Michel Khan CIO50 2008

Michel Khan has headed up the IT of this eye-care retailer for the last 12 years. In that time, he has won accolades for the company's supply chain and ecommerce operations. Before joining Specsavers, he was IT director at duty free retailer Allders International.

Global reach has become a focus at his present company, which expanded into Australia, Europe and Hong Kong, reaching the 1,000-store mark over the last year. In February, Specsavers signed a £4.5m deal to outsource its wide area network operations.

With massive growth comes an increased challenge in managing customer relationships and another big project for the company has been allowing call centre staff to update customer data while they were on the phone.