Heather joined Capco in 2021 after having served in the Royal Navy for 5 years. In her time, she worked closely on ship & submarine operations out of the Nuclear Submarine base in Faslane, she undertook various deployments onboard HMS Albion across the Mediterranean and the Far East. In her final year she led the Augmentation Team coordinating and training troops going out to places such as Afghanistan and Oman.
Following an accident, Heather was medically discharged, shortening her journey in the military – “I hadn’t been planning on leaving and so I wasn’t sure what journey I was going to take, however the military teaches you not to quit, no matter how many times you’re knocked down, so I thought to myself, what do I enjoy about what I do now that could translate into civilian life and what transferable skills do I have? Which it turned out, there was loads more than I first thought.”
Heather took her experience within the Navy around resource management, teamwork, communication, and leadership skills and spent several years honing her abilities within recruitment before deciding to make the move to London and join Capco. She didn’t come through the traditional route to a consultant; however, she works for Capco recruiting consultants from diverse skillsets and backgrounds and is supporting the Recruitment of the Armed Forces to Capco programme. She notes “I feel at home within the Capco family, they recognise individuals’ strengths, challenge you and the work is really interesting, which suits me perfectly”.
Being a consultant at Capco relates in so many ways to military life with those core skills you build. The team collaboration, relationship management, the pace, adapting to ever-changing environments and understanding the importance of decision making becomes second nature in the military – which are all key factors in Consulting. In the military you become unphased by pressurised situations and short deadlines and retain the ability to do what needs to be done – which is crucial for building strong relationships with internal stakeholders and clients alike.
Be able to recognise the transferable skills that you will have undeniably built in your time within the military. Be confident with what ideas and perspective you can bring to the table because it can be so interchangeable with management consulting.
You can read more about the AF2C programme here.