I wrote in my St. Valentine's Day article that people — whether princess material to next-in-lines for the throne or next-in-line at the checkout counter — should settle down to married life only when their CVs are ready.
In this article I examine what extra training and skill should the next-in-line royals possess before they walk down the aisle?
The answer is that it's not much different from potential high-flyers, captains of industry, and Masters of the Universe throughout the world.
But when you take into consideration that theirs is family business, we direct our focus to the best practices of succession planning for family-owned-and–run enterprises, whether royal or regional or multinational.
Ladies, if you want to avoid what happened to Kate Middleton, here's a word of advice to all potential royal Walkers: Don’t be a clinging vine, do your bit and realize that your swain is doing his or her best for the country.
Those best prepared to take over the family business
grasp two important realities: their place both in the enterprise and
in an evolving world.
I will examine where Prince William is in this
discourse and look at his other counterparts.
If you want the Family Firm to be steered in the right direction with the right skills, the education of those next-in-line are best served through the 4 Wells:
1. WELL TRAVELLED:
Get outside the comfort zone of your own country to meet all social classes and incomes and diversity of people – in business, we call it networking. Could the sulphurous Mabel Wisse Smit be effective in her work with the Soros Foundation and at Davos without a full addressbook, now that she is Princess Mabel?
For the Wales boys, I say it is time for them to meet their foreign relatives. What good does it do for the Windsors to send Prince Edward and Sophie to royal weddings and anniversaries? He is already married, so send the next generation. William & Harry, Beatrice & Eugenie...
Unfortunately the last significant European royal event William attended was the baptism of the first son of Crown Prince Pavlos of the Hellenes and his heiress wife, the former Marie Chantal Miller. And that was because young Prince Constantine's ceremony took place in the London Orthodox cathedral!
The Wales boys need to get out of the country and meet the relatives in Europe and elsewhere.
An integral part of seeing the World is to gain solid real-world business experience abroad, not just a gap-year.
William and Harry would do well to intern in Tokyo, Hong Kong or New York — significant capitals of commerce and finance and politics. These should be serious jobs, not like the shrunken holiday course Prince William took at HSBC nor shore leave with the UK army.
The road has been well-travelled with Crown Princess Viktoria of Sweden interning at the UN in New York and Prince Joachim worked with Daersk. (After my own French studies at the Universite Catholique de l’Ouest in Angers, Princess Viktoria later went there. Our experiences differed – whereas I ate everything, she did the opposite and developed anorexia.)
Meanwhile, Louis Alfonso de Borbon duc d’Anjou works in banking with his Venezuelan father-in-law, and Richard Li, the eldest son of Hong Kong’s Li Ka-Shing, even made a bid for Air Canada when he was based in the country.
Bill Ford, who just stepped down as head of Ford Motor Company, spent time in Ford overseas. He carries the legacy of two American entrepreneurial families – the Fords and the Firestones (yes, those tires).
It was recently reported that Kate may decide to take up the offer of work with Tom Ford's fashion house in New York. It would be a natural step up to work in one of the Style Capitols of the world.
As they say in The Devil Wears Prada: "Do you know how many women would kill for this?"
