“When leaving the Navy, you have to give a year’s notice so, after deciding that I was going to leave, after giving in my notice, I had another year to think about what I wanted to do,” she said.
“I sat down with my dad and we went through my opportunities and, as he is quite keen on the SWOT analysis *strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), so we did all that and he said ‘you’d make a good financial adviser’.
“I thought that I couldn’t do that so I settled on training to be a paraplanner, so I started doing the qualifications while I was in the Navy.”
As a result, Kmieciak was partly qualified by the time that she left the Navy.
Following her exit, Kmieciak applied to hundreds and hundreds of companies and, while some turned her down, some were interested.
“I did well, I had a couple of companies willing to take a chance on me with no new experience and only some qualifications,” she said.
“They liked the fact that I'd done this on my own back when I was quite entrepreneurial, doing it without any guidance, paying for my own exams and things like that.
“So I was lucky in that respect.”
tom.dunstan@ft.com
If you would like to be featured in our New Voices series, or you know someone who would be a good fit please get in touch with Tom Dunstan at tom.dunstan@ft.com
