Mary Perkins Biography
Mary Perkins is an English billionaire and the co-founder of the Specsavers retail optometry franchise in the United Kingdom.
How old is Mary Perkins? – Age
She is 78 years old as of 14 February 2022. She was born in 1944 in Bristol, United Kingdom. Her real name is Dame Mary Lesley Perkins.
Mary Perkins Education
She went to Bristol’s Fairfield Grammar School. She then attended Cardiff University to study optometry.
Mary Perkins Husband
She met Doug Perkins, whom she would subsequently marry, at Cardiff. In the 1960s, the pair started their first business in Bristol. This was a Bristol-based chain of optometrists that they sold for £2 million in 1980 and continue to profit from. The couple relocated to Guernsey after the sale, where Mary’s father had retired.
Mary Perkins Specsavers
In 1984, Mary and Doug Perkins founded Specsavers in Guernsey. With approximately 900 locations across the UK and Europe in 2007, it was the world’s largest privately operated opticians. By 2011, the corporation had £1.5 billion in annual sales and employed over 30,000 people across the UK, Europe, and Australasia.
“Founder” is her current title at Specsavers. Dame Mary is a member of the company’s board of directors, oversees corporate development, and is in charge of public relations. She has admitted to dressing up and posed as a customer at Specsavers outlets.
Mary Perkins Career
In 2005, Perkins was named an honorary fellow at Cardiff University. She earned the Rotary International Community and Vocational Service Award for her charitable work in the same year, and the first Spirit of Everywoman Award in 2006. In 2007, Perkins became the first female ophthalmologist in the United Kingdom to be named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).
Her other humanitarian initiatives, notably the Guernsey yearly “Specsavers Liberation Tea Dance for pensioners” and her chairmanship of Women’s Refuge and Age Concern, was also recognized. She is also a supporter of Kidscape, a major children’s organization. In 2012, Plymouth University bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Business on Dame Mary Perkins. Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 named her one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom in February 2013. She was made an Officer Sister of the Most Venerable Order of Saint John of Jerusalem’s Hospital in July 2015.
Dame Mary received an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year UK Lifetime Achievement Award in October 2017 for her ongoing contributions to entrepreneurship and the economy. Perkins is a founding sponsor of Modern Muse, a non-profit social company.
How much is Mary Perkins Net Worth?
She has an estimated net worth of £1.45 billion.
