Insights + interviews
Shamir CEO Yagen Moshe shares about intentionality and work-life balance
Shamir Global CEO Yagen Moshe keeps a difficult lesson close to heart – that of never taking things for granted. Yagen leads his 2500-strong company with the Jewish motto: know where you came from, and where you are going.
Shamir, a leading lens manufacturer, Global CEO Yagen Moshe had a difficult lesson thrust upon him one day at work.
He had just stepped out of a business meeting, and received a heart-wrenching message. His beloved mother had passed on. He was not by her side.
What was your hardest lesson to receive when at the workplace?
Since 2005, Yagen had led his company to a successful listing on the NASDAQ Exchange, putting Shamir on the world map, beyond its headquarters in Israel.
At the moment of receiving the message though, Yagen’s realisation was that he had forsaken his family and loved ones for work. He was focusing too much on the wrong things. He decided it was time to know when to pause, and put a stop to the long working hours and irregular sleeping schedule.
Importantly, no more regrets and not with his family. He began taking up diving with his family, playing video games, and made sure he was present for his family after work, and every weekend.
Yagen shared with us some of his observations and insights relating to leading Shamir to set up a regional headquarters in Singapore, expanding the company’s global footprint and becoming Alpine F1 Team’s optical partner, creating the first ever vision performance lab in Formula 1.
the Active Age (AA): How did the opportunity and the partnership with the Alpine F1 Team come about, and how did Shamir emphasise the importance of ophthalmic assessments for the F1 team?
Yagen Moshe (YM): The partnership is a natural expression of Shamir and Alpine F1 Team’s shared values of leading technologies, innovation, high performance, fast reaction, precision, safety and great teamwork.
The partnership has produced the first ever vision performance lab in Formula 1, providing high performance ophthalmic assessment for the Alpine F1 team and Alpine Academy drivers, alongside their pit crew, pit wall and personnel at the team’s bases in Enstone and Viry-Châtillon.
Through the collaboration we believe we can create a better vision performance solutions for drivers and performance sport.
AA: What is the current state of optical solutions globally, and where do we see their impact?
YM: Better vision means better life. We can see a high use of big data to bring better solutions. I am proud that Shamir has an artificial intelligence called Shamir AI, a personal solution. We can see more and more solutions (for the) medical segment (such as) Myopia prevention (as well as) other behaviour or medical issues.
Coating is also a major part in the evaluation of new solutions, like Shamir Anti Fog lenses for glasses that will help everyone around the world who wears a mask. This helps to provide clarity for vision and is a step-up from the lenses that we have been wearing.
Currently, optical solutions are rapidly innovating. With the talk of the metaverse and AI, optical solutions are constantly tapping into big data and digitalisation to create better lenses and even futuristic lenses that you might not imagine. There are glasses and spectacles that are in the prototype phase which are meant to connect to your devices, and with AR (augmented reality), there might be even more exciting developments to come! These will all affect our daily lives, even if it seems removed. One example would be when we started to see many types of lenses come out in the market over the last two year, including Shamir anti-fog.
AA: What is the future of optical solutions around the world, and how will these developments impact our daily lives?
YM: The future of optical solutions changed during the pandemic really. People pay more attention to their eyes now, and their general health. While there is still a deep interest in advanced technologies like VR (virtual reality) and AR, millions who were confined to their homes for weeks and months turned to the screens on their computer and phones, as a window to their world. Therein came the need to protect one’s visual health, or even how they appear on the screen.
As such, in a nod to the digital circumstances, optical solutions will focus on developing lenses to further consumer experience. In Shamir, we have released new lenses like Shamir Glacier ExpressionTM to remove the reflection that people might see during video calls and allows consumer more easily express themselves and form deeper social connections.
We might even begin to witness a stronger marriage of more advanced technologies to produce solutions to address the regular consumer lifestyle needs. We have made use of extensive “big data” to come up with lenses like our Shamir Autograph IntelligenceTM lens, the first progressive lens of its kind that is optimally tailored to individual needs and visual age (the physiological age of one’s eyes) with AI.
AA: Given Shamir’s growth, how do you view work-life balance and overall wellness as key to building and growing a sustainable business?
Work-life balance is about being intentional.
At Shamir, we believe that people are the key to success, so we work to help them grow in a holistic way. For instance, the flexi-work schemes help our employees worldwide work to the best of their abilities, we ensure that employees are engaged with what they do.
At the end of the day, we are a team working to better optical solutions to provide the best possible visual experience to people all over the world. To grow sustainably, we have to take care of our people.
For myself, work-life balance comes in the form of adequate rest. I make an effort to get off work fully when I am off-duty, spending time with my family, doing sports like diving and other exercises. These keep me active mentally and physically.
AA: What counsel would you share with other business leaders about the importance of wellness in our post-pandemic economy?
Wellness does not only mean taking care of yourself. Sure, maintaining work-life balance as the leader works, but it also means making sure that your employees are heard. (This includes) their voices in your decision-making process, and helping them solve problems that they come to you with will also help to ensure that the team is well-supported.
In short, speak to employees on the ground, and share information and decisions with them too. Support is key in this post-pandemic world, and it really is the backbone of the company’s future.
Photo credit: Shamir
