Ophthalmic World Leaders
Mark Your Calendar
OWL Signature Event at AAOpt
Thursday, October 9, 2025
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM EDT
Join OWL in Boston for our keynote, "From Adversity to Innovation", with Masoud Nafey, OD, MBA, FAAO.
OWL Signature Event & Awards Ceremony at AAO
Sunday, October 19, 2025
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM EDT
Join us for our annual Signature Event & Awards Ceremony! Enjoy our program with Geoff Tabin, MD (Cure Blindness Project) and stay to find out the winners of the 2025 OWL Leadership Awards!
Upcoming Events
Leadership Summit
OWL's annual Leadership Summit is a staple in the event calendar.
Our 4th Leadership Summit was held from Thursday July 24 - Friday July 25 in Denver, CO at the Gaylord Rockies Resort.
Our 2025 Summit centered around: “Shaping the Future of Eyecare: Leadership, Innovation, and Impact” - Helping OWL members, and emerging leaders to build their networks, sharpen their skills, explore trends shaping the future of eyecare and create lasting impact.
We're continuing to refine future programs and prepare for an interactive, impactful Summit each year. Thank you to all who attended!
Featured Champions
Sonali Bloom
Sonali Bloom is an experienced entrepreneur passionate about healthcare innovation and aspires to deliver products that improve lives. Befitting her distinctive background—she holds a BS in Physics from Yale University and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School—Sonali merges science and commerce as CEO of 20/20 Onsite, leading an enthusiastic team that expands access to vision health by bringing eye care directly to patients via their unique fleet of point-of-need clinics.
20/20 Onsite launched its primary vision care practice in 2014 and expanded into clinical research in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic; the company is now the leading provider of onsite eye assessments for clinical research and specializes in reducing patient friction, increasing participant diversity, accelerating study timelines, and enhancing data quality. With over a decade of experience providing ophthalmic assessments and eye care, 20/20 Onsite is proud of its commitment to patient-centricity, with its customers’ satisfaction reflected in a Net Promoter Score of 95+.
Gary Wörtz, MD
Dr. Gary Wörtz, MD is a nationally recognized cataract and refractive surgeon based in Lexington, Kentucky. A board-certified ophthalmologist, he serves as the Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of Omega Ophthalmics, while maintaining a high-volume surgical practice at Commonwealth Eye Surgery. A respected educator and innovator, Dr. Wörtz also serves as Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Kentucky and is a leading voice in ophthalmic education, entrepreneurship, and device innovation.
A committed innovator, Dr. Wörtz holds more than 80 U.S. and international patents. His leadership in the ophthalmic innovation ecosystem is reflected in his role as Chair of the Education Committee for AECOS. He also serves as Chair of the Cedars/Aspens Mentorship Program.