On the surface, the defence force and financial services appear to be worlds apart. But financial services can be a natural segue for people who have served in the military because both draw out and rely upon similar characteristics, says a leading recruiter. Financial Recruitment Group executive director Peter Dawson says military people are generally disciplined, focused, dependable and technically competent, with leadership skills and a balanced approach to dealing with different types of people. "They're also trained to listen as well as speak, and that's a critical issue for financial planners," Dawson says.
Dawson, who has worked in financial services for 20 years, says it is difficult to know exactly how many have made the transition from the military to financial services, but points out there have been recruiting exercises in the past that have focused on bringing service people into financial planning. He credits Money Monitor founder Paul Terry with being one of the first to focus on recruiting from the military. "When Paul set up Monitor, I think he wanted to establish a very cohesive culture that focused on the key principles of discipline, focus et cetera and build a very cohesive team," he says. Kevin Bailey was one of those recruits. Now chairman and founder of The Money Managers, Bailey spent nine years in the military, predominantly in electronics, before finishing in the Special Air Service regiment in Western Australia.
His career in investments started literally by accident. A member of the Australian skiing team, Bailey was injured in a motorbike crash in 1980, which meant he was no longer able to compete at that elite level. He invested the lump sum payout well and - as the1980s took off - became increasingly interested in the way capital markets worked. After realising he was making more money from his investments than his army pay, and with plans to settle down and raise a family, he joined Terry at Money Monitor. The career shift worked - Bailey went on to set up his own business, which manages more than $1 billion. He is also the Honorary Consul General for East Timor and is a director of a number of aid organisations. He says financial services is often a second career, which works well for people who leave the military after one or two decades and search for a second career that can carry them for another 20 or so years.
Bailey agrees military people are often well trained, disciplined, have a strong work ethic and an "utter focus" on completing a job. One of the most important aspects is understanding how to manage risk - and it is an area that military people are trained to do well. "The whole idea of going into a war zone is that you're going to be going into a risky environment, and you've got to be able to work out the difference between necessary risks and unnecessary risks," Bailey says. "That skill set transfers extraordinarily well across to working in a capital markets system where there's risk and I think most ex-military people who come into financial services would have a far greater understanding of risk than someone who's just gone through the academic system." While John Prowse, now managing director of financial services training company Pinnacle, opposes categorising people, he does believe there are common themes.
Being independent, strong and looking after your mates are important. And critical to both financial services and the military is the ability to make decisions and take action. Prowse worked as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force, including a year in Vietnam, before flying for the Sultan of Oman to put down an insurrection in the early 1970s. He went on to work with his father's consultancy in Sydney and then eventually moved to AMP, which was his formal entrée into financial services. "When something has to be done and you're very uncertain of how to go about it, you just can't afford to be setting up taskforces and putting things off for six months in the middle of a military campaign," he says. "Courage is definitely something I look for in business. A lot of failure and underperformance in business come from a lack of courage. "People meet in groups rather than taking individual decisions because they lack the courage of their convictions. Businesses overanalyse things sometimes because they're afraid to move.
"So a bias to action and courage are extremely important for people in business and leadership positions. There's definitely a spirit along those lines in the military, particularly a military at war. There's no room for indecision." Macquarie head of distribution Bruce Murphy had a more immediate relationship with finance. He joined the naval college straight out of school and completed a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics and Statistics as part of his naval training. Diagnosed as colourblind, he was unable to drive ships and so became a supply officer looking after the logistics and being in charge of "the money, the food and the missiles". After a stint in recruitment and as an aide to a senior officer, Murphy was posted to a shore job - but chose to step out of the navy. At 25, and studying a Masters of Commerce and Economics, he realised he was still young enough to be able to make a career change without too many financial ramifications.
He says the navy teaches good interpersonal and networking skills, and strong persistence, and provides leadership opportunities and a very good grounding in management. "[The navy] is very focused on making sure that your networking skills are strong and you learn to talk to all types and meet all people and be good hosts," he says. "And at a young age in the services, you have a lot of people reporting to you, and all of those have come from different walks of life and different training backgrounds. "As a junior officer you have a lot of very experienced non-commissioned officers; you get out of uni and you've got people who have been in the army for 20 or more years, and they know the ropes. You've got to earn their respect.
"You've got a mix of very young people who are raw and learning and you have to mould and develop and lead. Then you've got people who are 10, 15 years your senior whose respect you've got to earn, and you just can't assume that rank does that job." In addition, the navy enforces discipline to work through the difficult parts of the job to reach the better aspects. Murphy says he may well have learnt these skills outside of the navy but believes the length of the military training ensured they were well absorbed. While other university students were partying during long semester breaks, Murphy and the other navy cadets were training, learning leadership and discipline. "We were jealous but there was an upside to it," he says. Perpetual Investments national account manager Karl Linder spent two years in the navy working the patrol boats in northern Australia. "I've noticed a lot of people who have come out of the defence forces and are in the financial services sector, in a way have similar traits," Linder says.
"When you're in the defence force, you're very much a team player. You have to be. You're living with men and women at sea, you need to be able to live with and adapt to other people in confined spaces, so your tolerance levels are tested and you need to adjust from that perspective. "In a group environment, you've got to be an affable type of person, empathetic; you've got to be able to get along with people in order to be successful. In a group environment, if you haven't got the group traits, you're going to find it pretty tough." Such adaptability, particularly in a team environment, is vital in financial services, as is the ability to sell yourself and build up trust. But it's not necessarily an automatic transition. "You do get some people who are in the defence force for many years, come out, take their management expertise and bring it straight over," Linder says.
"I wasn't like that. I got a good grounding to come into this industry. What the defence force did was consolidate a few of the skills I needed - a bit of discipline and the time management - and it gave me a point of difference." It's that point of difference that Linder believes gives ex-military people a significant advantage, especially during recruitment for other jobs. "As long as everything else stacks up - you've got your education, you're presentable and so on - it gives you a huge point of difference," he says. "You've done something that demonstrates the time management skills, the discipline, the commitment that they're looking for. "You can relate to a lot of the questions they throw at you in the recruiting process, like 'can you give me an example of when you handle stress' or handling certain situations. "Being in the navy and being in a group environment, especially from an officer perspective, you can relay a lot of your real life experiences to these types of questions."
For his part, Murphy says there are both positive and negative aspects of listing military service on your CV - and views tend to be polarised. "There are many people outside the navy who have a stereotyped view of the military - that we're autocratic, authoritarian, 'my way or the highway' type of people, and they didn't want to employ us. "And then there are others who think 'this is great, they're going to be disciplined and hardworking'. "I've since met a lot of people, and I met one recently, who said as soon as he sees a service person's CV come up, they just want to snap them up because they're so reliable and hardworking." And adaptable, says Dawson. "They may not know the technicalities of what is required in terms of superannuation and non-super investments and wealth management strategies, however, they can quickly adapt and learn," he says. He says they have been trained to learn, so once they have the technical knowledge of financial planning under their belt, it tends to be a natural progression for them.
So are there any networks of former military people who have switched to financial services? The general consensus is both yes and no. In other words, long-lasting bonds and mateships are formed in the military, particularly at the individual service level and those with whom they trained and worked. These informal networks often continue whether or not each person moves into financial services or other industries after their military career ends. In meeting new people, military service sometimes comes up in conversation, and sometimes it doesn't. Linder says: "Financial services is a people's business, so - having done something less mainstream than other people - you do have a point of difference," he says. "It doesn't make you better in what you do, necessarily, it just gives you a talking point and in a people-dominated industry, I think that does help."
