Steve Leverton formed Cornmill Associates in 2007. He specialises in business finance and works with clients of all sizes, ranging from sole-traders and start-up’s to large corporates.
Operating successfully in any sector, Steve has long-standing clients in the retail, leisure and entertainment, Higher Education, manufacturing and property markets.
After a ‘character forming’ background working in a family haulage business that had problems with its bank, Steve himself went into banking with the ambition of becoming a banker that could properly support SME’s. Having achieved that aim (gaining national recognition as a bank manager to SME’s) he went beyond, working in Head Office roles to champion and improve what NatWest did for SME’s across the UK. This included working with outside entrepreneur programmes and external experts to lift the capability of front-line bankers to deal with SME’s and introducing to NatWest new approaches to appraising the performance and potential of businesses. The RBS take-over led to the abrupt cancellation of most of this work and after a further period of ‘managing bank managers’ and working at Regional Board level, Steve left banking in 2007 to enable him to concentrate on this type of work and become a successful business owner himself
Working at Executive levels, Steve has built a reputation for trust and integrity, expertise on how banks and bankers operate, experience of working with SME’s in all areas of finance and, above all, consistency and reliability. Once engaged you can rely upon his support and determination to solve problems, with a strong empathy towards what clients need.
Steve also works as part of the team at Stirling Partners Finance , a Mayfair based, FCA regulated, commercial finance brokerage. This gives the capability to also raise funding and investment for SME’s, property developers and investors.
A keenness to ‘give back’ sees Steve involved in supporting young entrepreneurs in several programmes, including mentoring at the highly regarded ‘New Entrepreneurs Foundation’ and ‘Centre for Entrepreneurs’ and the entrepreneur hub of a London University. He is also a Mentor on the ‘Help to Grow’ Programme. He has previously acted as Trustee and Vice-Chair for a Regional Community Foundation and currently volunteers for a local Environment and Conservation trust.
