William and Kate’s ‘Bulletproof Sunshine’ hire explained

Tessa Dunlop, The Independent

While staff churn at Team Sussex delights satirists (Meghan is on her 11th publicist), there is no equivalent turnover at the House of Windsor, an institution that values discretion and is inherently cautious about hiring new blood. So, it was a surprise to many when Kensington Palace announced a significant hire for Team Wales for the new year. Liza Ravenscroft would be soon in place to steer the public relations for the couple. And this isn’t just any old PR, according to her CV, the senior director at global comms firm Edelman boasts the nickname “bulletproof sunshine”, and promises support for leaders during their “worst ever days in the office”.

Naturally, the palace is playing down the link between Ravenscroft’s crisis acme and her new royal appointment, insisting she will simply be working on day-to-day press interactions, but a one-minute perusal of the CV of Ms “Bulletproof’ is a salient reminder that the king and queen in waiting are taking nothing for granted in 2026. This is a woman who prides herself on a capacity to “get past an issue as quickly as possible with minimum dents”, and it’s often “front-page stuff: from boycott campaigns to sexual allegations to serious safety issues, geopolitical and ethical risks”. Ravenscroft’s playbook is written for Trumpian times, and proof that Britain’s most famous international brand anticipates choppy waters ahead. So what exactly is the House of Windsor’s A-team — William and Kate — anticipating?

The couple currently enjoy unrivalled popularity because they have no competition. No doubt William would like to keep it that way, but a sage adviser would recommend otherwise and the timing of Ravenscroft’s appointment is pertinent. The ‘H’ issue raises its head again next week, when the prodigal son is due in London for more legal swash-buckling, this time against the Daily Mail. We can expect a tail-up duke, buoyed by news that his long-coveted UK security brief is likely to be restored. Nor is this legal pop-up the last we will see of him. Invictus commitments mean plans are afoot for the duchess to join her husband this summer on a rare return trip to the UK. Much has changed for Meghan in the intervening four years.

Despite our best national efforts to demonise the American royal, the recent defenestration of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has cast the Sussexes in a more benign light. In an upended world of strongmen and loose morals, it's become that bit harder to hate on a former-actress-cum-jam-influencer. Hats off to Meghan for doing her super-charged Californian “thing”. As Ever profits speak to a can-do American mindset desperately lacking in Britain, where I suspect many will secretly welcome the duchess back with a cheerful curiosity. All OF which spells potential trouble ahead for rigid William. Kate’s halo is unlikely to slip anytime soon, but her husband is more exposed. How long can he hold out against a sibling rapprochement? In May last year, Harry wistfully opined that there were members of his family who would never forgive him; be in no doubt, he was talking about his eldest brother.

A source close to the palace was unequivocal — William is not for turning and, more problematic, the future King holds much sway over his elderly father. Charles is an instinctive workaholic who ordinarily would have taken greater strides to bring Harry back into the fold, but age and illness have seen him increasingly dependent on his intransigent eldest son. And here is where Ms Bulletproof Sunshine will surely have her work cut out. How do you make England’s untouchable heir-to-the-throne do something he doesn’t want to do? A graphic anecdote on Williams’ tendency to follow his own path comes from an inside source. Royal protocol insists that monarchs and their heirs should not share flights for obvious reasons, but when the palace refused to provide a helicopter for William and his offspring a couple of years ago, the Prince organised his own, bundling the Wales children in with him.

Like his grandfather Philip, entitled alpha men don’t like to be told what to do by palace stiffs. But the Sussex hangover is a different matter. It's not the business of royal suits to broker the subject of a rapprochement and the overcooked King is unlikely to take the lead. Can Ms Bulletproof enter this conflict zone and soften William up? If that is overreach, does she have the bandwidth to manage the long-term costs to the monarchy if it doesn’t happen? With our relentlessly right-wing media, the impact won’t be felt immediately, but rather take the gradual form of increasing anti-royal seepage, as the cultural capital of Britain’s first family leeches away. A privileged group of people who can’t even work out how to get around the table with a prince who chose his own path and used a few injudicious words when doing so.

And the stench of the Andrew saga is never far away, with Peter Mandelson’s tin-eared apology serving as a reminder that the Epstein shadow still looms large. In his favour, William has been at the vanguard of denuding Andrew of royal privilege, but the former Prince’s move to another grace-and-favour property – albeit among turnip-toffs in Norfolk – while the Sussexes are forced to camp out who knows where this summer, (will they fork out for their own hotel?) will make for challenging optics. Going forward, the House of Windsor cannot be seen to favour Andrew over not-so-bad Harry. Ironically, even the ex-Duke of York’s judicious removal from (almost) all family affairs poses potential PR problems. If 2026 is clear on the Epstein-Andrew front (a dangerous assumption) there will be an appetite for other royal rogues. Here, the ageing King is on safer terrain than his eldest son, whose biggest achilles heel, beyond the impasse with his brother, is the royalty’s burgeoning finances.

It was the BBC’s David Dimbleby who derided the House of Windsor last year for being as rich as ‘plutocrats’, a problem compounded by the Prince of Wales, who, unlike his father, chooses not to publish his Duchy of Cornwall tax returns. As we have already established, William prefers taking his own path. Clearly, he does not consider himself too rich (sources in the palace speak to the same blinkered mentality), but last year’s extensive financial revelations sat uneasily with a population who are struggling to put food on the table in a cost-of-living crisis. The drip, drip, drip of obscene levels of unaccountable wealth won’t go away and could diminish royal support. Beleaguered Gen Z, facing a desolate jobs landscape, are already asking salient questions, and an astute PR exec would be wise to tackle the subject of money and inherited privilege head-on.

Inevitably, many of these fault lines will be short-circuited by a mooted overseas trip to the USA this summer, when proposals are afoot to send the Prince of Wales on an American charm offensive for the Trump celebrations in America’s 250th year and England in Fifa’s World Cup. (Better still, if the “so radiant and so healthy and so beautiful” Kate travelled too). With the potential for the royal pair to dazzle in an otherwise diminished special relationship, here Ravenscroft should score an easy win, but she would be ill-advised to rest on her laurels. Trump, as we know, is, if nothing else, temperamental, and the bigger picture is more mixed. For now, William is popular but not blemish-free, and perhaps the biggest takeaway from Ms Bulletproof’s new job is the proximity to King. The man behind her appointment. Ravenscroft’s current boss at Endel is the CEO Julian Payne, Charles’s former communications secretary and someone the monarch remains close to.

This sovereign seal of approval not only speaks to Ravenscroft’s suitability but also a cognisance in royal circles that the King needs to coordinate more closely with the Waleses. Succession is ian ncreasing preoccupation. Key to Ravencroft’s success will be her ability to help William understand the give-and-take required if monarchy, on its current white-male-privileged-Protestant trajectory, is to successfully endure beyond his father.