DEFENCE FAMILY BUSINESS AWARD FINALIST
Christine Gilchrist is the CEO and Co-founder of Spouce Force, a pioneering social enterprise dedicated to transforming the lives of military spouses by providing fully-remote employment opportunities.
Recognising the unique employment challenges that military spouses face due to frequent relocations and the transient nature of military life, Spouse Force was founded to offer flexible, stable, and meaningful employment that can move with them, wherever they are posted. In their first year of operations, they have provided over 1,000 hours of fully-remote employment to military spouses.
Meet Christine
Christine Gilchrist has helped Australian defence spouses find more than 1000 hours of remote work, and that number continues to grow day by day.
Christine is the director, CEO and co-founder of Spouse Force, a social enterprise that employs military spouses in fully work-from-home roles to deliver high-quality technical writing and editing services.
She founded Spouse Force with her husband, Ken Gilchrist, an Australian Defence Force veteran who served 28 years.
Christine said the idea for the social enterprise came to her after having to leave her successful government executive career due to her husband posting.
She switched careers and spent two years as an Executive Recruiter, but she continued to see other spouses struggling with the same problem.
“I kept reading on social media how tough it was for them for their career to always come second, to need to leave jobs and teams they loved, and the impact on their income during the move, and on their longer-term career,” Christine said.
“As I had always had challenges getting good scribes who understood government recruiting, I started a business to provide this service – using fully work-from-homes spouses who I trained.”
But Spouse Force is more than just a service provider, it is also a social enterprise.
“This means our business is centred around a social mission: to empower Australian military spouses with stable, fully remote employment,” Christine said.
“Our work goes beyond mere profit-making – we invest in people and their potential.
“Being a social enterprise allows us to focus on creating real, tangible benefits for the community.
“By supporting military families, we help maintain workforce continuity and stability in a unique demographic that faces frequent relocations and other challenges associated with military life.
“This commitment extends to how we reinvest our profits, prioritising social impact over profit.”
Christine said she hoped being named as a finalist in the Defence Family category of The King’s Trust Beyond Service Awards would raise awareness of the “army of highly educated, hard working spouses” who could fill so many roles, if only they could work remotely.
“I wish spouses had the opportunity to be promoted and remain in an organisation regardless of where they are located or posted,” she said.
“I wish more employers would give spouses 100 per cent work-from-home roles.”
And Christine hoped the Beyond Service Awards would also encourage more spouses to become entrepreneurs, and to look at the programs offered by The King’s Trust.
“I am so very grateful to The King’s Trust for their courses, connections, networking and advocacy/promotion of military spouses,” she said.
“The impacts on the family, and the serving member, are enormous, not only from a financial perspective, but from the perspective of family unity and ADF retention.”
