About Let’s Do Business Finance

Sean is our Managing Director, and has been working in finance for over 30 years. After a successful 17-year career with NatWest Bank which saw him rise the ranks from cashier to commercial and corporate relationship banking, he took a change of direction in 2001 to do something more local and personally rewarding by joining the then Ten Sixty Enterprise Agency.

Founding Let’s Do Business Finance as part of Let’s Do Business Group in 2003, he believed there should be another alternative to mainstream lenders for businesses, and that this would help to grow local economies and make a positive impact. Let’s Do Business Finance was born, and many of those same core beliefs we still hold today!

A regular at Brighton and Hove Albion who he has followed since a young boy, Sean loves to be outdoors, travel and spend time with his family, including his beloved dogs Murphy and Arlo. So, plenty of long walks, gardening, fair weather cycling (these days!) and generally keeping himself fit and active.

Before joining Let’s Do Business in 2004, Mike had been working for HSBS for 21 years, in both branch and commercial banking. Working his way up to Head of Lending, Mike now focuses on our Start Up Loans offering to help the team in any way he can – working with them to get a positive result for our clients!

Day to day, his role is all about supporting our in-house Start Up Loan team and helping them develop their own business knowledge and lending skills, so that they can support our clients even better in their application journey to secure finance for their new business.

When he’s not working, Mike is supporting Liverpool and watching all their matches – and when they don’t clash, he’s tuning into the cricket, too! If there’s no sport on the TV, he can be found taking his dog out on the beach for a long run and some fresh air.

After working for Barclays PLS in Bank and Sales Financing, Shaun joined our team in 1997. As well as working in our HR department, Shaun arranges the release of loan funding to our business loan clients and manages their repayments. Safe to say, Shaun loves numbers!

In his spare time, when he’s not doting on his pet rabbits Donny and Marie, Shaun likes to go to concerts, the theatre, and enjoy nice meals out!

Anthony joined Let’s Do Business Finance and our Backing Essex Business team back in 2022 – before that, he’d worked in banking for over 40 years, pro-actively helping businesses of all shapes and sizes in many different industries. A normal day at Let’s Do Business Finance sees Anthony talking to clients and getting to know their financing requirements and finding out how we can support them – as whether they’re start up or businesses, they usually all share a common element, and that’s looked for a trusted partner to work with them!

During his spare time, Anthony enjoys playing Jazz, Swing and the Blues on his Tenor Saxophone – and when he’s not playing music himself, he’s listening to it at a concert on the weekend! If he’s not doing either of those, he’s enjoying travelling around the UK in his motorhome.

Before starting her role here as a Business Finance Manager in June 2022, Elaine worked at NatWest for nearly 41 years since the age of 16! Her role during the last 14 years of working there was as a Business Relationship Manager, working with around 200 SME business clients, and now she works from the Let’s Do Business Group office in Hastings and lives in Eastbourne!

Elaine’s day-to-day consists of helping clients who are looking for business finance, by identifying their needs and then finding a solution, using her network of contacts built up over the years from her banking career. She specialises in Growth, Working Capital and Asset Purchase funding requests, and stays connected with past clients to see where she can further assist as they grow.

After leaving her job at NatWest, Elaine wanted to continue to work in business finance support as it’s what she loves to do. She says there’s nothing better than hearing the worry and tension disappear from a client’s voice as she works with them to provide a solution to whatever their issue/dilemma is. When asked what she values about this Let’s Do Business Finance is that we form a strong on-going relationship with our clients, built on trust and a full understanding of not just their business but also of themselves as the key drivers of the business.

A piece of advice that she would give to businesses looking to grow is: “Never lose sight of why you started your business, and what you are doing it for/what you want from it! Bigger isn’t always better. So talk to your accountant for guidance and take advantage of all the support that is out there to assist. NEVER BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP AND ADVICE and be prepared to hear and take onboard honest feedback.”

In her spare time, Elaine enjoys spending time with her family and baking, usually on a Sunday, to bring our team a delicious cake on Monday morning!

Lisa joined the team in 2019 after a successful career with NatWest/RBS as a business relationship manager, where she supported her clients with their day to day banking as well as their funding requirements. Discovering she had a real knack for helping business owners succeed, in 2018 she set up her own business as a business coach to work with owners in her home county of Kent.

Now, she helps small businesses obtain finance via business loans – supporting them through their application process before completing her assessment. She enjoys getting to know the business owners and regularly stays in contact with them – cheering them on! Lisa also gets involved with building relationships with business partners such as banks, accountants and finance brokers to be able to offer even more services to the future clients of Let’s Do Business Finance. Oh, and alongside her role as a Business Manager, she also leads the Her Biz Start Up Programme supporting female entrepreneurs in Kent and East Sussex!

When she’s not busy with work, Lisa likes to spend time with her family and her dog Jasper (who loves a long walk), going on holiday, reading and her yoga classes!

