Scotland Podcast Studio's
Creator of Podcasts for King Street Studios, Johnston Media Podcasts,
Scotland Podcast Studio's
How A Corporate Manager Became A Multi‑Company Owner And Mentor
We chart Steve Cornwallis’s path from quarry worker to multi‑company owner, exploring how values, networking and disciplined bets built a renewables‑led portfolio and a new Green Skills Training Academy. Along the way we unpack painful lessons, practical wins and simple rules that compound.
• early drive shaped by family change and urgency to work
• 27 years of corporate growth and people leadership
• first taste of ownership through property investment
• building and later buying Limpet Technology
• entering renewables and selling to global clients
• failed rigging venture and three rules for future deals
• recruitment business model and fast profitability
• networking as a system grounded in values
• 12‑company portfolio with wind and heat renewables
• sector outlook and jobs growth in Scotland
• mentoring founders and balanced paid vs pro bono advising
• Green Skills Training Academy: wind, heat, construction streams
• training-to-employment pipeline for Forth Valley
Find Steve on LinkedIn: Stephen Cornwallis
Tick, kick, tick.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome back to Studio King Street in the heart of Sterling. And I'm absolutely delighted today that I've got um a friend of uh friend of the building, Mr. Stephen Cornwallis, uh from Cornwallis Business Services. Uh Steve is a business owner, uh investor, and advisor uh based in here in Sterling, has been for many, many years. And um I'd like to uh say welcome. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you very much, and Neil, it's delightful to be here and thank you for that wonderful introduction. I hope I can um stand up to what we're going to talk through. But yeah, thank you. It's delightful to be here and uh I love this place and you know I love you guys. So yeah, it's been really nice to get to know you guys over the last couple of years.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's that's that's great, Steve. So the the reason why we brought Steve along today, um, as we've mentioned uh with regards to the content of this uh business podcast, we're looking for diversity, we're looking for um business owners, we're looking for uh business leaders and business institutions that are helping businesses in the local area in Stirling and the Fourth Valley. You've got a really unique story, I think, Steve, in that um you started out in corporate, like a lot of us, um good uh successful corporate career, decided one day to become a business owner, um, but you've diversified into many sectors and many industries, and I'll let you uh explain to the audience in terms of what you've done there. Um but what I really like about your story is kind of in the in the latter years you've kind of pivoted to um taking more of an advisory role um with uh young entrepreneurs and experienced entrepreneurs, um, whether that be on a consultative basis, advisory, mentoring, coaching. And I really like that about what you've what you've done in terms of how you've evolved your brand and and um what you now stand for. So why don't we start um by just kicking off and tell us a little bit about uh your background and where you've come from?
SPEAKER_02:So wow, wow, wow, wow. Uh I know we've only got a limited amount of time. So um I guess I left school at 70 and went straight into the workplace. So back in 1981, in those days, um, when you were applying for jobs, you sent letters. Uh actual letters. So you wrote letters, you sent letters, and you made phone calls. Um I was very driven by the time I left high school due to some personal stuff that was going on with my family at the time. Parents had split up and all that kind of stuff. Um so I I was a very driven young chap and I got very kind of motivated at the age of 17, just approaching my kind of 18th birthday, to find a job, get a job, make money, get a driving licence, get a car, all that kind of stuff, all that kind of early focused stuff. So that's exactly what I did. So um in kind of anticipation of this conversation today, I was I was trying to remember how many letters I wrote back in 1981, and it was around about 40. Um, so I applied for about 40 jobs. Um I remember, but I don't know why, but I applied for a job at Burton's biscuits. I can't even remember what it was. I came out of school with a few old levels, a few hires. I was Mr. Average at high school. I was always pretty good at English. I think that probably came from my mum, um, who was an English teacher. Um, but the rest of it, I was a middle of the road kind of guy, and I just wanted a job. So um I applied for lots of jobs and I got a job with a company called Tilcoin, a construction company, which later became Tarmac and Anglo-American, etc. etc. So I started working in a quarry two weeks before my teenth birthday.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Okay. So um this is the first time that you've done a podcast, but you're not the it's not the first time on camera, right? Um what what uh made you not choose a film career after you would have to background in in film?
