Harry and Meghan land new jobs in fintech

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, more commonly known as Prince Harry and Meghan, have signed up to help scale a fintech start-up asset manager Ethic.

New York-based Ethic was founded in 2015 by Australians Johny Mair and Doug Scott and Brit Jay Lipman. It now has $1.3bn of assets under management tied up in its sustainability-focused portfolios.

The couple, the New York Times firstreported, will be ‘impact partners’ at the firm which is backed by a number of venture capital firms including NYCA, backer of Revolut,GoCardless and Affirm, as well as asset management giant Fidelity. 

The exact nature of Harry and Meghan's role has not been disclosed either the couple or Ethic but the former have increasingly aligned themselves with progressive businesses and organisations since officially stepping down from official royal duties last year. Harry for example is already working with a Silicon Valley tech unicorn BetterUp as 'chief impact officer'.

“From the world I come from, you don’t talk about investing, right?” Meghan told the New York Times. 

“You don’t have the luxury to invest. That sounds so fancy,” she said.

“My husband has been saying for years, ‘Gosh, don’t you wish there was a place where if your values were aligned like this, you could put your money to that same sort of thing?’” she added.

Ethic says it provides personalised investment portfolio advice to individual investors and wealth advisors in the US. 

“Our solutions cover everything from sustainability training and education to financial analysis, portfolio creation and management, and ongoing insights into your or your client's investments. Currently Ethic works with some of the largest wealth advisors, custodians, and investment banks in the United States,” a statement on its website says.

Co-founder of Ethic Doug Scott, in an interview posted on its website, says the start-up is helping address the “defining issues of our time” by directing institutional investment capital toward sustainable companies and away from unsustainable ones.

“By positively impacting the flow of significant pools of passive equity investment capital (think trillions of dollars), we are striving to improve the lives of millions and address critical issues like the climate crisis,” he said.