Well well. Several weeks ago, Kensington Palace staffers “excitedly” briefed Richard Eden at the Daily Mail about Prince William’s “revolutionary” plan to hire a CEO. William must have written the job description himself, and he’s seeking someone who is “emotionally intelligent, with ‘low ego’, and strong self-awareness and understanding of their impact on others. Anyone wanting the job must be ‘able to operate as a ‘servant’ leader, empowering the senior team.” The idea behind the move was that William wants to be just like his brother and operate like an American. William’s abject laziness is behind this too – normally, the principal royals are the “chief executives” of their households/offices, with their private secretaries acting as de facto chiefs-of-staff. William’s big idea was to have a CEO report directly to him.
So, this news comes as no surprise. From Roya Nikkhah at the Times: “William’s private secretary quits.” Hilariously, the Times didn’t even put this article online, it was only published in the print edition, that’s how much Kensington Palace wants it buried. Roya posted a screenshot on her Twitter with the news about Jean-Christophe Gray quitting, plus she added that a new COO has been hired: Sean Carney, who used to work at Telemos Capital.
The Prince of Wales and his private secretary are to part company as Prince William restructures his household with a new chief executive. Jean-Christophe Gray, a leading civil servant who previously worked as David Cameron’s spokesman, joined Kensington Palace in February 2021 to lead the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s team.
Known as “JC,” he is widely respected in royal circles and as William’s closest aide had been integral in his transition to Prince of Wales, advising on his key “legacy” projects, including the Earthshot environmental prize and his Homewards initiative to end homelessness.
Gray, 47, is on secondment from Whitehall and will leave the palace in the spring. Royal sources said it had always been his intention to return to government, but last month it emerged that William and Kate, both 41, were recruiting a chief executive to lead their household who will report directly to them, rather than their private secretaries.
Previously, William’s private secretary was the most senior member of the team. A source said: “Having a CEO placed above you isn’t an optimal job scenario if you are JC and your title is no longer head of the household.”
Kensington Palace said: “We do not comment on staffing matters.”
[From The Times, print edition]
Oh, suddenly “We do not comment on staffing matters” huh. In September, William couldn’t brief the media fast enough about his staffing matters when it came to his big, keen plans to hire a Top CEO! They talk about staffing matters all the time when it suits them, especially when we have to hear endlessly about how the Duchess of Sussex “bullied” staffers by existing as a Black woman. Anyway, more staffing issues at Kensington Palace. William and Kate can’t keep staff – all of their senior staff leave in droves as soon as they realize that Will and Kate are deeply weird, lazy and unserious people. Notably – and I can’t believe this isn’t a bigger conversation – Kate has been without a private secretary for more than a year. And now William’s losing his private secretary too, all because he’s desperate to copy Harry. I wonder what “JC” thought about all the big New York flop trip, or the Boston flop trip, or the Caribbean flop trip. I wonder what JC thinks about William’s violence and William’s obsession with all things Harry and all things America.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- The Prince of Wales meeting refugee Mehrshad Esfandiari from Iran and Aiden Bryne manager of Hosford services (left) during a visit to the East Belfast Mission at the Skainos Centre, Belfast, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Picture date: Tuesday June 27, 2023. . William has set his sights on making rough sleeping, sofa surfing and other forms of temporary accommodation a thing of the past with his initiative called Homewards. The five-year project will initially focus on six locations, to be announced during Monday and Tuesday, where local businesses, organisations and individuals will be encouraged to join forces and develop “bespoke” action plans to tackle homelessness with up to Ł500,000 in funding. Homeless. NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS,Image: 785623491, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- Aberdeen, UK, 27 June 2023: The Prince of Wales during a visit to Tillydrone Community Campus, Aberdeen, to spotlight how co-located and joined up community support services can improve early intervention and prevent homelessness, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Prince of Wales has set his sights on making rough sleeping, sofa surfing and other forms of temporary accommodation a thing of the past with his initiative called Homewards. The five-year project will initially focus on six locations, to be announced during Monday and Tuesday, where local businesses, organisations and individuals will be encouraged to join forces and develop “bespoke” action plans to tackle homelessness with up to Ł500,000 in funding. *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS ***,Image: 785635040, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Euan Duff / Avalon
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- The Prince of Wales speaks with members during a visit to Mosaic Clubhouse in Lambeth, London, which supports people living with mental health conditions across Lambeth, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 26 Jun 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Faithworks Carpentry Workshop in Bournemouth, Dorset, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Bournemouth, United Kingdom When: 26 Jun 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Faithworks Carpentry Workshop in Bournemouth, Dorset, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Bournemouth, United Kingdom When: 26 Jun 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales with Grainia Long, Chief Executive at Northern Ireland Housing Executive, during a visit to the East Belfast Mission at the Skainos Centre, Belfast, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Belfast, United Kingdom When: 27 Jun 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Tillydrone Community Campus, Aberdeen, to spotlight how co-located and joined up community support services can improve early intervention and prevent homelessness, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Picture date: Tuesday June 27, 2023. Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Aberdeen, United Kingdom When: 27 Jun 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to a Pret A Manger store in Bournemouth, Dorset, to meet with national and local businesses pledging their support to the Prince’s Homewards project in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Featuring: Prince William Where: Bournemouth, United Kingdom When: 07 Sep 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
It just struck me for the first time that the job description is basically describing Harry!