SPEAKER_02:My goodness. Um that's a great question. So um just so that folk know, I think Neil was alluding to the fact that I was in Gregory's girl because I grew up in Cumbernaulds uh as an ex, where we just spent a bit of time talking about that. Uh no, I just wanted a job, any job. Um as I say, I was very driven. Um I think I'm still as driven today as I was then, actually. Um by a slightly older, perhaps slightly slower uh version of myself than I was then. But yeah, so I got a I got a job working in a quarry two weeks before my 18th birthday, as I say, and I stayed in that company for 27 years. So I literally I um I remember the very first day I went into the quarry, it was a massive mining operation in central Scotland. Um I lived um about 13 miles away. Um I could I I had no driving licence at the time, um, I literally started on the bottom rung, and I just worked my backside off to um develop my career within the business. Um 27 years with that business, um I could spend a lot of time going on about that, but clearly that's not going to be very beneficial. The main thing about that journey was it was an extraordinary personal development journey for me. Um I was in there as a worky, and several years later I became the quarry manager on that site. So I was then managing people who um I had worked alongside for many, uh, many, many years. Um I think the other thing it was a bit of a baptism of fire. Young lad, 17, uh, didn't smoke, didn't gamble. I'd like to say didn't drink, but that wouldn't be quite telling the truth. Within four weeks, I was doing everything that all the other guys were doing. It was just, you know, this kind of but that was an amazing experience in terms of um it's a bit like um I talk about this, you know, it's a bit like when you're in primary seven and then you go into high school for the first time, and now rather than being the big guy or the wee guy again, yeah. Imagine a 17-year-old kid going into a big quarry operation, dump trucks, loading shovels, big hairy blokes um at all sorts of ages. Um, and the experience I had there was absolutely fantastic.
SPEAKER_03:So wow, okay. So 27 years with Tom Ack, yeah, and you decided to go out on your own. So what was the catalyst for that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it didn't quite happen like that. It it happened on a more natural basis than that. Um I've kind of come into um business ownershipy stuff very late on in my career. Um, the very first thing I did um on my own, so to speak, was in 2003. Um my dad um owned some properties um in Cumbernauld, and he was encouraging me to buy one. And I bought a flat, I had a bit of cash, um, and I bought a flat, did it up, and that was my first kind of experience of doing my own thing. And I think I really got a spark at that point in time. Whilst I was still working for, I hope none of the bosses are listening to this, I'm sure they wouldn't mind anyway, but uh, whilst I was still working for Tarmac, um, I bought a flat and I was actually renovating it myself. Um, you know, you have to do what you have to do in those days. Um, and I then started generating a rental income from that, and I thought, hmm, okay. And that was probably the trigger. Uh, we now own 10 properties, so that that was the starting point. And from 2003, we've kind of built that that up. But the trigger for um getting into the small business environment and doing my own thing, so to speak, was more about when I moved on from corporate um and moved into the small business world as an employee. So I moved from tarmac or Anglo-American as it was then. Uh I think that would have been the back end of 2008, something like that. Um, and I worked for a company based in Edinburgh called Limpet Technology, uh, which hadn't sold a thing. It had developed this piece of equipment called the Limpet system, um, a kind of a hoist with a brain, an intelligent hoist system, and I was absolutely blown away with how smart it was. And I was also absolutely blown away by the applications that I could see it being used on within the mining industry and all sorts of other things. Um, by the time I'd moved on from Anglo, I was kind of reporting into the board of the company. I was in a very senior position, I think I'd been promoted something like 10 times over the 27 years. So I had really kind of um, you know, um, yeah. Um so I was in a pretty senior kind of um thing, but in the corporate environment, this was my first venture into the small business world, and I really cut my teeth in that role. So I moved into that business as COO. They were looking for someone to come in and help them um build a machine that could be sold in the marketplace. I'd become a bit of a known as a bit of a supply chain procurement-y kind of guy by that time. I had a I think I had a bit of a reputation for being pretty good at that stuff, um, and that's how I was recruited into that role. And then a year later I became the CEO and I ran the business for many years after that. And as I'm sure you'll probably know, we now own the company. So the the the the previous owners of the business um pivoted into kind of offshore wind, which created an opportunity for um me to buy the business from which they very kindly agreed to sell to me. It's now based even Sterling.
