Sydney, Australia, 28 July 2017: Two years on Professor Kovin Naidoo, CEO, Brien Holden Vision Institute reflects on the time passed since the unexpected loss of his friend and colleague. “Following the sudden passing of a founder like Brien, who had been so integral to the organisation… it was natural for the executive to re-look at what we do – and so we engaged in a strategic process to restructure the organisation,” said Prof. Naidoo. “We have created multiple tiers of leadership, with more responsibility and a new focus. We have reduced the number of projects we are working on and we are really going after the things that make sense for us in terms of our research activity…”

The executive also decided that partnerships were the most financially sustainable way to move forward. “Our philosophy is partner or perish. We live in a resource-limited world right now and as a result of that we should make every effort to prudently use resources,” said Professor Naidoo. “Our strategy is to aggressively drive the Institute in certain areas, so it makes sense to enter into innovative partnerships with industry that realise more value more quickly than we can achieve on our own.”

Kovin describes the model as a ‘hybrid’: The Institute is taking its own intellectual property (IP) to potential industry partners that have the resources to help with commercialisation. Additionally, it is inviting individual optometrists and organisations to bring their ideas and IP to the Institute for assistance with research, development and commercialisation.

This excerpt is from a recent interview and story by mivision, we are grateful for their permission to feature. Please click here to read the story in full.