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.
William is not subtle. I think his anger issues will bring down the monarchy. Now stories are circulating that he will remove Sussex title first thing When he’s monarch
Stories about William removing Harry’s titles have been around since 2020.
Those stories are banking on people not knowing he won’t have the power to do that. Only Parliament does, and they cannot unless they want to call into question the titles of every titled person in the UK, including the aristocracy. They don’t want to open those floodgates.
God, wouldn’t it be so awesome if William and his idiot allies DO convince parliament to open that can of worms and it leads to the end of the cult of magical blood and vaginas, then ultimately the monarchy? I would love that so much for all of them.
It really would be, the whimper it deserves. “But Meghan’s ripped jeans and bare feet!!! Don’t you people see? It all had to fall!!!”
The more you read about this unhinged woman and who she has allied herself with, the more suspicious you feel about her and her agenda against a 20 year organization that was healthy and fine until she came aboard. Harry is very observant, he probably noted this as well
I remember a previous post where someone claimed that “Chandauka is looking out for African women’s interests” etc. I laughed at this notion because in my mind, for some reason I already knew this woman was not looking out for anyone but for herself. I’ve seen many of these greedy people that claim that anything made to benefit someone in Africa automatically belongs to them because they’re Africans. So now, she ain’t looking out for African women but actually replacing Europeans with other Europeans after all? And this woman has the audacity to drag Prince Harry and tell us how toxic his brand is, how he is averse to seeing Africans in charge of Sentebale wah wha wah!!! These folks are all shameless., I’m so disgusted🤢🤢🤢.
I’m pretty sure I read that one of the trustees that resigned was a woman from Lesotho. So that argument just doesn’t work.
This argument also fails because, in making it, this woman is overlooking the other prince from Africa and co-founder of Sentebale. It just won’t wash.
Another trustee was Dr. Kelello Lerotholi. Public health specialist, does work around mother-child transmission of HIV. Prince Seeiso’s cousin, so also African.
Weird that out of this flurry of PR activity by Chanfakery, we haven’t seen any pix of her with children. Isn’t Sentebale about the children, even if it’s pivoted to climate and wealth for kids? Maybe she hasn’t had time to create historical pix of her with kids to show off her ‘brand’ because she’s been too busy doctoring meeting minutes to create proof of timely bullying claims. Or maybe she’s been busy helping people in Zimbabwe, right?
Was it Iain Rawlinson who gave her the idea to doctor meeting minutes to cover up false charges of bullying? When she says Harry is “toxic at scale,” what does it even mean? If someone is “toxic at scale” and you have a great relationship with that person, what does it say about you?
The chairwoman and the leftovers fingerprints are all over this nasty power grab!! I hope they fail miserably like they always do when it comes to trying to ruin Harry. It says a lot when both co-founders and all of the board of trustees leave together. The big picture is the children who benefited from this charity are the real losers in this power grab but when do the leftovers ever look at the big picture.
Pegs co v e t s harry s charities instead of doing any real work himself.
William’s colonizer mentality.
You’d think two family members with cancer and a whole Earthflop initiative to guide would be enough for anyone to handle. But Peg’s quite the overachiever. He’s got time for ridiculous vendettas that only expose how empty he is inside.
I suspect he was behind the scenes this whole time because she didn’t know what she was doing.
Yeah, I don’t know that I think this started as a huge conspiracy. But as she floundered in her position, she was ripe to be manipulated by someone like Rawlinson and took the bait to save face and has just gone full deranger. Otherwise it would mean she went into the position secretly wanting to tank it, which is possible…but she is so defensive and on the attack that it feels like her ego was bruised.
this is how I think it played out. I don’t think this was the plan from the moment she became director and I frankly don’t think william has been planning on taking down Sentebale for the past 20 years and this is the result of a decades long master plan.
I DO think William is incredibly jealous that Harry has Sentebale and Invictus (Africa AND veterans, oh my!!!!) and when he or someone on his team saw a weakness, they sought to exploit it. I think at least from when the whole photograph thing happened last spring and Wootton jumped on that, it was a signal that William was behind the criticism.
Except they were a little too obvious about it and now Rawlinson’s name and connection to William is being mentioned a LOT.
Rawlinson, another one of the grey men who was upset Harry chose Meghan and freedom over being under his thumb.
Rawlinson’s on a massive power trip at the moment: See Harry, you thought you could get away from me BUT I AM IN CHARGE.
Doubt a lot of people will be donating to Sentebale under Rawlinson’s watch. Let’s face it, he has a track record of neocolonialist patronising parade of pale and stale charities.
He should have firmly kept in the background, like John Major. But hey, all these grey men want their day in the spotlight, this week’s his.
This guy’s a Conservative, a colonialist. It’s not like they’re known for their charitable nature or anything. It seems a really bad fit for the organization.
I think all of the beautiful pictures of Harry in Lesotho last fall just crushed Peg. The affection between Harry and the people was obvious and personal, not just photo opps like when the rest of the mafia visit Africa. It’s the result of 20 years of relationship building. So of course the Left-Behinds have to step in and destroy that. Too bad Harry doesn’t have another charity that is not registered in the UK that that bunch can’t get their paws on. A charity that could carry on the work of Sentebale instead. Oh wait….
I just found this on the interview. https://x.com/LeoMSB2023/status/1906577337350783369?t=mShfvrnSNbbSqfH9wgmcOg&s=19 How would Ian know Sophie had the board’s approval?