SPEAKER_03:So that was the start. So obviously addressing the renewable sector with some of the applications of the technology that Limpet had, that it was that was the reason or the catalyst to get of getting you into renewables?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. That's 2011. So a relatively early entrant personally into that industry in the UK.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Um the the industry's still relatively young, but it was really quite young then. We're only talking 14 years ago, something like that. Um so yeah, so um being in that role with a small company, a small independent company based in Air and trying to sell to the big guys, because that's what we were doing. We were our targets were organizations like Siemens, Alliance, um, EDF, the big multinational corporations. Um, so a bit of a David and a Goliath scenario. But whilst I was in that uh role for many years, I met other small business owners and people who had started their own businesses and had not really been exposed to people like that previously. Um, bear in mind this is only 15 years ago, something like that, and I was fascinated by these individuals and what they had done. Um and to cut a very long story short, I decided to give it a go. So in 2015, one of the chaps that I'm actually thinking about, who was a client of ours um of Limpa, and he and I set up a rigging company down in the Midlands um in 2015. Um and the business started really well. That was our first kind of main operational business, but we had some challenges with it, and the whole thing kind of broke down a couple of years later. I learned so much through that two-year period. Um I could write a book just on that alone. Um, and it was really from that without even realizing it, that I uh, you know, I kind of ended up with these three rules in terms of any um future setting up or investment in business that I did, three things would have to happen for me to be able to commit to it. Um great learning experience. And kind of from there, 2015, I then set up a business in 2016, a recruitment company which has been very successful, still running, based here in Stillingshire, company called Bespoke Resourcing Solutions. Um, the guy that I own that with, 5050, guy called Darren Perry. Um, we met as um dads on the side of the rugby pitch at Stilling County. His son and my son went to school together at Stilling High. Um, and to cut a long story short, we're into business together and it was an absolute success, a financial success. Um the business um broke even in the first year, and in year two and three had fantastic financial results with four people and that really gave me the confidence now. So I've now got kind of experience and now I've got confidence of success um by kind of I don't know, maybe 2018, something like that.
SPEAKER_03:Um so why um why diversify even further beyond that? Because you it looked like you had some success in renewables, you had success in recruitment, and then you started to branch out into other business areas and send it doubling down on what you were focused on.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, you have to get that back to the book. Yeah, great question. The answer to that question is I didn't really plan or set out to diversify per se. It has all happened naturally. By chance. It really has all hap by chance, maybe by chance, um it's been bumping into people having conversations. I am a big fan, believer, call it what you will, of networking. Um and um I it became quite clear to me, I think, from quite an early age, probably in my kind of mid to late twenties, that talking to folk and listening to folk was a good thing to do. Um and I've continued to behave like that my whole life. Um I was brought up in a fairly kind of um strict family environment, um, but it was a a good, strict family environment where you always said please and thank you, good manners, all that kind of stuff. And I've carried that forward through my career. Um I don't take anyone or anything um for granted ever. It's something I talk about to people all the time, even people that I've known my whole life. Um and I have um kind of set values for myself that I stick to uh quite rigidly. Um so I conduct myself in a manner that I deem to be the way I think I should be conducting myself, and I would wish others to be conducting themselves. Um and I kind of hang around folk who are like that, and I kind of bump into folk who are like that, and those who um you know are kind of different to that or whatever, um, you know, they they go and play in other places and I play over here. So the the we have you're quite right, we now have as we sit here in 2025, we have a very diverse portfolio of companies, um and they have all happened slightly differently, but they've all happened due to the fact that I am a serial networker. I I I connect with people during the day, I connect with people in the evenings, um, as you know, spend a lot of time in the evenings out with folk and kind of doing a lot of business-y type stuff there.
