Ophthalmic World Leaders
Mark Your Calendar
Virtual Info Session
OWL For Non-Members: Learn More About Us!
Wednesday, August 5th; 5:30 PM EDT
Curious how Ophthalmic World Leaders can help you "accelerate your career"? Find out why eyecare professionals choose OWL to grow.
Upcoming Events
Leadership Summit
Leading Forward: Stories, Skills & the Future of Eyecare
OWL's annual Leadership Summit is a staple in the event calendar! Our 5th Leadership Summit was held July 30-31 in Nashville at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and was our most impactful yet.
Look out for announcements on next year's Summit and be sure to save the date and join us. You don't want to miss this event!
Featured Champions
Michele Fuller
Partner, Strategic Advisory
Trinity Life Sciences
Michele Fuller has over 25 years of commercialization experience in Ophthalmology spanning biopharma, surgical and consumer product portfolios. She leads the Ophthalmology Center of Excellence (COE), partnering with more than 150 ophthalmic manufacturers, to inform critical cross-functional decision milestones along the complex path toward commercialization, where market development and ecosystem readiness is as critical as product differentiation.
Prior to consulting, Michele served as the Area Pharmaceutical Commercial Franchise Head in Asia at Novartis, based out of Singapore. In this role, she led marketing and sales across 23 countries in region Asia, including Russia. While in Asia, she also lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where she led the Surgical Business Unit through the launches of the LenSx Laser, Centurion Vision System, multiple advanced-technology IOLs, and the co-promotion of Lucentis in Retina.
Michele joined Novartis in 2011 as part of the double merger of Alcon into Novartis and Ciba Vision into Alcon. Prior to her role in Asia, she built a Global Marketing Sciences function in the Surgical Division of Alcon supporting the Cataract, Refractive and Vitreoretinal surgical business units – which led to leading the function enterprise wide to include pharmaceuticals and consumer products. Before joining Alcon in 2004, Michele was in upstream marketing at Centocor (J&J), where she worked alongside Clinical Research, Development, and Regulatory teams to prioritize the long-term disease area and adjacency strategy for Remicade® in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. Michele received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Pre-medicine from the University of Montana.
She currently lives in Maplewood, New Jersey, with her husband Chris of 25 years, two daughters, Ava and Vivian, and their two rescue pugs. When she is not working or ‘talking shop’ with her cousin, Dr. Justin Schweitzer at Vance Thompson Vision, you can find her hiking in the mountains or adding stamps to her passport…currently at 56 countries.
David Friess, OD, FAAO
President
Optimus Clinical Partners
David W. Friess, O.D., F.A.A.O., is a global med‑tech executive and board‑experienced leader with more than two decades advancing ophthalmic innovation across medical devices, diagnostics, and digital vision technologies. He previously served as Vice President, Global Medical Affairs at STAAR Surgical, a publicly traded ophthalmic device company, where he led global medical affairs, directed post-market research programs, and helped secure multiple FDA and global regulatory approvals during a nine-year period of rapid growth for the EVO ICL/Toric ICL lens implant platform. Dr. Friess has led high‑performance global teams across North America, Europe, and Asia, directed surgeon education and market development initiatives, including the launch of STAARUniversity.com, and chaired medical advisory boards supporting product development and commercialization.
Prior to joining STAAR, from 2008 to 2016 he was a clinical/regulatory executive consultant, including work for Alcon, Inc., throughout the successful Phase III PMA study of topography-guided LASIK until FDA approval, clinical leadership of TrueVision Systems during their 510k FDA approval of 3D image-guided surgical visualization software until acquisition by Alcon, and assisting i-Optics B.V. during market launch of the Cassini LED corneal analyzer device. Dr. Friess previously served as Senior Clinical Research Scientist at Alcon, Inc., following clinical practice as Philadelphia staff optometrist at LCA Vision, Inc.
As President of Optimus Clinical Partners, he advises CEOs and emerging healthcare companies on clinical strategy, regulatory pathways, and evidence generation across all segments of ophthalmic surgical procedures, vision care diagnostics, and consumer digital health technologies. Dr. Friess is a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and has held volunteer and board leadership roles with the Optometric Cornea, Cataract & Refractive Society, Drexel/Salus University, the University of Nebraska Truhlsen Eye Institute, OWL, and Prevent Blindness, reflecting broad governance, professional society, and public‑health influence across the eye‑care ecosystem.