The top earner at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s charity Archewell has been revealed as a former actress who quit her career to brush shoulders with celebrities in California.
Shauna Nep, 38, from Canada, appeared in Survival on the Mountain and The New Addams Family as a child actress before turning her hand to philanthropy and now advises stars on how to splash their cash in the charity sector.
Meghan also found fame as an actress, with her largest role in Suits, before she married into the Royal Family.
Nep, who has experience putting celebrities’ charity ideas into action, holds the position of co-executive director, treasurer and secretary at Archewell, bringing her total earnings to almost $300,000, the equivalent of more than five per cent of the charity’s revenue last year.
Her huge salary was revealed when Archewell released its tax return for 2023 after months of speculation over $4million that had not yet been declared.
The $4million donation was included in this latest return, called a 990 form, owing to Archewell’s tax year differing from that of its donors, which MailOnline repeatedly pointed out was to be expected.
At the same time as Archewell released its hotly anticipated tax return, it published its latest impact report, with a foreword from Nep and her co-executive James Holt that reaffirmed the charity’s grammatically questionable slogan ‘to show up, do good’.
The pair said they were ‘building a future of purpose, belonging, and joy’ and at Archewell this year had ‘witnessed the transformative power of human connection’.
+20
View gallery
Former actress Shauna Nep, 38, (pictured) has been revealed as the highest earner at Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s charity Archewell
+20
View gallery
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s charity Archewell pay the former child actress almost $300,000
+20
View gallery
Archewell’s latest tax return, for 2023, revealed Nep has a salary of $272,241 with $26,356 added on, totalling $298,597
Nep earns $51,669 more than Holt even though he is Archwell’s president.
She has salary of $272,241 and made $26,356 added earnings in 2023 from her health insurance plan, meaning she raked in a whopping total of $298,597.
Holt is on $246,928. He received a 1.6 per cent pay rise of $3,878, increasing his earnings from $243,050 to $246,928.
That is despite Holt being one of Prince Harry’s longest-serving team members, having led communications for the Royal Foundation from October 2017, when it was run by Harry along with Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Nep is a relatively new addition to the team, having joined in 2022.
The mother-of-two’s older sister Elana, 43, was an actress as well, who is most well known for her role as Erin Woodbridge in Canadian high school drama Edgemont.
After Shauna gave up on her dreams to be a successful actress at the turn of the century, she went to the University of British Columbia to study history and the philosophy of science and went on a year abroad to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
She then studied for a Master’s in bioethics at New York University, where she wrote about the ‘the moral right to healthful foods and the duty to re-vamp the American food system’.
+20
View gallery
She also works for Hailey Bieber, who is married to Canadian popstar Justin Bieber (pictured together)
+20
View gallery
Shauna Nep appeared as Mary in the 1998 TV series The New Addams Family when she was 12 (pictured)
+20
View gallery
Meghan Markle’s biggest role was as Rachel Zane (pictured) in American TV series Suits
+20
View gallery
She left the popular American legal drama after marrying Prince Harry in 2018. Pictured: Meghan on the show
+20
View gallery
Meghan was seen alone at an awards ceremony in Beverly Hills, California, on December 4
For the past decade, she has found success as a philanthropic advisor and executive at a series of charities, helping turn bosses’ ideas into projects on the ground.
Her former colleagues said she was especially gifted at using social media to drive projects forward.
As well as raking in hundreds of thousands at Archewell, she is currently employed by three other organisations, including as the Vice President of philanthropy at music mogul and Taylor Swift enemy Scooter Braun’s SB Projects and the head of Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Futures Foundation.
She has been vocal about her desire for greater gun control and is passionate about ‘economic empowerment’ and ‘poverty alleviation’.
She regularly shares snaps of her jetset charity lifestyle with her 18,700 Instagram followers – recently travelling to Deià in Mallorca, where English poet Robert Graves spent his final days.
Outside of work, she lives in Los Angeles with her award-winning film director husband Jacob Medjuck, 48, who she married in April 2011, and the couple’s two children.
+20
View gallery
Shauna Nep and Chandni Sharma-Modi attend a fundraiser lunch on June 13, 2024 in Los Angeles, California
+20
View gallery
Shauna Nep and journalist Emily Ramshaw speak onstage during the Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen panel during the 2024 SXSW Conference and Festival at Austin Convention Center on March 8, 2024 in Austin, Texas
+20
View gallery
Nep has had two children with her award-winning film director husband Jacob Medjuck, 48, who she married in April 2011
+20
View gallery
The well-paid charity worker also advises music mogul Scooter Braun (pictured) about philanthropy
+20
View gallery
Another of her four jobs is as the head of Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Futures Foundation. Pictured: Justin and Hailey Bieber
+20
View gallery
Fellow Archewell employee James Holt has worked for Prince Harry for seven years since 2017, but only received a 1.6 per cent pay rise of $3,878, increasing his earnings from $243,050 to $246,928 – more than $50,000 less than what Nep makes
In addition to Nep’s huge pay package, Archewell’s tax return also showed Harry and Meghan are directors but do not get paid a salary and work a nominal one-hour-per-week.
The return showed communications manager Deesha Tank was paid $140,000 plus $7,100 in ‘other compensation’.
Archewell also dished out $155,000 to Herlihy Loughran. The consultancy is run by Beth Herlihy, a former actress who once played a stripper in UK teen soap opera Hollyoaks and has been a loyal worker for the Sussexes after she was laid off by Kensington Palace following Megxit.
+20
View gallery
The mother-of-two’s older sister Elana, 43, (pictured on the show) was an actress as well, who is most well known for her role as Erin Woodbridge in Canadian high school drama Edgemont
+20
View gallery
She appeared in all 70 episodes of the show, which aired between 2000 and 2005
The charity additionally revealed last week a $250,000 partnership with Joe Biden‘s daughter Ashley.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have spent recent months focussing on more solo charity and business ventures, rarely appearing together since their joint tour to Colombia over the summer.
But despite reports of a ‘professional separation’, they are front and centre of a new behind-the-scenes video of Archewell’s major moments of the past 12 months with Coldplay‘s Sky Full of Stars as the soundtrack to the near-two minute film.
+20
View gallery
Nep’s Instagram profile includes videos of her time in Colombia when she joined Harry and Meghan on their quasi-royal tour in August this year
+20
View gallery
Meghan gave a speech at an Afro Women and Power forum, at the Municipal Theatre in Cali, Colombia, on August 18, 2024
+20
View gallery
Since their tour to Colombia this summer, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have rarely appeared together
It showed the couple together at a number of events as well as Meghan cooking with women plus footage of their trips across the US and abroad – mainly together and sometimes apart.
At the end Harry declared: ‘Every single one of you inspire me and you inspire us every single day. So please continue to be there to support each other’.
The Sussexes have partnered with US President Joe Biden‘s daughter Ashley to create a wellness hub for women impacted by trauma in Philadelphia which pioneers a radical new type of therapy, giving a $250,000 donation.
The charity’s tax return for 2023 also showed its revenue of $5.7million last year was mainly thanks to a mystery benefactor who gave $5million in a single donation, as well as $335,000 from five other individuals.
The Archewell Foundation handed out $1.3million in grants to good causes in the US and other parts of the world. Expenditure on other costs such as salaries, event costs, legal fees and travel was just under $2million in 2023.