SPEAKER_03:So, how many companies within the within the clo conglomerate now?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's quite incredible. When I think about it, um, when somebody asks this, we now have 12 companies um in the business um in the portfolio. I'm starting to call it a portfolio now. So there's 12 companies in the portfolio. Um half of those work in the renewables industry. Um so that they are predominantly kind of operational nuts and bolts type businesses. Um so a couple of recruitment companies and those recruitment companies recruit into operational sectors, you know, logistics, construction, renewables, etc. etc. It's very much my kind of background. Um we have a wind turbine servicing company, um, which we set up in 2018, a very successful but small wind turbine servicing company. So we have guys out in the field. Is that an extension to Limpet or is there something that don't? No, um it it it came about as a result of Limput because I were I was bumping into people who were running independent service providers like KRS, and that was how um I became aware of the market and the opportunity. Um the business is yeah, 2018, so it's pretty established now. Um so yeah, wind turbine servicing business. Um more recently, over the last kind of three, four years, I've been getting a lot more into kind of heat renewables. What do I mean by that? Excuse me. Um air source heat pumps, solar panels, battery storage, um, property um energy efficiency stuff, um both on a domestic and an industrial scale. Um and as you're probably aware, we've just recently taken a stake in that um uh an emerging solar, industrial solar um installer based down in Cambridgeshire, which we're very excited about. Um business um is absolutely flying. Um and um yeah, one of my one of the businesses that we have here in Scotland is now invested in that business down south and taking a pretty reasonable equity stake in that business and it's uh really thriving. Um so yes, um, and in terms of you know 12 businesses, yeah, that's that's that's a lot of businesses. People ask me a very obvious question, how do you run those? I don't uh I don't I run a couple of them directly, including my own consultancy business, which is essentially just me. Um and I run Olympic Technology, which in many ways is a bit of a a baby thing for me. Um but all the other businesses are run by my business partners. Um we employ um even Scotland somewhere between 45 and 50 full-time staff in what I would call proper career prospect jobs. The the real jobs, the jobs worth across all the businesses. Um the the the businesses um are all they're all different, um uh they're all financially strong and they all operate in markets which are growing rapidly. Um to give you an example, um I think the last kind of public survey that was done on the in the renewable sector um in Scotland was in 2022, um, and I think it was identified then that there were around about 47,000 people working or whose salaries were dependent on the renewable sector in Scotland, something like that. Um the projection for 2030 is that that could be anywhere between kind of 75 and 90, something like that. So it's almost kind of double. Whether it'll reach that number or not isn't really that important to me. What's important is that that's the direction of travel that the industry is going in. And I think something like 75% of those jobs are um in the wind energy sector, onshore and offshore. There is a massive investment going on around the coast of Scotland on new offshore wind assets. Um so um we are heavily focused on that sector going forward.
SPEAKER_03:So if we turn the attention a little bit to um the giving back um element of what you do, Steve, I'm I'm not talking about third sector charity, I'm talking more specifically about you know impartialing your imparting your knowledge, uh helping entrepreneurs, helping business owners from a mentor and coaching perspective. What got you into doing that and and and and how important is it to the core values of what you now represent?