The Times reported Sophie was accused of tampering with Sentebale minutes.https://x.com/efamadedzi/status/1906409119839383733?t=-ZSKM21Nhz1GWe2P-cogkg&s=19. Could she have feed information to Iain? KP has an out when this falls apart, Iain canclaim she gave him false information about Sentebale. She set herself up for ruin.
Oooooh that’s a big one. A Chairperson TAMPERING with the minutes?
Ok Charities Commission I still haven’t seen a formal media release of your investigation but this is a big no-no in record keeping. It is your duty to remind ALL Chairs of charities NOT to do this.
Sentebale let a snake in to their home. This is all William’s doing. Well, he always said “Africa is mine” and now he’s getting what he wants. May he, Rawlinson and that chairwoman burn in hell!
PROTECT INVICTUS AT ALL COSTS!
With the comments by derangers there is talk of Mike Tindall or Beckham taking over (Will he get a title then?) I would not put this plot past Huevo
It is weird that those two names keep popping up. But truth is stranger than fiction and I’m sure Willie told them both he’ll seize Invictus and award it to them for their loyalty.
Someone posted Zara Tindall with Muso and she said she hoped to be remembered for her “loyalty.”
I keep seeing people talking about them taking Invictus but how would that play out? What power do they have to do that? It’s a completely different organization than Sentebale and has a much more massive scope.
You know, last week when the BM (which operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of the royal family) reported that “This wouldn’t have happened if Harry were still a working member of the British royal family” most people (including myself) took it to mean that they were laughably saying that Harry would have had the benefit of more professional people, like WanK had in the Caribbean DisasTour. But I’m starting to think that what the BM really meant was that “This wouldn’t have happened if Harry hadn’t left us.” In other words, another chorus of “Why did you leave us, Harry?! We’ll get you back. We’ll get even!”
Whenever I see photos of her with Harry, I get a weird feeling — like she’s trying too hard to be the center of attention and flirting with the camera, reminiscent of Katy’s vibe before Meghan.
That last photo she looks very unhappy she’s not at the centre – Google man was.
But let’s face it, Harry used his connections to bring funders to Sentebale – INCLUDING GOOGLE – and here is Sophie spending $600K on fundraising consultants 😂
What a total dumb POS.
@Blogger, I read somewhere that that particular event was organized by the expensive consultants, but did not bring in big bucks, maybe because of Trump’s election.
I agree with you. Harry already attracted much awareness and support and money for Sentebale. They did not need expensive fundraising advice for a small charity with a famous patron.
@FWIW ah, she should have been at the centre then, for her expensive $600K photo-op.
How long has Ian Rowlinson been Call me Doctor’s consigliere, since October or longer? Ian is already hugger mugger with Big Willy. Sophie ‘s choice is grandstanding provocation so very much on brand for her to flaunt royally approved Ian as her champion.
Next William or kate will be made patron. I’m betting on kate. Never work with a person who lacks shame.
She doesn’t do people with coloured skin well, that’s why she loathes Meghan 😂
I reckon Willie will hand this over to Jecca.
@blogger. Jecca was too smart to marry William. I bet she’s too smart to touch “his” charities.
Link to full interview with Call me Dr and her expert witness.
https://news.sky.com/story/prince-harry-number-one-risk-to-his-own-charity-says-chair-who-accused-him-of-bullying-and-harassment-13338522
The interviewer refers to Ian Rowlinson as trustee but doesn’t specify appointed from 25 March 2025 which seems odd as Sophie refers to him as her “witness”to presumably Board meetings ?
He might be advising her longer than his official starting date. It started to look like this woman was the trojan horse of the palace. Maybe, even leaking info to them about Harry’s activities.
Looks like Rawlinson was one of the consultants contributing to the alleged costs of $600k in consulting fees. In his interview with Sky News alongside Chandauka he was titled “Trustee & Consultant to Sentebale” in the name tag.
There is another Foto of Rawlinson at the event in Johannesburg last October, see here
https://x.com/WhitestPrincess/status/1905834690549854368
Hmmm. So he was getting paid. As a consultant. Lordy.
@Jais
The consulting fees for sure are worth a question that Rawlinson specifically should have been asked in the interview with Sky News. I find it odd that no introduction was given for Rawlinson in that interview. Since it was prerecorded there is always the possibility that parts have been edited out.
Willy’s played the long game with Sentabale, or at least his people have. I can’t quite buy that this woman just miraculously fell into their lap. This might take a while to get sorted and unfortunately Sentabale could be damaged beyond repair in the meantime. Harry appears to have faith in institutions and agencies to do things and I hope the Charity Commission is one that will sort things out in his and Prince Seesio’s favour. I can’t imagine how painful seeing your work of 20 years carrying on your mother’s legacy get destroyed is. And Harry of course getting dragged for Willy’s amusement.
Why was she ever hired in the first place? Is it because she’s a woman and they needed those optics?
Yeah, women only get hired because of their gender🙄 It isn’t H&M accused of discriminatory employment practices before, it is BRF.
She has a good CV and worked on the board before. It is not surprising they thought she could be a good leader if she was competent as a board member. It is also obvious that she failed the charity with some consultations from other actors like Will’s palls. She probably achieved what she was asked for by the palace.
what kind of question is that? As if they don’t have other women in leadership positions working for them? What is wrong with you?