AIAC SALUTES HUBERT SAGNIÈRESAT THE GLOBAL EXPLORATION SUMMIT
For Immediate Release
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada – September 12-14, 2025 — At the formal opening reception and ceremony for the Global Exploration Summit (GLEX), Explorers Club Fellow and noted corporate leader, aviator, arctic and tropical explorer, historian, and philanthropist Hubert Sagnières was honored with the recital of The Man of Vision, a poetic tribute composed by AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie, who serves as Trustee and Poet Laureate of the Explorers Club and Member of the Summit Council of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Held at the French Embassy, the ceremony included the following dignitaries:
Richard Wiese, President of the Explorers Club
John Gieger, Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and Fellow of the Explorers Club
Hon. Signe Burgstaller, Ambassador of Sweden to Canada
Hon. Michel Miraillet, Ambassador of France to Canada
Milbry Polk, Director of The Explorers Club and Chair of GLEX
Natalie Cash, Director, The Explorers Club, and Executive Video Producer, Wildlife Conservation Society.
Faanya Rose, President Emeritus of The Explorers Club
Will Roseman, Executive Director, The Explorers Club
Following remarks by Richard Wiese and John Gieger, Natalie Cash recited Mr. Levie’s poem, found below:
GLEX brought together an extraordinary roster of speakers—from astrophysicists and paleontologists to Indigenous leaders, conservationists, and record-setting adventurers, and an audience of hundreds of other exploration leaders from around the world.
“GLEX is the Davos of exploration and we wanted to host it in Canada this year. Canada has played such a vital role in the history of exploration, and we collectively felt that our Canadian brothers and sisters were not getting the proper recognition or love they deserve from their neighbors to the south,” stated Richard Wiese, President of The Explorers Club.
“It is more important than ever to build cross-border alliances with organizations dedicated to scientific inquiry and the health of the planet. The Explorers Club is a legendary institution with a fellowship that continues to push the boundaries of knowledge. We are honoured at this critical moment that they would opt to host their most important summit in Canada,” said John Geiger, CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
Speakers over the three-day event included:
· Dr. Brian Cox, British physicist and acclaimed BBC commentator
· Dr. Louise Leakey, noted Kenyan paleontologist doing groundbreaking work on human origins and
continuing the legacy of the Leakey family.
· Valérie Courtois, leader of Indigenous led conservation and stewardship in Canada
· Prof. Sara Seager, Canadian astronomer and planetary scientist
· Mensun Bound, David L. Mearns, Jonathan Moore and John Geiger on the discovery of historic shipwrecks
· Dr. Charles Emogor, Nigerian biologist and conservationist working to protect pangolins.
· Hari Budha Magar, Nepalese double amputee on climbing the Seven Summits.
· Oliver Steeds, on protecting our ocean’s final frontier through deep-sea exploration.
Mr. Levie commented, “This year’s Global Exploration Summit, co-hosted for the first time by The Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, assembled a remarkable collection of explorers, scholars, and dignitaries to celebrate their common mission to expand knowledge. The GLEX opening reception on Friday evening at the elegant French Embassy was a fitting setting to celebrate the extraordinary life journey of my dear friend, Hubert Sagnières, who is truly The Man of Vision.”
He added, “AIAC and its affiliates, Bradford Space, Champlain Cable, SuperAlloy Manufacturing, and Kraft Paper Industries are proud Partners of the Explorers Club, actively supporting its mission of discovery and conservation.”
For a full 4.5 hour video of GLEX, please click here:
For further information, please see:
https://rcgs.org/about/news-releases/the-explorers-club-hosts-the-davos-of-exploration-at-the-royal-canadian-geographical-society-in-ottawa/
About Hubert Sagnières
Hubert Sagnières was the Executive Vice-Chairman of Essilor Luxottica (https://www.essilorluxottica.com/en/), the global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of ophthalmic lenses, frames and sunglasses.
He was born in 1955, spent his childhood in Algeria and completed his studies in France. He is a graduate of the École Centrale de Lille, with a degree in Economic Science and an MBA from INSEAD.
Hubert Sagnières joined Essilor in 1989 as Global Marketing Director. From 1991 to 1996, he was President of Essilor Canada, was appointed President of Essilor Laboratories of America and subsequently designated President of Essilor of America, a position he held until 2005. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Group Executive Director, first for North America and then for Europe. He became Essilor’s Chief Operating Officer and Director and was then was appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2010.
