Interview: Vision of innovation

Discovery, difference and innovation have always been at the heart of what drives Petra Vacca, who took over as business unit director for the UKI and Nordics at Bausch + Lomb (B+L) last autumn.

A childhood spent behind the Iron Curtain left the boss of the contact lens division an advocate for innovation, growth and understanding customers. ‘Without innovation there is no growth,’ she says.

Vacca is keen to explain how her early life shaped her subsequent career and business journey. ‘Something that defines who I am is that I was born behind the Iron Curtain; in the Czech Republic, under communism,’ she says. ‘I saw the transitioning from the socialist economy to a democratic, parliamentary republic with free market. I think that is why I was always very curious how things are done very differently in different places.’ As a child she was brought up being told the capitalist West was the enemy, where things were wrong, but she wanted to see it for herself. ‘I left Czech Republic to explore other parts of the world, so I went to work in the US where I wanted to see the ideal of democracy and freedom.’ It ended up being where her career would develop and where she met her husband.