Field Notes · Military life
Giving Back on an Overseas Posting, and the Product Skills It Gave Me
What I did as a military spouse volunteering overseas, the product skills each role proves, and the AI-native stories I now take into interviews.
When we moved overseas for my husband’s NATO posting, I stepped back from full-time work. I didn’t stop working. I gave my time to the forces community and the product community, unpaid and gladly. I’ve told the personal side of that in On taking time out, and what I did with it. This note is the practical companion. It sets out what I did, the product skills each role proves and the AI-native stories I’ll take back into work.
I’ve written it for two readers. One is the hiring manager who sees a gap on a CV and wonders what happened in it. The other is the military spouse who’s doing the same kind of work and doesn’t yet see it as evidence.
Volunteering Is Product Work in a Different Uniform
Every organisation I worked with had users, journeys and a trust problem to solve. A garrison is a service organisation. A bereavement charity is a product with very high stakes. An international club is a community with a value proposition, whether or not anyone calls it that. The craft I used was the same craft I’d used leading product functions. Only the users changed.
For the Armed Forces Community
U.S. Army Garrison Benelux
Volunteer Public Affairs Officer · Garrison Volunteer of the Year 2026
What I did. I wrote press releases that ran on army.mil under my own byline. One, on how the garrison used data to meet its community’s needs and forecast up to $39M in savings over eight years, was selected by higher headquarters for the command-wide IMCOM News Sampler. I created the strategic framework for the America 250 initiative, covering the celebrations and engagement with the host nation and local community. I drew original illustrations for a 40-post social campaign and helped stage events, including the garrison change of command.
What it proves. Stakeholder strategy across military and civilian audiences. Writing for a national platform with real editorial standards. Turning data into a story that moves leaders to act. Designing a campaign end to end, from framework to finished assets.
Beyond the Wire
Product and user experience lead for the Bereavement Hub
What I did. Beyond the Wire is a community interest company serving the Armed Forces bereaved. The first plan for its Bereavement Hub copied another grief site and organised everything around who the bereaved person was. I reshaped the user experience and journeys around what families actually need. I led the workshops that settled the wireframes, gave technology and architecture advice and built accessibility in from the start. I worked closely with the Andrew Simpson Foundation, who built the Hub.
What it proves. User research and journey design under emotional pressure. Reframing a product around needs rather than segments. Facilitation that gets a group to a decision. Technical advice to a delivery partner.
The AI-native story. Before any of that, I built Iris, a custom GPT that helps bereaved families make sense of their entitlements and the paperwork. It was my first AI product with real users and real consequences. Iris was also the skill that got me through the door for an enterprise AI coaching engagement afterwards.
International Women’s Club
Member of the board
What I did. I helped run the programme and events for more than 250 women from NATO and partner nations, all of them far from home. Its signature lunch brings 28 nations together at one event.
What it proves. Value-proposition design for a diverse membership. Programme planning, governance and public speaking. Leading volunteers, where nobody has to do what you say.
Recruit for Spouses
Volunteer coach and community champion
What I did. As an ICF-trained coach, I coach forces partners who are rebuilding careers around the posting cycle. I’ve done it myself, so I know what the gaps on a CV feel like.
What it proves. Coaching and mentoring. Helping people see their own evidence and tell their story.
The AI-native story. I built New Leaf, a free vibe-coaching tool for squiggly careers. You lay out the chapters of your working life, including moves, caring and volunteering, and an AI coach helps you turn them into a professional summary and narrative. Nothing leaves your device. I designed it, built it and shipped it myself.
Remembrance and the Anniversary Seasons
Arnhem 1944 Foundation member, planning and communications
What I did. I was part of the planning and communications for the 80th anniversary of Arnhem, the Army’s 250th, America’s 250th and the 25th anniversary of 9/11 across the Benelux communities.
What it proves. Delivering to fixed, immovable dates. Working across organisations with different cultures and chains of command.
For the Product Community
Women in Product UK
Founding member and community mentor
What I did. I mentor product people early and mid-career and helped shape a community that didn’t exist when I needed it.
What it proves. Mentoring and community building.
BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
Fellow and elected member of Council
What I did. I was elected to Council in 2023 and sit on the IT Leaders Forum.
What it proves. Governance and representing the profession at board level.
The Job Hackers and Mind the Product
Trainer, mentor and Leadership Forum volunteer
What I did. I teach product management and product accounting free to people retraining into tech. I also volunteer on the team behind the Mind the Product Leadership Forum.
What it proves. Teaching and curriculum design. Building a room where senior people speak candidly.
Open Source and Peer Review
Free tools, an AI skills pack and book reviews
What I did. I review and edit books in the profession. I also publish free templates, health checks and a pack of six product leadership skills that anyone can install into their own AI agent.
What it proves. Codifying a method so other people can use it without me in the room.
The AI-native story. Packaging my own methods as agent skills is a very AI-native thing to do. It means my thinking can work inside someone else’s tools.
The Skills I’m Taking Back to Work
| Skill | Where I can show it |
|---|---|
| Need-led product and journey design | Beyond the Wire Bereavement Hub |
| Shipping AI products to real users | Iris, New Leaf, the Product Field Kit’s free AI coach |
| Stakeholder strategy and communications | U.S. Army Garrison Benelux, America 250 |
| Data to decision, told well | The $39M savings story on army.mil |
| Facilitation and workshops | Beyond the Wire, the club board, Leadership Forum |
| Coaching and mentoring | Recruit for Spouses, Women in Product UK, The Job Hackers |
| Governance | BCS Council, the club board |
| Hands-on technical fluency | This website, my GitHub and the tools on it |
Becoming AI Native, Properly
I started my career as a developer. Twenty years of leading product functions had thinned my hands-on fluency, and the technology hadn’t waited for me. So I used this time to earn it back.
The path ran from a custom GPT for one charity to an enterprise AI engagement and then to building in code. I rebuilt my tools as working software and shipped this website with an AI collaborator. I built New Leaf, the Product Field Kit and a product sense coach that anyone can try for free. Alongside that I added Google certificates in cybersecurity and data analytics, finished my MBA at Edinburgh Napier and took the Oxford Saïd AI Programme.
That’s what I mean by AI native. It isn’t a line on a CV. It’s a habit of building, testing and shipping with AI, then owning the judgement that AI can’t supply.
If You’re a Military Spouse Doing the Same
Your volunteering is evidence. Treat it that way.
- Write down the problem, not just the role. “Board member” says little. “Planned a year of events for an international membership of 200” says a lot more.
- Name the skill it proves. Use the words hiring managers type into search.
- Keep the receipts. Bylines, links, photos and thank-you notes all count.
- Build one small thing with AI. A custom GPT that answers a real question for your community is a better story than any course certificate.
If you want help putting your own chapters into words, New Leaf is free and private. If you’d like to talk it through, my coaching page has the details.