Fiona is our latest addition to the team – joining us in August 2023 after working for NatWest for 17 years! She’s worked on a variety of programmes to help growing businesses in her time – from the Entrepreneurial Spark programme, Coast To Capital and Innovate UK EDGE to name a few. Her variety of roles have given her the perfect experience to assist our clients in their journey to business growth, helping them to break into new markets and take advantage of new opportunities!

In her role at Let’s Do Business Finance, Fiona helps our clients by working to understand their individual challenges and helping them develop a plan to achieve their ambitions. She helps to work with them to secure investment, too – introducing them to investors and helping them to perfect their pitch!

Loving the outdoors, Fiona enjoys playing golf in the summer, and getting out on long walks in the Sussex countryside when the weather allows it. She’s also a trustee on the board for the Wayfinder Woman Trust – and passionate about helping other woman build their confidence and skills.

Before becoming a Business Manager, Martin worked for Lloyds Banking Group for 28 years, with his last position being Commercial Relationship Manager there. Living in East Sussex, he has spent the last 8 years as a Business Manager for LDBG, working within the Start Up Loan Team.

The day-to-day basis of his job consists of reviewing and assessing new applications to reach an outcome for our clients.

When he’s not working, Martin is obsessed with playing tennis and fawning over his dogs, Ned and Rupert. He also has a lovely cat called Cosmo - who doesn’t like him very much.

Living in East Sussex, Phil worked over 30 years for NatWest Bank prior to becoming a Business Manager 7 years ago at LDBG.

In his previous role, Phil worked with business customers so taking on this role at the group was the perfect next step for him. His job consists of reviewing and assessing business plans/financial forecasts before working with the Start Up Loan applicants to obtain a positive result for them.

Having a background in Administration and Credit Control, Dawn, who lives in East Sussex, has been working at LDBG for 6 years. After moving across from the administration team, her current role as a Business Advisor involves analysing and investigating loan documents, assess loan applications and provide a decision to the applicant.

Before working as Business Manager at LDBG for the last 4 years, Rachel, who lives in East Sussex, worked mainly in Finance. Her job as a Business Manager consists of working with the applicants mainly on their business plans and financial information submitted with their loan applications. She works with them in order to help in making their applications as robust and viable as possible in order to hopefully approve their loan request.

Having previously worked in the Start Up Loan team at LDBG when the Start Up Loans contract was first established in 2012, Rachel was led to this job as she liked the idea of working for a Social Enterprise and being able to help many local businesses was something that appealed to her.

Christie joined our parent company Let’s Do Business Group as an administrator and reporting support back in 2011, but after returning from Maternity Leave in early 2023, she joined the Let’s Do Business Finance team to help to process and assess our incoming applications. Day to day, she provides support to our Finance Managers – preparing paperwork for clients to tell them the good news that they’ve been approved for a loan and the next steps for them!

Outside of work, when she’s not looking after her toddler (who sometimes visits us in the office!) at baby groups, Christie loves making and decorating cakes as a small side hustle.

Originally from Gloucestershire, Jay moved to East Sussex over 20 years ago. From the age of 17, she started working for a local Hastings based charity as well as starting an apprenticeship in business and administration for LDBG, back when they were a training provider. After finishing her apprenticeship a couple of years later, she was offered a job working within the apprenticeship and training department up until the end of that contract.

From there, Jay started working within the Start Up Loans team and looking after the Hastings Chamber of Commerce admin duties up until she went on maternity leave. Since her return last summer, she has been working back with the SUL team as the first port of call for applicants. Her job consists of checking the applicant’s loan documentation and then working with them in readiness of passing over to the Business Managers who complete the assessments.

Having joined the Let’s Do Business Finance Start Up Loans team in October 2021 after finishing his Politics degree, James works as a key contact for our Start Up Loan clients to help them gather all the documents and information they need for their application before they officially apply. As well as supporting new and start up businesses access finance, James works as part of the team for Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce to help businesses in the local area network and grow – making his day to day always different!

When he’s not working, James loves watching sport like American Football and supporting his team Manchester United. When it’s sunny outside, he’ll play sports too!

Lisa joined our team in 2020, after she fancied a career change – before that, she’d been working within the legal sector as a Law Cost Draftsman and then a Peer-to-Peer lending organisation.

Part of our Start Up Loans team, Lisa is the first port of call for our applicants. She works with them to ensure they’ve got all of their documents in tip-top shape for submitting to our Business Managers for reviewing.

Outside of work, Lisa loves to cook (having previously run her our restaurant and wine bar whilst living on Gozo!), gardening when she gets a chance, and doing jigsaw puzzles.

After being made redundant due to Covid-19, Lisa was led to this job at LDBG as she always felt what they do is worthwhile to local businesses and the community. For her, the best part of her job is working within a team where she feels fully supported and the most difficult part is not always being able to manage Applicants’ expectations of how the Start Up Loan Scheme works.