A couple of years ago, I was briefly involved with Pitch@Palace – Prince Andrew’s initiative to link up fledgeling businesses with investors. On Friday, the Duke of York quit the project following a wave of criticism surrounding his connection to Jeffrey Epstein. But from what I saw of the scheme, the Prince has more questions to answer than just those arising from their friendship. Pitch@Palace appears to have been a vehicle for Prince Andrew to enrich himself at the cost of the hardworking entrepreneurs he claimed to be helping.
In 2014, I was invited to a networking reception at Buckingham Palace. The event was part of the Digital Nations initiative, an international network of governments looking to use new technologies. To this day I have no idea why I was invited. I’ve built and sold quite a few technology firms over the past two decades but this was completely out of the blue.
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