She left the Army and became a Financial Planner Mum, With St James's Place Academy | Katie Volker

In this episode of the financial planner life podcast, Sam Oakes sits down with Katie, a former Army officer who transitioned into a successful financial planning career with the St. James’s Place Academy.

Katie’s story is one of resilience, adaptability, and building a business that fits around life’s big moments, including becoming a mum mid-way through growing her firm.

We cover:

✅ How military skills like leadership, discipline, and resilience translate into financial planning

✅ What it’s really like going through the St. James’s Place Academy (and how Katie passed her exams in just 6 months)

✅ The importance of mentorship and building your support network

✅ How social media, especially Instagram Stories, has helped her win new clients

✅ Balancing business growth and motherhood, and how becoming a parent opened new networking opportunities

✅ Why financial planning needs more diverse voices and more women in leadership

✅ Tips for using LinkedIn and Instagram for business development

✅ The power of storytelling and human connection in financial services

Whether you’re ex-military, thinking about a career change, or wondering how to balance parenthood with self-employment, this is a must-watch.

Begin your financial planning career journey today

Whether you are looking to become a paraplanner, administrator, mortgage and protection adviser or financial planner, the Financial Planner Life Academy is for you. 

With limited entry-level job roles, giving yourself the best financial planning career education, will not only kick start your financial planning journey with relevant qualifications and skills, but it’ll also help you achieve success much faster.&nbs

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Welcome to The Financial Planner Life Podcast. We cover an intimate and honest account of what it’s really like to work in the financial planning profession. 

Our guests share their stories of success, failures and learnings, as well as what to expect from a career in the financial planning profession! We host guests at various stages in their careers, as well as multiple roles to ensure that our audience has a variety each week. 

Financial planners, business owners, paraplanners and back-office staff all have their own story to share, and The Financial Planner Life podcast is a platform for them to talk about their personal and professional journey. The podcast covers a multitude of topics, from mindset and motivation, health and wellbeing all the way to diversity and inclusion. 

We approach each episode with the idea that it is going to educate and spark a conversation within the industry with topics that may not be openly discussed. So, if you are thinking of becoming a financial adviser, or you’re curious about learning more about this brilliant sector, we urge you to give the podcast a listen. 

The Host: Sam Oakes is the host of The Financial Planner Life Podcast.  since 2008 Sam has been supporting leading national and global financial planning firms in finding the best talent, he was the director of Recruit UK, a 7 figure turnover financial planning recruitment company that he successfully exited in 2024, Sam now works as the Head of Creative for Hoxton wealth, building out podcasts, YouTube and social content for this fast growing fee based international financial planning firm. 

 Sam has always had a passion for financial services, starting out as a trainer for leading product provider in the UK, he has been in the industry for over 20 years. 

He sees himself as a partner to the industry and wants to contribute useful resources such as this podcast to educate those further who are seeking advice and help about how to push their careers forward in this amazing profession. 

Be sure to check out 

Financial Planner Life Academy - start your career today! 

https://financialplannerlife.com/academy/

• No. of episodes: 241
• Latest episode: 2025-07-15
• Business

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