Getting To Know You: Jonathon Bentley, MD, Bentley

Established in 2013 by managing director Jonathon Bentley, the growing team at Bentley specialise in project development and cost management, delivering large scale strategic residential and commercial schemes across both the public and private sectors.

The company has a deep understanding of how to deliver projects on time, within budget and to a high standard, as well as knowing how to position projects to secure funding. Bentley is also experienced in working with local authorities throughout the UK to develop multi-million-pound infrastructure schemes.

Since its inception just over a decade ago, Bentley has been based in Nottingham, with the team last year making the jump to open its Manchester office to support with growing streams of work in the Northwest of England and beyond. Since then, Bentley has been successfully appointed to Lot 3 of the new STAR Framework, which has a wide scope focusing on project management, delivery and commercial support. Across both its Nottingham and Manchester offices, Bentley has grown to more than 40 members across its expert team.

Through the recent framework appointment and continued strengthening of the business and its project capabilities across the UK, the Bentley team is working to grow its core services further. The consultancy is currently assisting with some notable and significant schemes, including the redevelopment of Chesterfield town centre and the Etruria Valley, the new strategic link road in Staffordshire, which is unlocking valuable employment land and allowing much-needed alleviation of congestion.

Here, managing director Jonathon Bentley speaks on his longstanding career and gives further insight into Bentley, including where the inspiration to become a business owner came from and advice for anyone in the industry looking to do the same.

What was the inspiration behind Bentley?

Having already established a small business in 2008 alongside my wife in the childcare sector, I felt I had enough experience to do the same in an industry I had spent 14 years working in, having previously worked in the project management sector. Being in my early thirties at this time, I felt I had enough time to really establish a business and have an impact on the industry. For me it was all about bringing new ideas and ways of working with the ultimate aim of improving and growing within the construction industry. I was lucky to be able to take all the best bits from what I had already learnt in my career and utilise this expertise to grow our offering at Bentley. At the point of establishing Bentley, and ever since then, I have been driven in growing a team of absolute experts that offer the best of the best to our clients.

Who do you admire?

Truthfully, I admire anyone who brings new ideas to the table and uses their initiative to make things happen. This takes a lot of courage and is really what champions growth in any sector or industry.

There isn’t one person in my career that stands out particularly, but I have worked with and met people who have used their entrepreneur skills to turn an idea into a reality, whether that be developing a new business idea or progressing a development site and realising its full potential. I find myself incredibly lucky to have seen this first hand, and it has only inspired me to foster an environment at Bentley which focuses on growth and excelling as a team.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I believe there are always elements that can be done differently, but overall, you must respect your own journey and use it to develop those around you. Looking back, I would have set a strategic plan much earlier as a business leader. In the earlier days at Bentley, we took each year at a time, but we really moved on as a business when we set out a strategic vision and implemented this into all our work from then on. For me, this has helped to clarify for all our team across the country, our vision and where we want to go as a business, as well as how this can be collectively achieved.

What defines your way of doing business?

Our values are what defines the way we do business, and we use them as a backbone for everything we do. This includes always doing what’s right, being trustworthy, full of integrity and honest, as well as working as a team always – ensuring to respect, collaborate and communicate with those around us both internally and externally to the business. Finally, being true to our word is a core value, consistently ensuring due diligence, holding ourselves accountable, and always staying driven to achieve our goals and aims.

All of these values run through everything we do, as well as our strategic plan, our ESG strategy and our annual business plans.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

My advice is to utilise all the best bits of everything you have learnt and the experiences you have had and use them to excel your own knowledge and grow your capabilities. It’s also incredibly important to listen to people, take in what they say and act on it, it’s the people around us that truly help us grow. It’s also beneficial to surround yourself with talented people, but always make sure you treat them right.

Finally, I would say that its useful to break away when you can, make your own rules to set yourself apart, this can be a deciding factor in your business excelling and growing against competitors.