SmartPA : Monica's Path From Redundancy to the SmartPA Support Team

In this video, SmartPA UK partner Monica tells her story — finding the SmartPA partnership in 2016 during a major life transition, building her own SmartPA business, and ultimately joining the SmartPA head-office business support team where she is now community manager. Monica's trigger was the convergence of three changes at once: a corporate redundancy, a relocation from London to the south of England, and two young children at home. She was looking for something that would give her flexibility, work from home, and let her keep family in the centre of her life. SmartPA ticked the boxes — but she still had to overcome a lack of confidence after a couple of years out of work. The training was intense, professional, and thorough — exactly the reassurance she needed that she could make it work. She is candid about the post-launch period. Excited and worried at the same time, with finance questions, client-acquisition questions, and uncertainty about how to actually run a business. She describes those months as normal for partners — and credits the SmartPA mentorship programme, a four-month structured support programme launched specifically for partners going through that critical post-launch phase, with helping her get through it. Her story has a unique second act. She was approached in 2016 to support the business support team part-time, became progressively more involved, and is now the community manager owning the partner-side of the business support function. Her perspective is uniquely useful for prospective candidates: she has lived both sides of the SmartPA partnership. A SmartPA partner can grow into a head-office role over time — Monica's path is not unique.