Prince Harry set to back online degrees in life coaching despite his own scholastic shortcomings… after he was made platform’s ‘chief impact officer’, writes RICHARD EDEN
Academic success has not been a strong suit for Prince Harry, who struggled at Eton College. He left with a D in A-level geography and a B in art, skipping university and going straight to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as an officer cadet.
It is a choice he says he has never regretted.
But despite his academic shortcomings, I can say that the Duke of Sussex is an important part of a team that wants to set up his own ‘life-coaching’ university.
Harry is the third man at the American coaching platform BetterUp and was appointed ‘chief impact officer’ of the company in March 2021. He reportedly earned more than 1 million dollars for this. He will focus on ‘preventive mental fitness’.
The Silicon Valley-based mental health company sells its mentoring and counseling packages to companies around the world, offering the ability to book time with the company’s experts.
Prince Harry is helping a team set up an online ‘life-coaching’ university
The Duke of Sussex (right) has plans to set up an academic institution called BetterUp University, which will offer online degrees in life coaching
Prince Harry marches during the Sovereign’s Parade in February 2007
But now I hear that the company has plans to set up an academic institution called BetterUp University, which will offer online life coaching degrees.
In recently filed documents, the San Francisco company filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register its idea for BetterUp University.
The application states that the university will provide “online educational forums in the areas of life coaching, professional coaching, personal development coaching, and career development coaching.”
Although the prince stated that he wanted to “create an impact in people’s lives” through his role at the coaching firm, he was criticised for not appearing in one of its free online livestreams during a summit in San Francisco in April.
Prince Harry greets his father and then the Prince of Wales as he leaves Sandhurst Royal Military Academy in 2007, marking the completion of his training
Army officer cadets for the Old College, Sandhurst. The Prince left Eton with a D in A-level geography and a B in art, skipping university to go straight to the Royal Military Academy
Instead, he turned up at a session called Beyond Burnout: Transforming C-Level Stress into Strength, for which tickets cost £1,200.
It’s apparently a subject the Duke can relate to. In a BetterUp interview two years ago, he admitted to suffering from “burnout” and feeling “completely done with everything I had.”
Meanwhile, the 39-year-old duke has spoken candidly on television and in his 2023 memoir Spare about his “disintegrating” mental health, lamenting the lack of “support” he received from the royal family and saying he had been in therapy for four years “to heal from the past”.
Edited by Stephanie Takyi