Exactly, bar doing the dog body appearances Willie doesn’t want to do.
That is an excellent observation! As everyone (who has actually worked) knows, when you can’t hire in-house, you farm it out and that appears to be exactly what William has done…
You’re right it does describe Harry. They should have just posted we are looking for a scapegoat to blame for all the things Peg does wrong.
Servant leader?can British person explain that one? It sounds so, well, , servile
@Isabella, President Biden is a servant leader. M&H are servant leaders. Basically it means that the goal of the leader is to serve. It’s what W&K SHOULD be doing but are too self serving to actually do it.
Kate’s “Ball-busting private secretary” that quit before she actually started was supposed to be a Meghan clone by the description.
To me all of this just reads…
JC got to a point where he had to tell Willy some home truths about his ‘competing with Harry’ endeavours and is now being replaced by someone who will continue to humour the incandescent Prince’s foibles.
My understanding of British royal employment is entirely dependent on a casual Crown watch, but I genuinely thought these roles were supposed to be for a lifetime unless you did something illegal/publicly embarrassing?
Can any Brits expand? The US has a move jobs every 18 or so months to get promoted ethos. Are people working with them for a few years just to get that role on a resume? Is it like doing a stint at the State Department to bulk out a resume for private companies?
I obviously cant speak to British work ideas in general, but yes, for the royals, these types of positions are meant to be long term. The fact that this guy was hired in 2021 and is leaving 2.5 years later is significant IMO.
Don’t they commonly pay terribly? Like £20k per year?
There will be others far better informed on this than me (all I can claim is the British part) but my understanding is that you absolutely go here to get it on your resume and while there most of them don’t do much of anything. They employ posh people who don’t need to work and Tories who come over from government/the civil service for a bit to keep the royals on message.
You don’t go there to achieve anything of significance.
Which isn’t to say they don’t usually stay longer than this!
Neither the Queen or Charles lost staff at such a rate. They tend to stay for a long time.
William is the issue here and they don’t want to admit it.
Sorry no @Carobell the US does not have an 18-month work ethos for promotions. Certain slices of the IT sector are ok with those hops–for a little while. But for the rest of the workforce you have to stick around a lot longer to get promoted. In most of the country no one who has been on the job for 18 months or less is put in charge of the budget, leads a project team, hires and fires, collaborates with investors, gets the grant/plum assignment, or advances vertically. We no longer have the security to work for the same company for 30 years, but all that jumping around gets you is a temporary salary increase and a different cubicle. It is still about who you know and who knows you.That takes longer than 18 months.
Instead of streaming working versus non working “royal” they should’ve streamlined all these highly paid posts. There should be one office for all the so called “royal” households, who directly report to a government department, properly audited and answerable to the public, and the “royals” should all be singing for their supper. There should be the crown and the heir, cut all the surplus dredge off, get rid of bread and butter and only should be there for constitutional purposes. If only!
I agree with everything you said. Even the so-called bread-and-butter engagements are totally useless and are only there to provide them with opportunities to appear in public. Actually raising funds and handing them out would be great, but they don’t want to do that. Their appearances and busywork make zero charitable impact. Besides the monarch and the heir, everyone should just get a job. It would be manageable, even with their celebrity status, which could be dialed down significantly, if they tried.
I always think it’s too funny that someone like JCG worked for the Cambridge-Wailses at all.
From his Wiki:
According to The Times, “Jean-Christophe Gray has a reputation as Whitehall’s most assiduous bean counter”.
