At our annual general meeting on November 17, 2022, the EACC membership elected Nelly Bonniol and Antonio Pagano to serve as the President and Vice President (respectively) of our Board of Directors. Their two-year terms run through the end of 2024. We asked each of them to introduce themselves to you, our members.
Meet Nelly Bonniol, VP Assignment Operations, EssilorLuxottica
I started my professional journey in my native country, France, and spent the first 17 years of my career in the aviation industry working for the French company Snecma-Safran. There I developed an expertise in both commercial operations and direct purchasing. Most of my work was focused on negotiating large scale contracts as either a buyer or a seller, with an impact of several billion dollars. In 2012, I moved with my family from Paris to Cincinnati for an international assignment as part of the Snecma – Safran joint venture with GE Aviation. I oversaw the commercial alignment between GE and Snecma-Safran in their offerings to airlines. While this was an incredibly fulfilling assignment, I was ready for the next chapter of my professional development. I wanted to have a direct impact on people’s lives, so I decided to join Essilor-Luxottica group in 2014. I started in their vision insurance division called EyeMed. Recently I have been appointed to a new role as VP of Assignment and Operations for Essilor Luxottica Retail Division.
Essilor Luxottica Retails Division is offering me the opportunity to play a meaningful role in making vision
care accessible and affordable. I am responsible for processing all the transactions related to vision insurance and interfacing with all the insurance careers and payers on behalf of the retails Brands of Essilor Luxottica. Some names might be familiar to you: LensCrafters, Target Optical, Pearle Vision, etc… After my experience in EyeMed- EssilorLuxottica vision insurance division, this new challenge feels like a natural next step and I am excited for the challenges ahead of me.On a personal front, I am also the mother of 5 beautiful children who keep me on my toes and help me become a better person every day. Close friends would define me as very “sporty” … as I was really athletic in my school years when I was swimming at the national level…those days are far behind!
In February of 2020, I was honored to be nominated as Honorary Consul of France by our General Consul of Chicago Guillaume Lacroix. The pandemic has given me quite a dry run to get up to speed with my new responsibilities to say the least… But more importantly this nomination has given me the desire to serve my country not only from a social standpoint, but from also a cultural and economic one.
Today, I am honored to have the chance to join the board members' team and serve as Board President for the next 2 years. I am filling big shoes after our previous Board President Dominic Franchini.
It is with great humility that I will embrace the challenges the EACC has set for itself as part of a transformation journey to continue create and deliver value for our members.
We want the EACC to continue to be a strong business enabler through its network, its expertise locally, but also globally, by leveraging our different chapters in the US and in Europe.
Such statement is not granted, and we need to constantly re-energize/ reinvent ourselves to adjust with our constantly moving economic environment.
I am very grateful and excited for the collaboration and partnership with all our members and I am looking forward to a great year together under our EACC organization.
Meet Antonio Pagano, CEO, Modula Inc.
Born in southern Italy, I grew up in Modena province, a well known area in northern Italy for Luxury Automotive, Ceramic, Pharma and of course Food & Beverage.
After obtaining my Master Degree in Electronic engineering, I joined Modula where I've spent almost my entire career so far. In all these years I’ve been blessed to be part of the evolution of Modula from a very small business line of 40 people to the MNC of today with more than 1000 employees and several factories all around the world.
My journey started in the service department where I created and led the international service
department, then I moved into Sales where I created the market for Modula in Eastern Europe all the way to the Far East; After that I was asked to create the Modula Academy, the online platform we use to train all our employees. In 2018 I was given the opportunity to move to the USA to manage Modula Inc, the North American manufacturing branch of Modula based in Lewiston (Maine).Right after my assignment we immediately faced huge growth that forced us to look at an expansion. In Maine it wasn’t possible to expand our current facility, so we decided to invest in a second plant. This is when our Chairman fell in love and bought the former Dayton Daily News building, and we established our second manufacturing plant in the USA.
It has been quite a journey, but despite the pandemic and all the geopolitical challenges, I’m proud to say that our (second) manufacturing plant in Franklin – Ohio is now fully operational and already in growth mode.
I am a fortunate husband and a lucky father of 1, and we’re still learning, but certainly appreciating, the American life style. We moved to Cincinnati during the summer of 2021, and we really love and enjoy what the city has to offer! I love soccer and I'm really enjoying the opportunity to follow the FC Cincinnati, but at the same time, I’m starting to get used to American football as well! Go Bengals!
I am very grateful to Nelly for giving me the opportunity to work with her as Vice President of the EACC, and I’m really looking forward to it!