In October 2018 Essilor successfully combined with Luxottica in a $49 billion merger, to create the world leader in eyewear, Essilor Luxottica. Hubert Sagnières serves as Executive Vice Chairman of the firm, which now reflects a stock market capitalization of $150 billion.
For decades, Sagnières’ philanthropic mission has been to help the 2.7 billion people living with uncorrected vision and to eliminate poor vision across the world by 2050, through Essilor Vision Foundation, Vision Impact Institute, Vision for Life, Vision Catalyst Fund, Eye Mitra Program, and Vision Ambassadors. For his efforts in promoting global eye care, he was awarded the Knight (Chevalier) of the Legion of Honor by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic of France in 2012.
Sagnières’ journeys as a global explorer have included twenty polar expeditions in the Canadian Arctic. In recent years, he has explored the most remote islands of the Indonesian archipelago, where he befriended and lived with the Dayak tribes of Borneo and the Mentawai people of Siberut Island.
For further information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Sagnières
About Daring French Expeditions
Hubert Sagnières is the author of Daring French Explorations: Trailblazing Adventures around the World: 1714-1854, published in February 2024. In this work, Sagnières recounts the journeys of sixteen French explorers on their voyages around the world, witnessing their trials and tribulations encountered as they charted new routes to remote territories.
Reader sail to Tahiti with Louis-Antoine de Bougainville or to Antarctica with Jules Dumont d’Urville and learn about Russian domination of Alaska in the eighteenth century, or how the Dutch traded Manhattan to the British for the precious nutmeg plantations on a tiny Indonesian island. Beautifully illustrated with some 300 documents—including previously unpublished or rare texts, unfiltered extracts from travel journals, maps, and illustrations from centuries-old sketchbooks—readers discover these intrepid travelers and their extraordinary scientific, military, or commercial voyages, which have significantly marked the history of world exploration and contributed to our modern understanding of geography, cartography, climate change, and global cultures.
Unfiltered extracts from travel journals, original works by each explorer, and previously unpublished personal correspondence plunge readers into the heart of their adventures. These rare first-person historical accounts provide enlightening insight into their thoughts, concerns, and contemporary attitudes—touching on themes such as colonization, religion, trade, and geopolitics—with relevance that strikes the chords of modern-day issues. These rare first-person accounts provide enlightening insight into historical attitudes on themes such as colonization, religion, trade, and geopolitics—with uncanny relevance to modern-day issues.
For further information, please see:
https://www.amazon.com/Daring-French-Explorations-Trailblazing-Adventures/dp/2080428454
About The Explorers Club
Founded in 1904, The Explorers Club is a prestigious international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. Based at its historic headquarters in New York City, the Club has served as a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide for over a century.
The Club's membership includes many of history's most renowned explorers and scientists, from polar explorers Robert Peary and Roald Amundsen to oceanic pioneers Jacques Cousteau and Robert Ballard, from aviation legends Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart to space pioneers like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell himself. The Club continues to support cutting-edge exploration in every realm—from the deepest ocean trenches to the highest peaks, from archaeological discoveries to space missions.
The Explorers Club is renowned for its rigorous standards of membership, requiring nominees to have made significant contributions to exploration or the sciences that advance our understanding of the world. The Club's Board of Trustees, Legacy Society, and various committees work to preserve the Club's mission while fostering new generations of explorers through grants, expeditions, and educational programs.
The Club's famous annual dinner, featuring exotic cuisine and presentations by leading explorers, has become legendary in New York society. More importantly, The Explorers Club continues to fund and support expeditions that push the boundaries of human knowledge, from climate research in Antarctica to biodiversity studies in remote rainforests to preparations for future Mars missions.
AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie serves as Member of its Board of Trustees and as Poet Laureate and Member of its Legacy Society. As Poet Laureate, Mr. Levie contributes to the Club's cultural mission by capturing the spirit of exploration through verse, honoring both historical achievements and contemporary discoveries that continue to expand the frontiers of human knowledge and experience.
For further information, please see:
About the Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) is a national, non‑profit organization founded in 1929 by a group of 28 eminent Canadians, including ethnographer Marius Barbeau, explorer‑geologist J.B. Joseph Tyrrell and journalist John Wesley Dafoe, with the Governor‑General, the Rt Hon Viscount Willingdon, serving as its patron 1. Its charter was to “make Canada better known to Canadians and to the world,” a mission expressed early on by founder Lawrence J. Burpee and echoed in the Society’s first‑year report as a broad national purpose for geographic education.
