I left the Navy in 2008, and while the financial crisis initially curtailed my ambitions in the City, in 2011, I had started looking again at roles within financial services.
A former Navy colleague had recently joined Capco and brokered an introduction, leading me to taking up a consultant position in June of that year. The AF2C programme came into existence two years later.
Capco was at the beginning of what has proved a significant growth journey – at that time the London office comprised just 150 people compared to the thousand-more consultants we employ in the UK today – and we saw an opportunity to tap a new source of professionals.
The programme started life as an internship, with Gareth Banning – now a principal consultant – becoming the first inductee. After a second intake of four consultants the following year, the success of
the initiative saw it transformed in 2015 into the more substantive programme that exists today.
People have predominantly left the military to get more stability in their lives. In your 20s it’s fine to bounce about the world but when you are looking to start a family, that lifestyle is less than conducive. But people still want a challenging career – these are men and women who want to be pushed and to excel.
When people leave the Forces, they are often not sure exactly which part of financial services they want to work in. We don’t put them in a box, but rather offer the opportunity to move between areas and explore different avenues and specializations. At Capco you can be both a generalist and a specialist, and that speaks directly to our structure and our culture.
The ability to deal with an unstructured environment is a key one. Our job as consultants often requires us to identify a problem and then provide the solution, and servicemen and women are well-equipped to deal with situations that are evolving rapidly. Fear of making a decision is also not uncommon in this industry, and service personnel are more willing to take a decisive step with a view to course correcting as necessary in the future.You can read more about the AF2C programme here.
For more information about joining Capco as ex-military or reservist personnel, please feel free to contact one of our very own AF2Cs:
Pete Mayberry, Managing Principal
Bobby Stewart, Senior Consultant
Edward Nickell-Lean, Senior Consultant