Andy Bower talks about leaving a 30 year career in the Royal Navy to take on a civilian role, and his responsibilities as Programme Director for the delivery of the Royal Navy Submarine Training Centre.
“I thought that joining Capita was a bit of a risk – but there are opportunities here that would be difficult to find elsewhere.”
I left the Royal Navy after almost 30 years’ service, leaving as an Royal Navy Captain. Ironically, when I left, I wanted to do something less connected with defence, and joined Capita as a civilian in a Learning role but at a time when Capita was starting to be involved in a bid for the Royal Navy Project Selborne training contract. It made sense to support the bid due to my skills and experience and being part of the team achieving the contract remains one of my biggest achievements at Capita. Now I’m working for Project Selborne, principally accountable for the delivery of the Royal Navy Submarine Training Centre (RNSTC) and some broader programs linked to synthetic training provision.
My Capita journey so far has been a huge learning and development opportunity. Working in a commercial environment and needing to understand how ‘business’ works has challenged my mindset and allowed me to develop increasing business knowledge and understanding to the point where the questions I ask today are markedly different to those I may have asked four years ago, especially the financial elements. Capita has throughout been incredibly supportive and respectful of what I brought to the table as an RN veteran, and continues to offer opportunity to learn new things, explore different opportunities, and work with an extraordinary variety of colleagues from different backgrounds at all stages in life, yet all under one company.
Capita is a purpose-led business; my RNSTC programme team aim to achieve meaningful change that will deliver real benefit to the submarine service in support of people doing an extremely important and demanding job. It is hard to oversell the importance of a purpose-led culture and the positive impact that has for both personal well-being and job satisfaction.
