Last October, Prince Harry traveled to Lesotho and South Africa to visit with his close friends and do some work and appearances around Sentebale. One of those events was the “Sentebale Gathers Innovative Funders & Business Leaders” discussion at the Saxon Hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa on October 3rd. Harry wore a nice suit and he glad-handed all of the business leaders and there were lots of lovely photos. Sentebale’s chairwoman Sophie Chandauka was there, as was a Google executive and Olivela CEO Stacey Boyd. Iain Rawlinson was also there. He flew to Johannesburg to attend a Sentebale panel discussion. Rawlinson is best known, in royal circles, as a longtime ally to Prince William. Rawlinson was chairman of the Tusk Trust for many years, and he’s still on Tusk’s advisory committee. Why was he sniffing around a Sentebale event last October? And why was Rawlinson one of the first people Chandauka appointed as a new trustee once every one of the old Sentebale trustees resigned in protest of her?
Prince William’s close aide Iain Rawlinson has been hired as a new trustee of Sentebale – just days after Prince Harry dramatically quit. The Duke of Sussex, 40, quit the charity he founded nearly 20 years ago last week in a shock move.
Since then, chair Sophie Chandauka, a Zimbabwe-born lawyer, has said there was ‘cover up’ going at the charity, blasting ‘weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, and misogynoir [discrimination against black women]’.
She has also accused Harry of ‘harassment and bullying at scale’ and called the Sussex brand pushed by the Duke and his wife Meghan Markle ‘toxic’. A source close to the former trustees of the Sentebale charity described the bullying claim as ‘completely baseless’.
According to Companies House, Iain Rawlinson was appointed as a trustee of the charity on March 25 – the same day it was announced that Prince Harry was stepping down.
He is also listed as a trustee on the Sentebale website, where he is described as an ‘experienced Chair, Board Director, Charity Trustee and Strategy Advisor’.
Rawlinson is also a known ally of the Prince of Wales, and served as chair of his Tusk Trust from 2002 to 2013, and chair of the development board until 2021. He is still an active volunteer at the wildlife conservation charity, according to his LinkedIn.
The financier has been advising Chandauka following the rift, telling the Financial Times that certain trustees had attempted to ‘destabilise and remove’ Sophie from her position as chair.
I know most of this stuff about Rawlinson was already in the Financial Times piece I covered over the weekend, but I just want it underlined for everyone to see. Rawlinson was sniffing around Sentebale back in October of last year. Maybe he already knew Chandauka, maybe she was the one who invited him, we just don’t know. But it’s suspicious as hell that Rawlinson was immediately appointed as a trustee on the very same day that Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso resigned from the charity they started in their mothers’ honor. Instead of positioning this as “Harry is broken-hearted that William’s close ally is now part of Sentebale,” perhaps people could acknowledge that it’s absolutely bonkers that William is making these kinds of moves against a charity Harry founded nearly 20 years ago? Perhaps someone could ask what Chandauka has been promised by William and his allies in exchange for this completely despicable episode?
Photos courtesy of Getty.