From its inaugural meeting in January 1930 the Society launched the Canadian Geographical Journal (later Canadian Geographic), a flagship magazine that combines scientific reporting, environmental stories, and striking photography, reaching more than 3.4 million readers worldwide 3. The publication has been a conduit for visual arts, featuring Group of Seven painter A.Y. Jackson and others, and continues to support geographic literacy through its education arm, Canadian Geographic Education, which serves over 21 000 educators across every province and territory.
RCGS also administers a suite of prestigious awards, including the annually‑presented Massey Medal for outstanding contributions to Canadian geography, the Gold Medal for notable achievements, and the Alex Trebek Medal for geographic literacy. Through its Expeditions Program, research grants, and public talks, the Society funds field research and promotes exploration of Canada’s diverse landscapes.
Supported primarily by membership fees, donations, and corporate partnerships, RCGS relies on volunteers for its Board and program committees, embodying a “popular in character” ethos that makes geographic knowledge accessible to all Canadians.
For further information, please see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Geographical_Society
About American Industrial Acquisition Corporation
American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) is a diversified industrial group with manufacturing and distribution sites in 24 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia-New Zealand. AIAC has acquired and grown non-core subsidiaries and divisions of Boeing, Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Johnson Controls, Merck, Pfizer, Astellas, Visteon, Carlyle, Ahlstrom, Tolko, Groupe Suez, Groupe Rexel, and many other leading multinational corporations.
AIAC companies serve companies and governmental entities worldwide in all major sectors, including aviation, space, defense, automotive, truck, rail, marine, petrochemical, solar, nuclear, food, confectionary, beverage, civil engineering and infrastructure, commercial construction, mining, dredging, disaster relief, education, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, AIAC companies are exclusive, authorized distributors of leading branded industrial and consumer products and serve as critical suppliers for the construction of major airports, schools, hospitals, performing arts and sports centers, offices and hotels throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. AIAC is a leading manufacturer of building, street, and highway signage in Europe, signage and illumination structures in North America, and a distributor of electrical products throughout France.
Of note, AIAC purchased Boeing Canada in 2005 and has produced over 10,000 unique components for every Boeing jet plane ever since, reliably serving Boeing from manufacturing facilities in North America. A leader in ultra-high precision jet engine component manufacturing, AIAC companies produce 2,200 fan blades for each jet engine produced by GE, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and Honeywell.
AIAC companies actively support exploration into outer space, manufacturing critical components for launching and propelling spacecraft and satellites. AIAC customers in this sector include NASA, the European Space Agency, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Boeing. research. AIAC affiliate, Champlain Cable Corporation, supported the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space missions with high performance wire and cable. AIAC companies also lead in the design and manufacture of undersea umbilical cables for worldwide oceanographic research.
AIAC companies produce the critical automotive wire and cable for Tesla, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Fiat, Toyota, and Nissan. In connection with its kraft paper manufacturing interests in Canada and the US, AIAC controls and sustainably manages 22 million acres of Manitoba, Canada forestland, an area equivalent in size to the nation of Hungary.
AIAC affiliate, Metallwarenfabrik Gemmingen GmbH, located in Germany, designs, manufactures and distributes high performance, emergency portable power generators utilized in global conflict zones and during natural disasters.
For further information, please see:
About AIAC Philanthropy
AIAC and the AIAC Foundation support a wide range of nonprofit, nonsectarian, bipartisan organizations which promote international conflict resolution, disaster relief, economic development, environmental sustainability, exploration, and the performing arts.
The exploration-focused nonprofit organizations which they actively support include the Explorers Club, the National Geographic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Space Society, and the United States Space Foundation.
AIAC's other beneficiaries include the Appeal of the Nobel Peace Laureates Foundation Inc., the Asia Society, the Atlantic Council, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - Gates Philanthropy Partners, the Bretton Woods Committee, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Carter Center, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Policy Association, the Institut Française des Relations Internationales, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Crisis Group, the International Rescue Committee, the Japan Society, the JFK School of Government of Harvard University, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Sierra Club, the Trilateral Commission, and the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute.
For further information, please see:
https://www.aiac.com/our-values
Media Contact:
Isabel Carro-Toro, Vice President
American Industrial Acquisition Corporation
+34 689 295 827 (Spain)
+1 787 244 3175 (USA)
icarro-toro@aiac.com
The Explorers Club
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