS and Ulster Bank. Clodagh joined Ocuco in January 2010 as a Senior Project Manager and is now Programme Director managing Ocuco's Project Management Office and delivering many of Ocuco's key large customer projects in Canada and Italy.
Josephine Austin (HR Director)
Josephine graduated from The Shannon College of Hotel Mgt with Hons.and joined the Ocuco Group in 2004 as Office Manager, following 17 years experience in international hotels; Management, HR, Sales and Marketing. Josephine's brief was to handle admin in Accounts, Marketing, HR, Installations, Corporate travel & entertainment etc. During this time Josephine hired Ocuco's first PSD team, designed Ocuco's first signature corporate entertainment invitations, and managed Ocuco's first large international marketing project centered around the Ryder Cup. In 2006 & 2007 Josephine spent some time on a project using the Acuitas Diabetic Retinopathy Suite while still maintaining some HR responsibilities. In 2008 Josephine was appointed as HR Director for the Ocuco Group.
Linus Russell (Operations Director)
Linus Russell graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2007 with a B.Sc.Hons. in MIS. With prior qualifications in accountancy (MAAT 1995), Linus worked as an assistant accountant and IT Administrator with The Heiton Group Dublin, OKR Group Dublin and Crown Casinos, Melbourne Australia. Linus joined Ocuco in early 2001 as a support technician. He has worked his way to his current position via the role of Support Manager where he spent five years. Linus was appointed Operation Director in 2006.
Paul Heffernan (IT Director)
Paul is a graduate with BSc (Hons) in Computer Science and over 20 years commercial experience in designing and implementing software solutions for a broad range of industries. Since joining Ocuco in 2005, has managed the Irish Development and QA departments and is now Research & Development Director.
UK MANAGEMENT
Gareth Cottrell (Managing Director, Ocuco Independents UK & Ireland)
Gareth qualified in Computer Aided Electrical and Electronic Engineering from W.G.I.H.E., Swansea in 1989. He was a medical electronics technician in the NHS before changing career to software development in 1999, taking a role as senior developer in Relcon Software Ltd, developing FOCUS for UK independent and regional groups of opticians. Gareth became part of the management executive as the need to grow the company arose. He was product manager for software products to the Independent market for 4 years before taking up his current position in 2010.
USA MANAGEMENT
Robert Shanbaum (President Ocuco USA)
Robert's first job in the optical business was picking lenses in his father's wholesale laboratory in Dallas at the age of 15. Robert founded his own chain of optical boutiques in Dallas ("Peeper's") in the 1970's before selling it to his partner and returning to the family business in the early 1980's. Later in the 1980's he started a business which first sold machinery to optical labs, and then expanded into lab software, developing a product called "RxCalc" which became quite popular.Gerber Optical purchased the RxCalc business in 1993, and Robert moved to Connecticut along with the business, where he helped lead the design and development of the "Innovations" lab software product in the late 1990's. In 2007, Gerber Coburn sold the Innovations software business to Ocuco Ltd., and Robert became President of Ocuco Inc., its U.S. subsidiary.
FRANCE MANAGEMENT
Eric Huet (Managing Director France)
Eric manages the OCUCO activities for the French market. Graduate in IT (University Insititute of Technology in 1990) and Strategic Management (Master ICG at the French Institute of Management in 1998). He spent his entire career in major French optical retailers companies (VISUAL, GRANDVISION, GrandOptical) in which he has held senior IT, operational and sales missions. He joined the OCUCO Group In March 2008 as CEO of the subsidiary Ocuco France.
ITALY MANAGEMENT
Angelo Furlotti (Managing Director Italy)
Angelo is graduated in Computer Science (Scienze dell'Informazione at Università degli Studi di Milano). He joined the optical retail sector in 1995 as the IT manager of a chain of optical stores which was later bought by the international group Grand Vision in which he spend his career and he held international senior IT position. In 2002 he incorporated an IT company operating in optical retail sector acquired by Ocuco in Septemebr 2008 and he became the CEO of the subsidiary Ocuco Italia.
AUSTRALIA MANAGEMENT
Victor Scrooby (Group Clinical Director)
Victor has joined the organisation as Group Clinical Director. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Victor will also have general management responsibility for Ocuco in the Asia Pacific region.
Victor qualified as an Optometrist in 1995 in South Africa with a BSc (Hons) Optometry and Mc Optom. Victor practised in South Africa with Eagle Vision and in private practice. He moved to the UK in 1998 where he worked with Opticians such as David Clulow and D&A before setting up the UK Classic Eyes chain which has stores in the UK and South Africa.
Victor began his relationship with Ocuco over 10 years ago while in the UK, when his was one of the first companies to purchase the Acuitas product. He relocated to Australia to join Big W Vision, a full service optometry chain before becoming a partner in one of the busiest Specsavers stores in Australia.