Pitch@Palace, 2014–2025
His post-envoy purpose: bringing startup founders to St James's Palace to pitch the investors of Britain. It lasted five good years — and eleven bad days in November 2019.
Reported
What it was
Founded in 2014, Pitch@Palace invited entrepreneurs selected for its Bootcamp to St James’s Palace to pitch their business ideas to potential investors, mentors and business contacts. The format expanded internationally — in May 2018 Andrew opened Pitch@Palace China Bootcamp 2.0 at Peking University. Admirers described him as direct, energetic and genuinely engaged with young founders; one biographer wrote that he was “particularly passionate when dealing with young start-up entrepreneurs.”
Alongside it he established related vehicles: the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust, the Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA), the Duke of York Award for Technical Education, and the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Award.
The eleven days
The Newsnight interview aired on 16 November 2019. The institutional collapse was immediate:
- 18 November 2019: accountancy firm KPMG announced it would not renew its sponsorship of Pitch@Palace.
- 19 November 2019: Standard Chartered also withdrew its support.
- November 2019: Amanda Thirsk — Andrew’s private secretary, who had arranged the Newsnight interview — became chief executive following his withdrawal from duties. She resigned in April 2020.
- Universities moved the same month: Huddersfield’s student union lobbied for his resignation as Chancellor (he relinquished it on 21 November); London Metropolitan University reviewed his patronage.
The winding-up
- By early 2021, ownership had transferred to Knox House Trustees (UK) Limited, a company ultimately owned by Doug Barrowman.
- In 2023, ownership of that vehicle transferred to Andrew’s accountant, Arthur Lancaster.
- The UK arm had already been wound up in 2021; in November 2025, Pitch@Palace Global entered the dissolution process, initiated by its director.
Separately, in May 2020 it was reported that the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust was under Charity Commission investigation over regulatory concerns about £350,000 in payments to Amanda Thirsk — a reported matter, not a finding.
Assessment
Pitch@Palace is the closest thing in Andrew’s record to an unalloyed public-purpose legacy — and the clearest demonstration of how completely the Epstein association consumed everything attached to his name. Nothing about the initiative’s operations was found improper in public reporting; its sponsors fled the association, not the accounts. Whether it could have survived under different leadership is unknowable; what is documented is that the brand was inseparable from its founder, and the founder had become untouchable.
Source notes
- Founding (2014), St James’s Palace format, Peking University Bootcamp 2.0 (May 2018): contemporary reporting and initiative announcements.
- KPMG (18 Nov 2019) and Standard Chartered (19 Nov 2019) withdrawals: contemporary business reporting.
- Thirsk’s appointment and April 2020 resignation; Knox House Trustees/Barrowman (early 2021); Lancaster (2023); UK winding-up (2021); global dissolution (November 2025): corporate and press reporting.
- Charitable Trust/Charity Commission matter (May 2020): reported; no finding stated here.
- The “passionate with entrepreneurs” characterization: biographer Robert Jobson’s account, as cited in reporting.