Meet the Contributors

The eye care professionals, practice owners, clinicians and various industry voices who make The Optical Independent what it is by sharing content, tips and ideas.

This is not a closed editorial team. If you have something useful to say to independent optical professionals — a clinical insight, a business lesson, a practice story, an industry perspective — there is a place for it here. Get in touch.

The founding contributors

Kevin Maldron
Freelance Writer and Digital Nomad

Sarah James
Freelance Writer

Patrick Devlin 
Content Curator — Optometrist and retired practice owner

Prakash Rughani 
Optometrist | Visioncare Medical Eye Centre

Hamed Parvez 
Optometrist

Agata KowslaskaFBDO
Owner, GOT Frames | Dún Laoghaire, Dublin

Richard Smith
Owner Eyemasters East Sussex

Little Spectacle Shop
Independent Dispensing Practice, Hexham

Greys Opticians
Independent Optometrists South Warwickshire and the Cotswolds

Vik Mahli
Boutique Optometrists Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield

Rifkin and Brophy
Edinburgh Optometrists

Richard Petrie Optometrists
Private Independent Optical Practice in Derby

Rita Paul
A Fine Spectacle

British Muslim Association of Optometrists (BMAO)
Connecting Muslim optometrists across the UK

IC Books Ltd
Accountants specialising in optical practices

Two Guys Optical
Marketing services for independent opticians

Carol
Office and Operations

Henry
Design, website, and self-appointed head of coffee

Want to contribute?

The Optical Independent is an open community. You do not need a publishing credit or a job title to contribute. You need something useful to say to independent optical professionals.

A clinical tip that changed how you practice. A business lesson you learned the hard way. A supplier worth knowing about. A practice story that others should hear. If it serves the independent optical professional, it belongs here.

Submit your contribution or get in touch here.

Our founding sponsors

The Optical Independent launched with the backing of two businesses that understood what we were building before the first article was published. Kirk & Kirk — whose family have been driving independent optics since 1919 — and TEEA Eyewear Group — founded by Sarah Layte to connect carefully curated independent eyewear brands with the practices that deserve to stock them. Both are independently minded businesses that believe in independent optometry. We are grateful to them.

We have since welcomed Bird Eyewear — the UK's highest-scoring B Corp in eyewear and a brand built entirely around independent practice — as a sponsor of The Optical Independent.

And for consistently inspirational entrepreneurial thinking, our thanks to Simon Woodroffe, founder of Yo! Sushi and YOTEL. Simon's advice to independent optical professionals — be outrageously good, convert customers one person at a time, keep going — runs through everything this publication stands for. His parting thought on reading our piece says it better than we could: independent optometry is not just a health service. It is an experience. Supermarkets worked that out long ago. If clients enjoy it, they come back—the independents who understand that are the ones who win.