At Leicester Optical I manage all aspects of the business from strategy, sales, marketing, purchasing, product sourcing, all commercial aspects and also technical support for customers and staff.The group role includes developing products, services and strategy for the group labs

I started my career by completing a 5 year apprenticeship at Batemans Laboratories, Passing my SMC (tech) exams in the process. Over the next 3 years I worked as in practice technician in several new practices in and around London. This in when I also started to get involved in the dispensing and I ended up as practice manager and head technician in the very large Hammersmith practice. Then I moved to Leicester to take up the opportunity to be joint franchisee, dispensing director and technician at Specsavers. After 18 months I sold my shares and took a position as technician doing all the work for a independent group of 5 practices. I also dispensed in the practice on Saturdays. In 1992 two opticians I knew opened practices in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire and these became Leicester Optical's first 2 accounts. Our reputation for quality, service and value saw us grow from 2 accounts one man outfit to well over 100 accounts and 20+ staff