EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: William and Kate show they mean business by hiring a CEO to run their household of 60 staff
Prince William and Kate show they mean business by hiring all-powerful CEO in ‘revolutionary’ move that has ‘set the cat among the pigeons’ at the royal palaces
Prince William and Catherine may not yet be our king and queen, but they are already making clear that they plan to do things very differently from their predecessors.
I can disclose that the couple are creating a new role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to run their household of about 60 staff. The new boss will report directly to them and won’t answer to the private secretaries who have long held power behind the scenes at the palaces.
‘This is a revolutionary move,’ a source tells me, a little excitedly. ‘They are overthrowing the traditional, hierarchical structure in which staff answer to private secretaries. It has really set the cat among the pigeons. Will the King and Queen have to follow their lead?’
Kensington Palace has already hired a high-powered recruitment firm, Odgers Berndtson, to find the best candidate. It has placed an advertisement online which stresses the unprecedented nature of the position.
Prince William and Kate show they mean business by hiring all-powerful CEO in ‘revolutionary’ move that has ‘set the cat among the pigeons’ at the royal palaces
‘This is a unique opportunity,’ it says. ‘The CEO is the most senior and accountable leader for the Household, reporting directly to TRHs The Prince and Princess of Wales. They will be responsible for the development and implementation of TRH’s long-term strategy and continuing to strengthen a professional and collaborative Household culture.’
In an apparent admission that there are some strong-willed, difficult characters are the palace, the job description states that the successful candidate must be ’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’, it says.
The CEO will deal directly with King Charles and Queen Camilla’s household, ‘serving as the strategic interface to Buckingham Palace, to align The Royal Highnesses’ priorities with those in support of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen’.
No salary is given, but it is understood that the CEO will be paid more than the couple’s private secretaries.
While William and his brother, the Duke of Sussex, don’t see eye to eye on much these days, they appear to share their mother’s suspicion of the ‘men in grey’, as Princess Diana called courtiers.
In his memoirs, Spare, Prince Harry nicknamed the three top palace advisers The Bee, The Fly, and The Wasp. The trio are believed to be the private secretaries of the senior royals at the time; respectively, Edward Young, who acted for the Queen, Simon Case, who worked for Prince William, and Clive Alderton for the then Prince Charles.
Harry wrote: ‘I’d spent my life dealing with courtiers, scores of them. But now I dealt mostly with just three, all middle-aged white men who’d managed to consolidate power through a series of bold Machiavellian manoeuvres.
The CEO will deal directly with King Charles and Queen Camilla’s household, ‘serving as the strategic interface to Buckingham Palace
‘They had normal names… but they sort more easily into zoological categories. The Bee, The Fly and the Wasp. The Bee was oval-faced and fuzzy and tended to glide around with great equanimity and poise, as if he was a boon to all living things.’
The Fly had ‘spent much of his career adjacent to and, indeed drawn to, s***. The offal of government and media and wormy entrails, he loved it, grew fat on it, rubbed his hands in glee over it.’
Harry said of The Wasp: ‘Because he seemed so weedy, so self-effacing, you might be tempted to push back, insist on your point, and that was when he’d put you on his list.
‘A short time later, without warning, he’d give you such a stab with his outsized stinger that you’d cry in confusion. Where the f*** did that come from?’
A Kensington Palace spokesman tells me: ‘We don’t comment on staffing matters.’
Gordon Ramsay likes nothing better than dishing out criticism — but admits he hates serving fellow cooks at his eateries. ‘The chefs are the worst when they come into the restaurant,’ the potty-mouthed Glaswegian, 56, wails.
‘They sit there, they look at the food, they analyse it, they look at what’s on the plate, who made that.’
The television chef then adds: ‘And then, if it’s ice cold, they send it back to be reheated.’
Gordon Ramsay, 56 likes nothing better than dishing out criticism — but admits he hates serving fellow cooks at his eateries
How Jeremy Clarkson made the Duchess of Edinburgh laugh with rude joke
When the Duchess of Edinburgh visited the Cornbury House Horse Trials in Oxfordshire, she stopped at a stall run by Diddly Squat, Clarkson’s nearby farm
Jeremy Clarkson failed to amuse the Duchess of Sussex when he wrote a notorious article for The Sun last year, pointing out that he hated her on ‘a cellular level’ and adding that he wanted to see Meghan paraded through the streets, naked, while people threw excrement at her.
The motormouth has, however, left another royal duchess tickled.
When the Duchess of Edinburgh visited the Cornbury House Horse Trials in Oxfordshire, she stopped at a stall run by Diddly Squat, Clarkson’s nearby farm.
And Sophie appeared to be highly amused by the selection of candles for sale, which had labels saying, ‘This smells like my bo*****s’.
The £22.50 gifts were Clarkson’s tongue-in-cheek rival to the candle range for Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop which included one titled: ‘This smells like my vagina’.
Highlighting the royal interest, a Diddly Squat spokesman says: ‘Our candle is literally the perfect gift to bring a smile to absolutely everyone.’
Making a fortune is a long and winding road for The Beatles, whose last new album was released 53 years ago.
I can reveal that the two surviving members of the Fab Four, Sir Paul McCartney, 81, and Sir Ringo Starr, 83, as well as the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison, have been paid £8.4 million each.
Newly published accounts for the band’s company, Apple Corps, report pay comprising £4.25 million ‘payable to beneficial shareholders’. Plus £4.2 million in dividend pay in the year to January. All you need is love… and money.
Newly published accounts for the band’s company, Apple Corps, report pay comprising £4.25 million ‘payable to beneficial shareholders’
When Princess Martha Louise of Norway, who was once tipped as a bride for Prince Edward, announced last summer that she was engaged to Durek Verrett, a Shaman known as Hollywood’s hottest guru, many believed that they would never make it down the aisle.
Now, he and the princess, 51, have silenced the doubters by setting a date and venue for their wedding, which will be in a hotel in Norway next August. Verrett, 48, a self-styled ‘global ambassador of love’ who boasts of contact with aliens, wore a pink coat and a chunky gold necklace for this official portrait
Durek Verrett, 48, a Shaman known as Hollywood’s hottest guru and the princess, 51, have silenced the doubters by setting a date and venue for their wedding
Lord Moyne’s son and heir, Valentine Guinness, joined Lord and Lady Lilley and others at the launch party for Sing As We Go, Simon Heffer’s masterful portrayal of political, social and cultural upheaval between the wars.
They were treated to a rendition of the song of the same title by mezzo soprano Emily Gray. But Peter Lilley seemed to have The Star-Spangled Banner playing in his head, as he mused on the political future of New York-born Boris Johnson.
‘He should run for president in the US,’ former cabinet minister Lilley tells me. ‘He’s Trump without being evil, so he’d get the Trumpites and some of the independent vote.’
Source: Read Full Article