Steve Bullock is the first directly elected Mayor of Lewisham.  Immediately prior to his election in 2002 he was serving a second term as chair of University Hospital Lewisham.  Steve has experience in both Local Government and the NHS and views his present role as an opportunity to use the knowledge and skills acquired in both to develop partnership working across the public sector.  He recently took over as chair of the Local Government Employers Organisation. He also chairs London Connects - the partnership group promoting E government across London's public sector.
 
Steve's first, brief encounter with local government was as a van driver for an Urban District Council in North Yorkshire in the summer of 1972.  He later worked for the Greater London Council and the Local Government Association.  He became a councillor in Lewisham in 1982 and went on to serve as Chair of Finance, Chair of Leisure, Deputy Leader, and Leader of the Council prior to standing down in 1998. 
 
He served as a member of the Commission for Local Democracy and was a key figure in the establishment of the New Local Government Network.  The influence of these two bodies on the Local Government Act, 2000 led to the creation of directly elected Mayors for the first time in the UK.  In 2001 Steve returned to active local politics to seek office as Mayor of Lewisham.

 In the NHS Steve worked as the Chief Executive of Greenwich Community Health Council and later joined the board of University Hospital Lewisham. He has served as non-executive director of the Housing Ombudsman Service and the London Pension Fund Authority.  He lives in Forest Hill and is particularly pleased that he is a board member of the Horniman Museum and Garden in Forest Hill - one of London's great treasures.