Interview: Ryan Leighton, CEO Leightons Opticians and Hearing Care

‘If I can look back on my tenure as CEO at Leightons and see that we created the best-in-market optical and audiology business on the high street I will be very happy,’ Ryan Leighton says.

The group has been built on a foundation of several ambitious generations of eye care professionals. Ryan Leighton’s grandfather, a dispensing optician, opened the first practice in Southampton, 1928.

By the mid-1930s the group had expanded into Hampshire, Surrey, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and the Isle of Wight. During the second world war the wives of conscripted managers took over the vacated roles in the group.

Leighton is keen to discuss the future of eye care in the south of England, a region highlighted in the most recently published Prospect Health survey as one of the UK’s regions experiencing a drought of optical professionals. He details his project to fine-tune the family brand with the addition of hearing care. Through partnerships and mergers Leightons will be adding to its 34 practices over the coming years.