Mary Perkins Mary Perkins Dame Mary Lesley Perkins, (born 14 February 1944) is co-founder of Specsavers, the British retail opticians chain. Together with her husband, co-founder and chairman Doug Perkins, Dame Mary has three children, all of whom work for Specsavers, and are eventually expected to take over the privately owned company. She attended Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol. She then went to Cardiff University to train as an optometrist. At Cardiff, she met Doug Perkins, whom she would later marry. The couple established their first business in Bristol in the 1960s. This was a chain of opticians around Bristol, which they
Lesley Cowley most influential people in the UK. Cowley is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Institute of Credit Management, the British Computer Society and the Royal Society of Arts. Cowley was born and raised in Bristol and left school at 17, initially working in sales and credit management. Lesley Cowley Lesley Ruth Cowley OBE is a British businesswoman, chairwoman and non-executive director. She is best known as the former CEO of .uk domain name registry Nominet UK, and is the current chair of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and Companies House, and Non-Executive Director of telecoms operator aql.