The Milspo® Network CIC

The Milspo® Network CIC is the parent company of all projects that fall under the ‘Milspo’ banner. This includes The InDependent Spouse® podcast and The Milspo® Business Network.

The Milspo® Network is an inclusive, online, global community of over 1,400 members that supports all UK military partners in building their own businesses. MIL.S.P.O stands for military spouses, partners and other-halves® (SPO’s), a reflection of our modern military lives.

Launched in May 2018 with a hugely successful podcast The InDependent Spouse® (an award-winning series of informative weekly podcasts listened to by over 19,500 and in over 20 countries) The Milspo® Network grew shortly after in early 2019 as a way to directly connect inspirational business owners to their peers.

The Milspo® Team, made completely of SPO’s, now delivers monthly online networking, goal-setting events, meet-ups to help with isolation, and a business directory findamilspo.co.uk, alongside the highly engaged online community. The directory findamilspo.co.uk launched in line with our #MilspoMission – a grassroots campaign that encourages everyone to support, value and buy from our entrepreneurial members and aims to change the conversation around the modern military partner and the value of their employment and contribution brings to the UK economy.

The Milspo® Network CIC is a silver ERS Armed Forces Covenant Award recipient and has been recognised nationally by the Women in Defence Awards and Small Business Britain, who support our #MilspoMission campaign.

THE FOUNDER

Meet Jess

Jess Sands
Jess SandsPodcast Host, Owner at Design Jessica, and military wife

Jess Sands is no stranger to the challenges of starting a business. A few years ago, she was a successful full-time graphic designer with a portfolio including Disney, Caroline Gardner and Marks & Spencer. 

But when she met her future husband, a pilot in the RAF, everything changed. Moving house every two years meant that Jess had to give up the career that she loved. After a year of struggling to get employment in an often reluctant market to hire military spouses due to their transitory nature, Jess decided to develop her business Design Jessica. Since then, she has gone from strength to strength.

Jess is passionate about helping other military spouses, partners and other-halves through the same difficult transition that she made. Her business specialises in designing brands for new companies within the armed forces community.

Recent moves have seen Jess run her company from Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire…back to Oxfordshire…and now from Central London.

She was initially inspired to start the business network off the back of a particularly tough few years during the Afghanistan conflict, where she felt incredibly isolated. Finding her business to be a source of distraction and connection to like-minded people, she started a networking group in her first posting. 

Since then, that idea has evolved into The Milspo Business Network – an inclusive group to stop the feeling of isolation due to military life. 

Design Jessica is a top 100 Small Business Saturday company and a winner of a Supporting the Unsung Hero Business Award. Jess has been honoured as a top 100 UK SME business with Small Business Saturday, an f:entrepreneur top UK female entrepreneur.

Through her work with Milspo, Jess is an #ialso 2019 Top 100 Female Entrepreneur, a finalist of the 2023 Digital Women Awards and was named in The Telegraph NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2022. In addition, Milspo was an Equality of Opportunity award winner at the 2022 Women in Defence Awards.

The Milspo Network CIC has signed the Armed Forces Covenant, pledging its support for the Armed Forces community to receive equality and fair treatment when seeking access to public or private goods and services within the UK. As a result, it was awarded Silver Status by the MOD’s Employer Recognition Scheme.

Jess sits on the MOD’s Partner Employment Steering Group as a Milspo Ambassador, COBSEO Cluster Group for Partner Employment, and was named by the Prime Minister as a Points of Light Award Winner in 2023.

She is the host of The InDependent Spouse podcast and author of ‘Building Business Beyond the Magnolia Box – a guide for entrepreneurs living
in a modern military world’.

Jess lives just outside of London, in her magnolia married quarter, with her RAF pilot husband, son, and cheeky rescue animals Emma, Freya and Odin. When she’s not busy building businesses, you can typically find her getting bashed on a hockey pitch or taking the (often frosty) plunge open water swimming in her local lake.