VisionSpring

🙌🏼 We're excited to announce our new Chief Finance and Administration Officer, Sonja Kotze.

Joining us from myAgro, where she also served as CFAO, Sonja brings over 25 years of global executive leadership experience leading high-growth, mission-driven organisations across Africa and internationally. Sonja has helped social enterprises transform and scale, and restructured revenue and impact strategies through volatile periods — including regional conflict in international funding.

🩺 Born and raised in Namibia and based in Pretoria, Sonja has mastered the business models of social entrepreneurship. Her expertise spans finance, technology, supply chain, risk, governance, legal, and people operations — with a proven track record of building resilient, high-performing teams through periods of rapid growth and complexity. Sonja has modernized financial infrastructure across a range of operations, including primary care delivery in East Africa and HIV transmission prevention across Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Eswatini, Malawi, and Uganda.

In her new role, she will oversee our Finance, Technology, Supply Chain, and country office administration systems. Under Sonja's leadership, we will strengthen and align our operational backbone to correct the vision of 20 million people over the next four years.

🎉 Big goals require the right people. We're glad to have Sonja in our corner.

See Well. Do Well.

This week, our Resource Mobilisation Manager for Africa, Lee Aguko, will be in Addis Ababa for this year's East Africa Philanthropy Network Conference.

For the millions of people we serve, a pair of glasses means the difference between a day's work done well and one lost to blur.

Lee will be there making the case for eye care to philanthropic partners, impact investors, and development agencies who can help us scale it.

📩 If you're attending hashtag , we'd love to connect! Reach out to [email protected]

Last week’s IAPB's IN SIGHT LIVE 2030 was a rallying cry for the eye health sector. The conference – its 5th and largest – anchored the critical shift from 🗣️ ideas and awareness toward 🖇️ integration, 📋acceleration, and 📈scale.

Our delegation represented Programs, MarCom, MERL, Institutional Partnerships, and the Africa and Bangladesh regions. Between participating as plenary panelists, rapid-fire presenters, and masterclass facilitators, Team VisionSpring also hosted a session to launch our CatalEYES approach alongside key changemakers from Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia.

Some of the key insights we took away from the conference:

🖇️ Integration: To truly scale eye health, interventions must be embedded into primary healthcare systems, universal health coverage strategies, and community networks.

💸 Economic impact & livelihoods: The sector is fully embracing that eyeglasses are not simply a health intervention — they’re an economic intervention that unlocks productivity, learning, safety, livelihoods, and opportunity.

🤖 Technology & AI: From frontline diagnostics to digital platforms and AI-enabled workflows, technology is accelerating our ability to expand reach, efficiency, and decision-making at scale.

📊 Making the Case: In preparation for November’s Global Summit, and with the recent launch of IAPB’s Value of Vision report, there was a strong sense of urgency around communicating the investment case and securing government commitment to advance national eye health agendas.

🫱🏾‍🫲🏻Collaboration: Achieving universal access to eye care requires organizations with different capabilities to work together intentionally, pragmatically, and at scale.

The momentum across the conference demonstrated the confidence that universal access to eye care is within reach, within our lifetime.

👓 At VisionSpring, we continue to advance this mission by accelerating access to eyeglasses for people vulnerable to poverty — through integration, collaboration, technology, evidence generation, and market-based approaches that strengthen livelihoods and economic resilience.

Congratulations to VISION 2020/IAPB, The Ministry of Health, Radisson Blu and everyone who helped execute such an inspiring and energizing event.

📆 Onward to the Global Summit for Eye Health in Antigua & Barbuda in November!