Born 7th November 1965 in Manchester, Stephen has nearly always found himself involved with numbers, so it’s only fitting that he now heads up PayPartners. Funnily enough, he even vividly remembers being involved with numbers and counting from an early age; counting penny sweets and chews into small bags or weighing out loose sherbet whilst employed as a 13 year-old part-time sales assistant at the local newsagent and then shrewdly counting his 50p per hour wages! Stephen’s aptitude for numbers has, to date, taken him on a varied career, which has included calculating complex betting wagers and salaries for a wide variety of clients. However, Stephen’s future wasn’t always destined to tread down the number avenue.

Upon leaving school, Stephen had absolutely no idea of what he wanted to do. He completed both O and A levels, and found himself at catering college trying for a City & Guilds certificate. Having passed the first year, and continuing into the second, he took a placement at a local bakery. Rising at 4:30 in the morning to start a 5:30 shift of baking bread, buns and cakes wasn’t something he imagined the glamour of catering to entail. This abrupt awakening and the realisation of a future of early mornings, late nights, split shifts, hot kitchens, fierce competition and sharp-edge customer satisfaction, were things he was far too young to become engrossed in and would only spoil his much enjoyed social life! With this in mind, Stephen stayed for the exam and then quickly exited the world of catering.

His saving grace came along in the form of a 9 to 5 ‘ish’ position at Ladbrokes credit betting offices in Manchester. Knowing nothing about horse racing or betting, except for asking his Grandad what ‘backing a horse each way’ meant (that was his interview research), he was sure that if he could ‘manage to work out a few numbers’ then he’d be fine. Assuring his interviewer that he was a brilliant mathematician, Stephen was offered the job before he left the building!

The first three weeks at Ladbrokes involved Stephen following a ‘teach myself wager settling’ course. Once mastered, he was awarded a ‘Sporting Life Super Settler’ machine and launched into the world of bookmaking. He soon became an accomplished wager settler and after a year or so was asked to go to local race meetings to work with the on-course Ladbrokes reps. Stephen remembers this being so different to being in the office; bigger wagers, faster paced and customer facing are the things he really enjoyed. His competence allowed him to get the job done efficiently and accurately. Looking back on his Ladbrokes days, Stephen recalls that the only problem with the job was that he had absolutely no interest in horse racing and studying form; knowledge of which was considered fairly crucial to progress at that time. Unable to become serious about horses, he decided to re-think his career path and parted company with Ladbrokes after 4 years.

And so from one pool of number crunching to another, namely payroll; like most payroll people, Stephen’s start in payroll came purely by accident. Finding himself in need of work quite rapidly, he applied for an admin roll within the General Electric Company. The money wasn’t brilliant, but the idea was to use this role as a stepping stone to something better – following the old adage ‘it’s easier to find work when you’re in work’. Whilst working for G.E, Stephen was spotted by the Payroll Manager, who quickly realised that he was capable of much more than bog standard admin, and when a vacancy came up in the payroll department, he was asked to apply.

Thrown into a world of clock cards and job tickets, Stephen quickly learned how to balance time and produce wage packets; hundreds of wage packets which all had to be paid out in cash to workers on the shop floor. For a short while he was back to the early morning rise as the night shift workers needed their wages on Friday mornings. Cash wages are virtually unheard of now for large workforces; something which makes Stephen’s payroll work much easier nowadays. The merger of GEC with the French power giant Alsthom brought about fears of redundancy and before being made redundant he moved on.

With Stephen’s new found skill, he soon sourced work as a payroll clerk for a rapidly expanding employment agency. Learning every trick in the book (and hearing every excuse in the book as to why timesheets were late!), he gained a good solid grounding and great payroll knowledge. Without a doubt, this aided him to get where he is today. However, after 8½ years of the same old routine, he required a new challenge. Ironically, determined never to work for another employment business again, Stephen moved on and joined Kinetic in 1998.

This move turned out to be a good decision as he arrived at a time when Kinetic were in the final stages of a project that had seen a major investment into their back office systems. He was the Payroll Manager that ‘hit’ the first live run BACS button! This investment not only put Kinetic ahead in terms of great back office support but it also laid the foundations for a future outsourced payroll service. After an initial bedding in period, plenty of control procedures implemented and some further adjustment to the software and systems, Stephen and the Directors were ready to move on with the payroll bureau idea.

At interview, Kinetic had agreed to sponsor Stephen to study for the Diploma in Payroll Management; something he had been keen to do for a while. This gave him the confidence to run a Payroll Bureau and add credibility to the new business. Stephen enjoyed having a blank canvass to work with in his new role and he truly shaped the way forward for the department. Amongst other challenges, Stephen worked towards the company achieving BACS approved status, which they gained in 2002.

Kinetic’s own staff payroll had been outsourced to KPMG, and so it was the first test case payroll. Stephen brought it all back in-house and successfully processed the payroll without hitch. Shortly thereafter, two new subsidiary Kinetic companies were set up and again he set up the payrolls and processed them without hitch. Finally, in October 2002 Kinetic Payroll Service (KPS) was launched.

This new business unit very quickly found its first client (who is still a client!). Under Stephen’s direction the payroll department has seen steady and strong growth since. Both Stephen and Kinetic have certainly learned a great deal about the payroll outsourcing business; one early lesson being that other employment agencies were not keen to talk to Kinetic about their own payroll outsourcing. However, not to be beaten, a strategic re-branding decision was made, whereby the name was changed to PayPartners in 2003 and the company registered as a Limited company in its own right.

Amongst a wealth of successes, a memorable breakthrough that stands out for Stephen was winning a contract from Trafford Council in 2004. This was to provide payroll services to people that live within the community who buy in their own care. Because of PayPartners’ great service and attention to detail, they became a talked about name amongst direct payment departments, and now have the service contract for 3 other local councils. More recently, PayPartners have launched their new managed account service and are seeing a great uptake rate. It’s certainly been an interesting journey so far for Stephen with PayPartners, and a great business now exists to go forward with into the future.

Away from managing PayPartners and giving his focus to ensuring that people from all walks of life are paid accurately and on time, Stephen has a varied social life. He is an avid DIY'er, a keen traveller and plays the piano. Last but not at all least; he is also renowned for being a socialite.