Interview: Steven McLeod, entrepreneur

• Steven McLeod who bought Airth Castle Hotel, his first hotel, at only 29.

The 35-year-old boss of the Aurora hotel group has built a business which he estimates will turn over an estimated 12 million next year.

He smiles when he reveals he spotted the name on a sunbed – rather than thinking of the northern lights. His portfolio includes Airth Castle, Stirlingshire, Melville Castle in Edinburgh, Glenbervie House Hotel, Larbert and the new Hotel Colessio in Stirling which is due to open next year. He's done so well he was recently named entrepreneur of the year in the Scottish Licensed Trade awards.

Then there are his other projects, which include property developments, a luxury retirement village, a design company and writing a book with the help of Scottish Enterprise.

He's come a long way from Stirling's Raploch housing estate, where he grew up, and his first foray into business at ten, washing cars and selling tablet and macaroon bars door to door, although he made the mistake of eating into his early profits by devouring half his sweet stock.

Back when he was drawing pictures of big houses he was also drawing sports cars, and he's realised that dream too, owning a Range Rover Overfinch and a Mercedes-Benz SLM AMG.

He's a sharp dresser with a collection of 80 suits, 15 kilts and more than 150 pairs of shoes. The colourful character chuckles when he reveals he recently had a new suit made out of his curtains.

"It's not actually my curtains, just the same material," he laughs. "My house is all Andrew Martin fabrics. I needed something for an awards ceremony and I have curtains made of this fabric with graffiti writing all over it. So I said to my tailor, 'Make me something out of that curtain material'. I'm not boring I'm a very effervescent bubbly person."

At first glance he would appear to have it all – but although he's close to his mum and siblings, he lives with only his dog for company and admits it can be pretty lonely at the top. He's named his Shar-Pei dog Chi after energy flow – but he concedes he still needs balance in his life. He says he's married to his business – but he'd still like to find someone special to share his life with eventually.

But he's a restless soul, who seems to be continually striving to improve his business and that has taken its toll on his private life.

He's gay but also very private and says that after splitting from a partner years ago as he was working so hard building his business, he doesn't know how he will meet someone.

"The sort of person I'd like to meet would be someone similar to myself who works hard and respects life. It's very lonely. Not just on the personal side, but on the business side too. Because when you've got a problem you've got to fix it. That's why I've got a few people around me to keep me right."

He seems to have been driven to succeed by his tough upbringing and credits his mum Janice – who battled alcoholism for ten years – for spurring him on. When Steven was around six, his dad left home for another woman and emigrated to Australia. Janice was left to raise Steven and his younger brother and sister. "I kind of took the father figure or leadership role because I wanted to make sure my mum and my family were protected," he explains. Early dreams of joining the police force never took off as he discovered he was colour blind. But he admits he was also a tearaway at Wallace High School and played the class clown.

Janice later met partner Roy and had another daughter, but as her children grew she began drinking, mistakenly feeling she wasn't needed as a mum. Seeing his mum battle her inner demons and overcome them appears to have pushed Steven to strive even harder to achieve success.

But he doesn't feel hard done by through his upbringing.

By 14 he was washing dishes in a hotel and was racking up so many hours over evenings and weekends that it was almost like a full-time job. "I think the problem with my mum made me grow up quickly. I looked after myself. I used to go out on Mother's Day or Christmas and I'd buy my mum a Hoover or a new washing machine. I'd buy her something I knew the family needed when I was a schoolboy. I bought my mum her first tumble drier when I was about 15."

He's fiercely loyal to his mum but has no interest in his dad. "He made contact with me about a year ago through my grandparents. I said 'Hello' but I never want to see him again. He's contributed nothing to my life so I don't see the point. He's just another drainer.

My mum is the driving force in my family. She still reminds me, 'It doesn't matter how much money you've got or how successful you are', she'll say, 'I'm still your mum'. She's a star. She speaks to alcoholics all over the world now as she's a coach. She's been dry now for about 15 years. I can't tell you how proud I am of her."

But he doesn't dwell on the past and now devotes his energy to his business and he's had considerable success. He worked his way up the ranks of the hotel business through Macdonald Hotels, and invested in property along the way, although that wasn't all plain sailing. Fierce storms in January 2000 blew the roof off his penthouse flat in Stirling, destroying most of his belongings, but fortunately he was out. He says the experience taught him belongings could be replaced but health is what is important in life.

He seems consumed by making his business the best he can and is involved in many aspects of it, even helping to design details in rooms and brochures. "Head office is here," he says, pointing to his chest. "I'm a one-man walking head office.

"I'm a bit like Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, I'm a household brand in hotels. You've got to deliver when your face and your name are your brand'," he explains. "Failure is not an option and never will be. I've got more energy than a small country. It's great, it breeds enthusiasm. My staff are so loyal and some have worked for me for 15 years. They're more friends than employees because I've known them for so long. My business motto is, 'I do exactly what it says on the tin."

He appears to take responsibility for his business and his staff, just as seriously as he took his role protecting his family. "I've got 400 mouths to feed of an extended family," he says. "Could I walk on the other side of the street if I'd screwed up that meal for those 400 people? I haven't lost a company and I don't intend to."

He's taken plenty of risks over the years – but he insists they were calculated. "When I bought Airth Castle, I was 29 years old, and I'm away to the bank and said, 'I'd like 6 million please'. I went in with a business plan that was very detailed. It was a risk to leave a good job in a company and buy this hotel with a business partner.

"What's the risk to me? Losing a bit of money, losing a bit of face? It wasn't even losing money, because I was putting money into bricks and mortar and at that time the value was going through the roof. The risk for me was trying to get an investor who wasn't going to shaft me. I've just lost a lot of money recently because I took a risk on something and it backfired, but you've just got to get on with it. If you didn't you'd be back to square one."

The problem he's referring to is the delayed opening of his new brand of boutique hotel. Hotel Colessio is in Stirling's grade A-listed former infirmary, is due to open in March and will be the first of six hotels. "It was due to open in October this year but it's now not opening until March next year, the reason being the builder ceased trading. It cost me a fortune halfway through it," he says.

It obviously pains him that problems arose that were out of his control, but he's sorting them, like he sorts everything else. He's obsessed with attention to detail and delivering a quality service.

He regularly goes back to his old school to give motivational talks and is keen to help advise new businesses and as a member of the Entrepreneurial Exchange he regularly speaks to other highfliers. He's keen to give something back and is setting up a charity to help local people, but has also donated more than half a million pounds to charitable causes over the last five years.

"What's pushing me right now is, I wake in the morning and I'm in love with my business. It's not a money thing. It's about happiness. I love the people, I love the growth and the portfolio of the collection of hotels I've created. My team have built the company. I'll fill the car with petrol and they drive it. I don't think of myself as successful. I've got an element of success but success will be the day I build this company to my long-term goal and sell it."

His business bible is the motivational book Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, which explores attitudes to change in work and life. He has stacks of copies and hands them out when he gives talks. "It sums up who are the doers and movers and shakers and who's sitting back. To succeed you have to be a doer." Steven is undoubtedly one of life's doers – and he admits he always walks in somewhere as though he owns the place – but shows respect. He says: "I even walk into Tesco's pushing my trolly as though I own the shop – and for an hour it's mine."