Del Vecchio Exits Ray-Ban

Rubrik: Business
Format: Special Report
Autor: Sinisa Brkic (sb)

Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio is stepping down as chairman of Ray-Ban and chief strategy officer of EssilorLuxottica, bringing questions of succession, control and management back into focus. His departure from executive office does not remove him from the ownership structure behind the global eyewear group. It comes at a critical moment for a company whose future increasingly extends beyond luxury eyewear into artificial intelligence and wearable technology.

An executive departure with consequences beyond the job titles

Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio will leave his position as chairman of Ray-Ban and his role as chief strategy officer of EssilorLuxottica effective August 31, 2026. The company has confirmed the departure and thanked him for his contribution to the group and to the strategic vision associated with his late father, Luxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio.

The official language is restrained, but the circumstances surrounding the resignation make the move more significant than an ordinary management change. Reports on Del Vecchio’s resignation letter describe pointed criticism of the leadership style under Chairman and CEO Francesco Milleri, including concerns that management had become too distant and impersonal.

That distinction is important. EssilorLuxottica has confirmed the resignation, while the more detailed criticism attributed to Del Vecchio comes from reporting on the letter rather than from the company’s own statement. The available facts therefore support describing a serious disagreement over management culture, but not an established institutional rupture.

Leaving management does not mean leaving the power structure

The central fact behind the resignation is that Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio is not simply a departing executive. He is one of the eight heirs to the fortune and corporate structure left by Leonardo Del Vecchio, who died in 2022, and holds a 12.5 percent interest in Delfin, the family holding company.

Delfin owns approximately 32.4 percent of EssilorLuxottica and remains its largest shareholder. The holding company also has significant interests in banking, insurance and real estate, giving its internal governance relevance far beyond the eyewear business.

This creates a clear distinction between operational authority and ownership influence. Del Vecchio may be leaving his executive positions inside EssilorLuxottica, but his economic interest in the structure that anchors the company remains unchanged. For investors and competitors, that is the more consequential part of the story. Executive functions can be reassigned, but the ownership architecture behind a company of EssilorLuxottica’s scale remains central to questions of strategy, succession and long term control.

A succession structure without a single successor

Leonardo Del Vecchio built Luxottica into a global eyewear powerhouse and later became the central figure behind the creation of EssilorLuxottica. What he did not leave behind was a conventional succession model centered on one heir with clear control.

Instead, ownership of Delfin was divided equally among eight beneficiaries. The structure preserved family ownership, but it also created a system in which no single heir could easily establish dominance and major decisions required cooperation among individuals with different interests and ambitions.

Questions surrounding Delfin’s future governance have repeatedly surfaced since the founder’s death. Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio has also been involved in initiatives that could have materially increased his position within the holding company, including efforts to acquire stakes held by other family members. Those efforts did not produce a definitive new order. The fundamental question left open after Leonardo Del Vecchio’s death therefore remains unresolved: who, if anyone, can turn equal inherited ownership into effective leadership of the family empire?

Milleri remains at the center of the system

Francesco Milleri occupies an unusually important position in that equation. He serves as chairman and chief executive officer of EssilorLuxottica and became one of the key managerial figures trusted by Leonardo Del Vecchio during the final phase of the founder’s career.

Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio had also held a strategically important position within that structure. As chief strategy officer, he was close to the group’s long term direction, while the Ray-Ban chairmanship connected him directly with one of the company’s most valuable and internationally recognized brands.

The reported criticism contained in his resignation letter therefore carries more weight than a routine disagreement between senior executives. It points to tensions within a leadership model closely tied to the company’s transition after the death of its founder. That does not establish a formal struggle for control of EssilorLuxottica. It does, however, expose the continuing tension between managerial authority inside the listed company and the fragmented family ownership concentrated in Delfin.

Another heir has already left the wearables business

The timing is also notable because Leonardo Maria is not the first member of the next generation to leave a senior operational role. Rocco Basilico, another heir to the Del Vecchio estate, left his position as EssilorLuxottica’s chief wearables officer in January 2026 after more than a decade with the company.

The two departures have different circumstances and should not be treated as evidence of a coordinated family withdrawal. Taken together, however, they reduce the direct operational presence of Del Vecchio heirs in areas closely associated with the company’s future. That matters because wearables have moved from experimental territory toward the center of EssilorLuxottica’s technology strategy. The group is increasingly positioned at the intersection of lenses, fashion, consumer hardware and artificial intelligence, with Ray-Ban serving as one of the main brands connecting those businesses.

Ray-Ban is becoming a technology platform

EssilorLuxottica’s importance can no longer be measured only by the scale of its eyewear portfolio. Through its long term partnership with Meta, the company has become one of the most important industrial players in the emerging market for AI glasses.

The collaboration now reaches well beyond the original concept of connected Ray-Ban eyewear. Ray-Ban Meta has developed into a broader AI product platform, Oakley has been added to the wearable portfolio, and both companies have continued expanding their ambitions in smart glasses. The strategic objective is larger than adding cameras, speakers and software to traditional frames. EssilorLuxottica and Meta are attempting to establish glasses as a mainstream interface for artificial intelligence, communication and contextual digital services.

That gives the departure of EssilorLuxottica’s chief strategy officer a technology dimension that would have carried far less weight only a few years ago. The company is now helping shape what could become a major consumer computing platform while simultaneously managing a complex transition in ownership and leadership.

No evidence that the Meta strategy is changing

The governance questions should not be confused with evidence of an operational crisis. There is currently no public indication that Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio’s departure will alter EssilorLuxottica’s partnership with Meta, disrupt existing product plans or change the group’s commitment to AI wearables. The Meta relationship is institutional, long term and supported by substantial product development across several brands. Francesco Milleri has also been closely associated with the strategy, making it difficult to interpret Del Vecchio’s resignation as a rejection of the technology roadmap itself.

The immediate uncertainty concerns leadership responsibilities rather than the underlying partnership. The next relevant signals will be how EssilorLuxottica redistributes Del Vecchio’s strategic functions, who assumes responsibility for Ray-Ban’s chairmanship and whether the group adjusts its organizational structure.

The deeper question sits above Ray-Ban

The significance of the resignation ultimately lies in the structure surrounding it. EssilorLuxottica is a global listed company with professional management, but its largest shareholder remains a family holding company whose ownership was divided among eight heirs without producing a single controlling successor. Such a structure can remain stable while interests are aligned. It becomes more difficult when questions of ownership, governance and management direction begin to overlap.

Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio’s departure does not resolve those questions. It removes him from two influential operating positions while leaving his stake in Delfin unchanged, creating an even clearer distinction between his former executive role and his continuing position as an owner.

For EssilorLuxottica, the central issue is therefore larger than the departure of one member of the Del Vecchio family. The real test is whether a company moving rapidly into the AI hardware era can preserve strategic continuity while the succession structure behind its largest shareholder remains unsettled.

Ray-Ban is the name drawing immediate attention. The more consequential question, however, remains one level higher: how power will ultimately be balanced between EssilorLuxottica’s management and the family capital behind Delfin.