Kristan Gross

Kristan is the Global Head of Knowledge: Advocacy & Partnerships for the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation. She leads the organization’s global knowledge team to harness research and information in an effort to empower vision advocates, advance policy, and create awareness to eliminate poor vision.

Most recently, Kristan served as the Global Executive Director of the Vision Impact Institute (VII), leading a global team of experts to create expanded awareness, through evidence-based research, and to advocate for the need to prioritize vision health. She has also served as Global Director Communications for the organization and successfully led traditional and social media expansion and advocacy initiatives in countries around the world. She is an expert storyteller on the global need for good vision – in the classroom, the workplace and on the roads.

Her work has taken her around the world raising awareness of the need for good vision in front of global audiences, including the Chinese and Indian governments, US lawmakers, and organizational executives.

Throughout her career she has also held numerous communications roles in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations and has seen firsthand how strategic messaging, cause advocacy, and powerful storytelling can change the world, one life at a time.

Kristan earned her BA in English and Psychology from East Texas Baptist University. In 2020, she was appointed to the advisory panel for the Global Myopia Awareness Coalition. She serves on school eye health, gender equity and URE working groups for the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
Outside the vision sector, Kristan also volunteers her time as a board member at Operation Bliss, an organization dedicated to celebrating a child’s hospital discharge with a stay at a local Dallas-Fort Worth hotel.

Kristan was named one of Jobson’s 2014 Most Influential Women in Optical in the Innovation category, has received countless accolades and awards in communications, and was awarded the 2018 Mentor of the Year Award from Women of Visionary Influence (WOVI).