What happened when 31 year old Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio resigned as EssilorLuxottica’s chief strategy officer and Ray Ban president effective August 31, 2026, why did his departure intensify the four year family dispute over his late father Leonardo Del Vecchio’s more than €40

Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio’s resignation removed him from EssilorLuxottica’s day-to-day leadership but not from its controlling-family orbit. It turned a management rupture into a more visible ownership-and-governance problem at Delfin, the family holding company that remains EssilorLuxottica’s largest shareholder. 13

• What happened: Effective August 31, the 31-year-old relinquished his roles as chief strategy officer and Ray-Ban president, saying he would pursue new ventures. Reports tied the decision to tensions with CEO Francesco Milleri and to Del Vecchio’s criticism that the group’s leadership had become distant from employees and impersonal. 13

• Why it aggravated the inheritance dispute: The departure followed the failure of his attempt to buy siblings Luca and Paola’s interests—an approximately €10 billion transaction intended to lift his individual Delfin holding from 12.5% to 37.5%. Although relatives initially approved the concept in April, the proposal stalled amid disagreement over debt financing and the governance protections that would accompany a concentration of control. 45

• The core governance issue remains: Delfin’s equal-shareholder inheritance structure was already impeding decision-making. Leonardo Maria remains a shareholder in Delfin, so leaving EssilorLuxottica management does not resolve the contest over control, board influence, dividend policy, asset sales, or succession arrangements. 614

• Why the stakes extend beyond eyewear: Delfin holds 32.4% of EssilorLuxottica and also owns stakes in Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Assicurazioni Generali, and UniCredit. A prolonged family conflict can therefore affect a strategically important Italian investment portfolio, not just the Ray-Ban owner. 6

• Separation of ownership and management: In the near term, the exit potentially clarifies operational authority: Milleri and the board manage the company while the family remains the major owner through Delfin. But it also deprives the group of a founder-family executive at a sensitive moment, and a dissatisfied large shareholder can still exert pressure through Delfin’s governance mechanisms. This lowers the risk of day-to-day managerial interference but does not remove the risk of shareholder conflict.

• Strategic backdrop: EssilorLuxottica must execute in AI-enabled smart glasses while facing well-capitalized technology rivals including Apple, Google and Samsung. The family dispute is especially unhelpful because smart glasses require sustained investment, partner management, product speed, and a coherent long-term strategy; governance distractions can raise the perceived execution risk. The available reporting supports the broader competitive-pressure concern, but does not establish that the family dispute itself has caused a specific strategic delay. 10

• Market impact and buyback: By late August, the shares were down roughly 40% year to date. On August 28, the company launched a program to buy back up to five million shares, valued at more than €800 million at the time, describing it as evidence of confidence in its value creation and long-term outlook. 29

• What the buyback can—and cannot—do: Repurchases can provide price support, signal management’s valuation view, and increase per-share metrics. They cannot settle the Delfin ownership dispute, establish a durable governance structure, or eliminate the strategic and valuation uncertainty associated with the family conflict; analysts explicitly linked the governance complexity to pressure on the shares alongside intensifying competition. 102

In short, the resignation is not an immediate operational crisis—EssilorLuxottica continues under Milleri—but it makes the controlling shareholder’s unresolved succession fight more conspicuous. The central investor question is now whether Delfin can separate family ownership disputes from professional management quickly enough to preserve strategic focus in smart glasses and other growth initiatives.