SPEAKER_02:The second one is probably the easiest one to answer. It's absolutely I know you know the answer to that question. It's absolutely fundamental to me who I am and what I do and how I function, you know stuff I care about. So yeah I I I love doing that is probably the first thing to say or I love being recognised as someone who can be helpful in that regard. In terms of the answer to the first part of the question in terms of you know how I have kind of got into that again it has happened in a very natural manner. I'm an old guy now I'm 62 in November I've been around industry a very long time now being might have started when I was 17 so it's 40 odd years whatever it is. I don't know a lot of people and a lot of people know me. Yeah um and so I've kind of found myself perhaps over the last two or three years both in terms of supporting my own you know business partners co-directors owners and stuff like that and because that's the role that I play as well as providing funding because I'm also I can invest an investor. But that kind of happens quite naturally. But what I have discovered over the last couple of years is I'm now finding people from outside our organisations who perhaps have come across me or have come across one of my colleagues coming to say look you know can can we have a chat about something sometimes I'll do that on a commercial basis and charge for it and sometimes I'll do it you know kind of free gratis it really depends on the the circumstances. So I have my own Cornwall's business services you know is a kind of coaching mentoring business thing and in many ways um if you look at my profile in LinkedIn you'll see Cornwall's Business Services you know kind of investor advisor and owner guy and that very much is a kind of front end of of who I am what I do and all the other stuff that goes on in the background so it's a kind of conduit or a feeder into our organisations um so yes I I love what I do I I can't tell you how much I love what I do I also love um how much of my day I get to spend around amazing people amazing people we I I mentioned we have between 45 and 50 full-time staff we probably have another between 10 and 20 associates contractors who are regular participants in our business agendas um and um yeah it's yeah the the calibre the calibre of the people that I'm surrounded by is just mind blowing um present company not excluded I I I love to to spend time with um people like yourself um talking about the things that we do and doing the things that we do um it's a fantastic way to get to spend time so what next so I've heard of something called the Green Skills Trading Academy training academy sorry um what impact do you think that's gonna have and what is it and what what what impact do you think it's gonna have on the uh the local community and the Fourth Valley in general um massive impact massive impact and I wish we had a we were able to have a session just on the Green Skills Training Academy this is the newest addition to the company portfolio so it's a company called Green Skills Training Limited and we set up about a year ago something like that and myself and one of my other business partners Emily called Tina Coviello and she and I own another training organisation called Progressive Pathways together it is as the name may suggest um completely focused on the renewables industry and it is a brand new training centre so it's a physical location it's actually um just over the line in Clackman share but it's part of Forth Valley the My Industrial Estate and we have a 5,000 square foot unit there and it is going to be a dedicated training centre for renewables skills and predominantly forgive the American phrase it's blue collar so hands on ropes so there are three things we're going to do there I say we're going to do there we've already started but there are three things that the three services that we're going to provide from that facility one is we're going to have a GWO training facility element to it and that's GWO it's the global wind organization. So the it's the kind of organisation that oversees um all the kind of accreditation training etc in the wind industry so it's very kind of wind specific so it's working at height manual handling first aid fire safety all that kind of stuff all the kind of stuff that people who want to work in the wind sector have to be able to have and do to be able to go into a wind farm and so that's a very kind of specific thing and some of the training that takes place in there is not specific to wind working at height is not something that only happens in the wind sector it happens in the construction sector so it'll be generic from that point of view but very very focused on renewables and the wind sector the second bit I'm going to call um renewable heat and that is the stuff that I think we talked a wee bit about earlier on so that's um solar battery air source heat pumps um CHP gas um kind of energy efficient pumps um boilers um EV charging and what we're going to do there is we're going to train people on how to do that stuff how to install all of that stuff and how to service all of that stuff so very hands-on and then the third element is construction so we'll be doing trades training there we'd be doing the CSCS card a lot of the kind of well established kind of basic construction training um things that people need to be able to get into the construction sector we actually trialed this um we have another facility here in Stirling about 6,000 square feet at Sprinkhouse International Estate and we actually played around with this idea a few years ago we actually built a room inside the um