I mean, we all know how many millions these two spend like there’s no tomorrow – on bots, wigs, buttons, and a staff of 60 for the laziest welfare royals that ever listened and learned – and trying in vain to keep up with the D&D of Success.
a staff of 60?? Does that include household staff at the various homes, nannies, gardeners etc?
I honestly don’t know.
But the way it’s always been reported it appeared to me as if this is just the KP offices part of Prince Incandescent and Princess Dolittle.
I mean, one doesn’t need a CEO to co-ordinate the work of nannies, cooks, or heli pilots.
He’s only been there 2.5 years and he’s leaving?? And Kate is without a private secretary as well?
They may be trying to restructure how royal households are set up but the palaces are not known for being flexible and moving with the times soooo…..could get interesting 🤷♀️🤷♀️
I wonder if Chucky gave Bride of Chucky carte blanche to meddle not only with BP staff but also KP staff?
But but but I thought Kate was the Top CEO?! Surely Will could just hire her to run the household?? A wiglet for every footman!
Duchess of Sussex “bullied” staffers by existing as a black woman. I was gobsmacked by how accurately that sentence describes that situation.
Even more accurately, Duchess of Sussex “bullied” staffers by being in a leadership position as a black woman. That is just not done…
Why not hire Kate? Lol
I firmly believe that BTS Jason Knauf is still William’s primary advisor. Jason served William’s ego and co-signed all his treachery.
Me too. It wouldn’t surprise me if he came back as the CEO.
I wouldn’t be surprised either, but for now I think he wants to be kept in the background. Doing dirty work is more effective when one’s lurking in the background.
I’m trying to remember. Was JCG supposed to be Knauf’s replacement or did they have different positions? Agree that William just wants to rehire Knauf in some way, beyond him just working for ES.
Believe JK was head of the Royal Foundation when he left. Don’t remember who filled the other position, except that Simon Case was there at one point, I think spent less than two years with Will before he went to his government position.
It did surprise me the Roya put her entire article on twitter. I guess she didn’t agree with the paper not putting it online. Camilla Tominey did hint in her piece about the top CEO that William’s PS was going to leave. Where are all the pieces about William and being unable to keep staff?
Wait a minute, people who subscribe to the online version of The Times don’t get the same articles as people who pay for the print version? Is that legal in this case—the only thing RN has written is that JCG is unwilling to have a CEO as his boss and will be leaving in about half a year from now. Is that something KP can have eliminated?! That sounds insane.
The PS is on secondment to KP meaning he was always going to go back to government service but what’s not clear is when was he going to leave and did William’s decision to hire a CEO make him decide to leave sooner than later.
Pegs just doesn’t get life at all. He can hire whoever he wants, but that person won’t be the Prince of Wales or the future king. He doesn’t get that he has to put in work too.
Oh dear William, how long have you searched for someone who could replace your brother?, because “low ego” is exactly what Harry has. He doesn’t care about praise or headlines (unlike you who craves both), he just cares about the causes he supports. He doesn’t go empty handed, he doesn’t stand on ceremony looking for the nearest camera, he gets stuck in from day one!
Maybe your new ceo, maybe Mr Knaph? SHOULD start with your ego, because after all, someone today is calling you out for useing New York as a back drop so that you can try and steel Harry’s thunder! People are really seeing you William, and they don’t like what they see
Mary Pester, where did you read that he’s using NY as a backdrop. It’s true, but unexpected that it’s out in the wild.
@saucy&sassy, it was daniela esler , ( I think her name is) on geo TV Saucy, try Google Prince William using new York as a back drop, should bring it up lovey
Call me naive but, why does he need a CEO? Serious question. Are they finally saying William (and his wife/children) are a business and their actions/spending/appointments will now be answerable to a Board. I honestly don’t get it. William is going to be king for goodness sake. As king will he answerable to the CEO as well as the government and the public? IMHO this new position is just a meaningless title to make William (and his wife) appear more important than they really are.
ETA: Maybe the new CEO will progress with the search for a Diversity Tzar. 😉
And why on earth does he need a CEO AND a COO? It would sort of, kind of, make sense if William announced that he was fashioning himself as a “CEO” Prince of Wales — “updating “ his role for the modern era — or some twaddle like that, while hiring a COO to do all of the scut work that he doesn’t want to do himself. I don’t get hiring for BOTH new positions, while doing … something? … himself. Is he openly admitting that he only wants to be a figurehead himself? While hiring not just one, but two proactive people to prop him up?
