Felicity Syfret, Client Relations Manager from Team Fusion, describes her journey from the British Army to her varied and demanding senior role in close protection.
Last week I was providing oversight on a live surveillance operation and liaising with Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW) clients about their residential security arrangements. This week I’m speaking with business partners about collaborative initiatives to help our businesses grow. No two weeks look the same, and that variety is precisely what I’ve come to love about this sector.
One of the first women to join the Infantry
I was thirteen years old when my eldest brother completed his first tour of Afghanistan. He was proud of the other members of our family who had served and was inspired to follow their example. I felt the same pride, and I knew I wanted to be just like him.
But it wasn’t until women could join the British Army’s Infantry Units that I could achieve that ambition: to become a soldier and serve as he did. I joined an historically all-male infantry unit as a part of the first cohort of women to do so.
Over the following four years of service, I was challenged in ways I had very much expected as part of the British Army’s fighting force. I also faced challenges from unforeseen elements and circumstances that meant my expectations for a career in this role and the realities of it were not aligned. But I would never discourage anyone from serving in any capacity.
Learning how to soldier is invaluable. It teaches you discipline, how to show respect to others, and ultimately, how to respect yourself. It was for this reason that I decided a long-term career in the infantry was not for me and it was time to now apply what I had learned to my advantage in another sector.
Starting again in the security sector
I then faced the daunting and unexpected prospect of starting again. However, I had, in fact, just completed four years of credible security career experience. My network of friends and family advised looking into a Close Protection (CP) licence and the opportunities it would offer. I spent a long time being rejected for lack of sector experience, or for qualifications that set me above other candidates. But I needed to invest in myself and most of my savings went on upskilling. I also had to be adaptable; I took other work where I could find it to gain experience – a Security Industry Authority (SIA) licensed nanny is an attractive prospect for a family, and it demonstrates real experience within private households.
The advantage of being female
There’s a real niche for female operators with military and police backgrounds. Some principal clients require female CP for cultural or religious reasons; some simply feel more comfortable with a woman; and most teams now work between the covert and overt space, where a mixed team blends into its surroundings far better than four people of the same gender. The same is also true in surveillance – an offshoot of Close Protection services. I’ve been able to work a variety of surveillance tasks alongside a male partner and drawn almost no scrutiny from subjects or third parties.
Qualifications and experience lead to a breadth of roles
Gaining qualifications and applicable experience made things easier. Freelance close protection is as much about the next job as the current one: you are always building a reputation, working out who the key figures are, and making sure the right people know your name.
A word of caution to anyone weighing the investment: do your due diligence on your course provider. As the 2023 Panorama documentary showed, too many sacrifice quality for quantity in their training and overpromise on the work a licence will bring. Choose one offering – Advanced First Aid, FREC 3 or FPOS, not First Aid at Work, because that is what most companies will expect.
For anyone considering a career in close protection, one of the biggest misconceptions is that security is only about standing beside a principal. In reality, it is much broader, spanning intelligence, investigations, residential security, risk consulting, operations management, travel security, technology, cyber and client advisory roles.
That breadth is only increasing as clients increasingly expect security professionals who can communicate well, understand technology, think commercially, and build trust. Security remains a relationship-driven industry where every assignment is effectively an interview for the next one. Reliability, professionalism, and how you treat colleagues matter just as much as technical ability. It was in this way that I came across Team Fusion, who saw that my experience, my qualifications and hard-won credibility could stretch into something broader than close protection alone: the blend of operations and client relations that fills my time today.
If you’d told my thirteen-year-old self where “being like my brother” would lead, I’m not sure I’d have believed you. Nor that the part of me that former colleagues seemed to have no use for would turn out to be the making of my career. That is the thing worth telling anyone starting out in security: the sector is wide enough that what holds you back in one corner of it can be exactly what you’re valued for in another. You just have to find your place.
Felicity Syfret
Team Fusion