the industrial unit the size of a bedroom and um we at that time had people out doing plastering and rather than allow them to go into somebody's house and try it out for this the first time under supervision of course we actually brought them into the industrial unit and they could just plaster till their hearts were content until they had it right then we let them into the field and I think that that's something that that that that that kind of idea has now evolved into let's just have some rooms and we can put windows in we can put skirton in we can paint them we can plaster them we can put electrics in so if you imagine all the trades joinery electricians all that kind of stuff um so I think we're gonna have something there that's very unique in terms of that training centre and certainly unique I believe in terms of Fourth Valley on the building and construction side are you going to try and lean that more towards kind of sustainability and green and recycled product and we'll do both we'll do both but there is there there's a kind of natural connection between the two as you might imagine. Yeah but we'll certainly do both so those are the three things that we know absolutely we're going to be doing and like all things in life people will come along and say what about this and what about that and you know we'll kind of evolve the idea from there. So very very excited about that prospect. In talking to um you know people in the network around you know local authorities other business folks and um Sterling plaques and um Vogert there's a huge appetite not only for it but to get involved in supporting it. So yes I couldn't be more excited about that. Probably also just worth adding that it is very much the final piece in the jigsaw in terms of the renewables jigsaw for us. We have the limpet hoisty stuff we have the insulation business the solar business all that kind of stuff being able to have a training organisation which not can only which not only can supply competent workers into our organisations but also into external organisations is very much the final piece in the jigsaw and I just couldn't be more excited. That would be fantastic. Fantastic okay so we're coming to the end of um our discussion Steve I really appreciate everything that you've uh shared and I'm sure the audience will uh will will think the same so now older wiser and very experienced and in the world of business um and very strong focus in in renewables as we discussed what would you say to your younger self if you are starting out again um golly golly golly golly golly golly golly um what would I say to my younger self I was standing again I can't believe because I've been asked this question several times before I probably answered it differently every time sitting here right now um probably probably not that much um and what I mean by that is um if I was advising someone relatively young I don't know someone in their twenties or someone coming to the workplace which you know happens on obvious I've got two sons one at one at twenty and one just about turning 18 tomorrow actually and my oldest son works in our one of our businesses um I would say two things one step forward and two do something meaningful with your time okay fantastic I would wish to elaborate on that just a little bit um everyone wants their kids to be happy um and everyone everyone wants everyone else to be happy or mostly we do um but you know yeah that's not enough for me um I think that um for me if if you want to make the best of your life and have the maximum positive impacts that you can step forward do something no matter how small do something say something and if you can't think of something to say just say something kind make a positive move and the second thing is do something meaningful with your time I didn't just make that up in the minute that is a phrase that I've been using with my kids boys young men now since they were very small children do something meaningful with your time and I believe that the most precious thing that we have we all obviously love our families and our loved ones but on an individual basis I think the most precious thing that anyone has is time and I was fortunate to realise that in myself in my twenties and because of that I've lived my life not wishing to waste not an hour or a day a second and I don't I'm not talking about being reckless I'm talking about making sure you make every second count because you don't know how long you've got I'm sorry if that sounds very morbid.
SPEAKER_03:No it's it's great advice to those young kind of burning entrepreneurs out there right it's a it's a good mantra to have yeah fantastic so where can people um see more about what you do your businesses is there a uh socials channel that you typically go down on LinkedIn LinkedIn would be the best place to find me um just um yeah Stephen Cornwallis is the best place to find me um most if not all of our businesses have websites so yeah you know if you're looking for any of the specific businesses but if you were to reach out to myself on LinkedIn um I don't know whether we can publish some information afterwards yeah we'll put that we'll put a link in the show notes absolutely happy to help any way that I can that's great well thank you Steve it's been fantastic um and really appreciate you coming on to the Sterling Business podcast and uh sharing what you know what what what you've done with your life and it's it's just fantastic very inspirational and very inspired and I'm sure the listeners out there will be uh in exactly the same way. So thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you very much indeed