The job announcement–which anyone can find online–actually says they’re hiring a COO & that that person will report to the Principal Private Secretary of W&K. It’s just been wrongly reported from the get-go.
It’s what someone who has never held an actual job might suggest in an effort to “modernize” – a new layer of bureaucracy!
I could understand the king hiring someone whose job it is to oversee all of the royal households, making sure to manage the different senior royals and coordinating events between them all. But William? What does he need to coordinate? It’s just him and Kate, and between them they have quite low engagement numbers. Unless…the CEO’S purpose is to manage the Wales’ schedules so they don’t have to communicate with each other directly?
Methinks after Harry exposed the high-minded behavior of these private secretaries/courtiers as “the bee, the fly, and the wasp” who were undermining him & Meghan, Willy is now trying to shake things up a bit by re-branding his staff. Not sure it will make a difference though.
Does anyone else feel like a mid life crisis implosion is looming?
Royal sources said it had always been Gray’s “intention to return to government.”
Because working for the monarchy isn’t real governance, clearly. It’s just pretend-power. Cosplaying leadership.
His jealousy of Harry prevents Will from seeing how ridiculous he looks trying to “win”.
“William’s abject laziness is behind this too – normally, the principal royals are the “chief executives” of their households/offices, with their private secretaries acting as de facto chiefs-of-staff. William’s big idea was to have a CEO report directly to him.”
Not sure if this is my own obtuse day, but don’t their private secretaries report directly to their principle (ie: to William himself)? What’s different from their de facto Chief of Staffs reporting to them and a CEO reporting to him?
I do not understand. Who did Jean-Christophe Gray report to? Help! I need help to understand this!
It’s a good question. It’s pretty clear JCG is leaving bc he doesn’t want to report to the CEO. Whoever that may end up being. Did William know that putting out an ad for a CEO would lead to JCG leaving? Either he did in some Machiavellian maneuver. Or in a passive-aggressive maneuver. Or he didn’t naively/unintelligently realize?
I blame QE2 for creating this mess. If she hadn’t been a emotionally stunted, jealous and small minded she might have raised Charles better and allowed him to be King years ago giving William a fast track to the Wales title. But all it created was a this mess. Charles was not fit because he was not raised or allowed to be fit just like QE2 wanted it and that woman knew it and why I think he was so taken by Camilla a “nurturing mother figure” *gross. Charles trusts who he feels good with and I think it comes from being neglected. Then Charles turned and did the same to William. Now William wants a “shadow” King/CEO to make sure Will looks good and is expected to take credit for it. I think Will is starting to realize he cant generate that fandom that Harry can and that is why Harry is so hated by William. Will really thought Harry was going to do all the work and he would get the credit and that is how Harry was groomed into thinking it was for the Crown. Which is true because C& W are crashing and burning without him.
Then Harry went and married for love to a gorgeous, glamorous and dynamic woman and had KIDS. That tip the scale to Will. Also why I think he went back to blaming Kate for being so effing dumb, dull and weird. Even thought that is what he wanted from Kate. Nothing was expected of her from Will until Meg came around and nothing was expected from Charles from Will until Harry met Meg. I think he wanted to give Will the title earlier when Harry married and have Meg and Harry take over the Prince’s trust and give them a manor. This is when all hell broke lose and William lost the plot that this was a good thing for him too. Exiled Harry and Meg but he didn’t think it through because he forgot how he and Kate don’t know how to prince and princess in a modern world. Yikes all of it.
William can’t win for losing. It will always be this way for him because nothing he does or does not do affects his access to money, homes, women or the ultimate posh lifestyle. His screw-ups just don’t matter because he will always be king. This is the opposite of a meritocracy. Fuck up all you want, William! You have and will until you die.
It does matter because we live in modern times and royalty and royal families are trying to modernize to survive all over Europe. All but one Salty Island that still thinks exile and publicly abusing other royals is going to somehow not give more fuel to the idea of a republic. Spain’s former King felt QE2 was making a huge mistake by not stepping down and allowing Charles’ to rule earlier and while she can still counsel him. To give both their houses a chance to survive the backlash royals are getting when their countries economies are in a free fall. But Petty Betty wouldn’t give up her hat. Will might get his special hat day too but I don’t think Charles will leave a great moment for him. Charles is allowing Cam to ransack the Windsors and I don’t think George will be crowned at all.