Independent media for the global private client world
Wealth Office is a long-form interview series with the founders, families and private capital holders reshaping the world. Filmed in London's great rooms. Published across Western and Chinese platforms.
The guest's chairEvery Wealth Office conversation is filmed on location in London. The chair is the only seat a guest is offered.
The Wealth Office audience this week
Subscribers and followers across all platforms
Checked 12 Oct 2026. Updated every Monday.
What we are building
Wealth Office is building the independent media brand for the families and principals who hold private capital, and for the advisers, institutions and creators who serve them. Long-form conversations filmed in London's great rooms, published in six languages across Western and Chinese platforms, and organised into the ideas that shape how wealth is held, passed on and put to work.
Wealth Office Insights
Essays drawn from what Wealth Office guests have said on the record. New essays follow every new episode.
News
Briefs on billionaires, family offices and private capital from Bloomberg, Forbes, the South China Morning Post and more. All news
Series architecture
Both series are filmed to the same production standard, in the same rooms, by the same team.
Editorial · Never sponsoredOne-on-one conversations exclusively with private capital-holding principals, authors and academics. The focus is their perspective, and how private capital is building the new world across business, technology, philanthropy and culture.
Exchange · Sometimes sponsoredTwo globally recognised leaders explore one subject where power, risk and long-term consequence intersect. Issue-led dialogue that stress-tests an idea or proposition.
Wealth Office X is where paid collaboration lives. It is always editorially led, never an advertisement in interview form.
The recurring questions
Ranked by how often each theme recurs across the episode library. Each theme has its own page that grows with every new episode.
In the chair
Every guest has a profile page drawing together their episodes, clips and the ideas they put on the record.
Behind the camera
The hosts, producers and strategists who make Wealth Office, in London, Hong Kong and Mumbai. Full biographies
From the comments
Real comments left under Wealth Office episodes on YouTube, quoted exactly as written. Collected weekly; a comment appears only after the team approves it.
Staging Twelve real comments selected for your approval. Commenter names are not shown.
Hosts
Based in London, Michael is a close adviser to some of the world's most ambitious private capital holders, with particular depth across Asia's major business families and family offices. His work sits at the intersection of media, reputation and the relationships shaping this era of private wealth. He is Principal Partner of Michael Macfarlane Associates, which produces Wealth Office.
About the seriesBased in Mumbai. Former South Asia Bureau Chief for the Daily Telegraph and host of The Diplomat's Beyond the Indus podcast, with over a decade advising UHNWIs and family offices across India and South Asia.
Based in Hong Kong. Moves between Western and Greater China circles in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, with long-standing relationships across Asia's family office and private client world.
Published in long, mid and short form
One filmed session becomes a long-form episode, mid-length clips and short-form cuts in English and Mandarin.
Collaboration partners
Wealth Office X places a firm's expertise inside a trusted, independent private client channel, with long-form authority, multi-platform distribution and content built for how AI now recommends people and firms.
Wealth Office Insights
Essays on private capital, family wealth and the forces reshaping the private client world, drawn from what Wealth Office guests have said on the record.
Episodes
Long-form episodes from both series, with an overview, key ideas and verified quotes for each.
Episode overview
In this episode of Wealth Office X, Michael Macfarlane brings together Kedge Martin and Jamie Webb to examine philanthropy in an age of enormous private wealth. Macfarlane frames the discussion around the transfer of more than US$100 trillion expected to pass between generations over the next two decades, the rise of new wealth in Asia and the belief that private capital can move faster than governments. Both guests have worked on philanthropic projects connected to the British Royal family, and the conversation opens with what patronage and visibility can achieve.
Webb argues that visibility mobilises giving when it meets a real social need and a trusted organisation able to respond. Martin, who saw Prince Harry take his first patronage at a charity she was running, describes how networks as well as profile can build movements. The two then test the harder criticisms: reputation washing, the absence of democratic accountability and what Macfarlane calls the Davos problem, where privileged people discuss problems far from those who live with them. Martin's answer is proximity, and she urges new philanthropists to visit before they give. Webb's answer is humility, and he cites Mark Zuckerberg's US$100 million gift to schools in Newark as a well-intended effort that met a backlash.
The second half turns to the next generation and to Asia. Webb describes how daunting inheritance can feel, the role of family values as a container for young people's choices, and an Asian philanthropic culture with a strong focus on education and closer partnership with government. Both guests see emotion and personal connection as the real drivers of lasting commitment, and both favour small, early experiments over large and remote cheques. Webb closes with counsel for a founder who has just exited: make giving joyful, take time to reflect, learn from peers and be wary of ego.
Jamie Webb accepts that visibility mobilises philanthropy, but he sees it as catalytic only when an urgent social need meets a trusted organisation ready to respond. He points to the Prince's Trust during the youth unemployment of the 2008 financial crisis and to Help for Heroes after the war in Iraq. Kedge Martin adds that networks can do the work of profile, citing a private equity investor who built a global movement against child trafficking.
Webb distinguishes charitable programmes, usually run by one organisation to serve a specific need in a place, from movements, which are organic and involve many actors pressing for change. He cites effective altruism, with its emphasis on evidence and measuring impact, and trust-based philanthropy, which lifts restrictions and reporting burdens from charity partners. He is equally clear that traditional charities remain vital for delivering services across the country.
Martin sees the entrepreneur's distinctive contribution as a willingness to take risk and to lose some money without undue worry. She recalls Paul Newman's view that worrying about where a donation went means it has not really been given away. She also warns that conventional foundation grants can carry requirements that charities bend themselves to meet, even when the funding does not match what they actually need.
Macfarlane describes the 'Davos problem': privileged people discussing the world's problems far from those who live with them, and largely from a Western perspective. Martin recalls a celebrity supporter who paid to ship bundles of clothes from America to Lesotho when giving the money would have done more. Her advice is to listen, to accept that no one stands in anyone else's shoes, and to visit before starting a philanthropy journey.
Both guests favour early exposure. Martin describes a family that held quarterly philanthropy meetings at which even the youngest child chose a weekly project, perhaps £5 of pocket money for an animal rescue centre. Webb recommends that foundations give next-generation members a sum of money and a defined role, creating space for shared decisions. He also acknowledges that inheriting wealth, businesses and philanthropy can feel daunting for young people.
Webb regards a personal connection to a cause as the chief driver of philanthropy. He describes an American philanthropist whose experience of 9/11 focused his giving on training and jobs for young people in the Middle East. Martin sees a human need to give, often arriving with age. Both insist that emotion be paired with listening, finding the best organisations, trusting them and staying with them for the long term.
Webb sees the foundation as a useful structure that gives families shared space, continuity and the transparency philanthropy needs to remain legitimate. He notes Bill Gates's wish for his foundation to close 20 years after his death and argues that a foundation's lifespan should follow its cause. Perpetual endowments have merit, but so does accelerating progress towards a solution while the founder still has the energy to drive it.
I think undoubtedly visibility does mobilise philanthropy, but I think there has to be a real social need and perhaps an urgent social need that has to be present at the same time.
— Jamie Webb, Wealth Office
We're not in anyone else's shoes. And I think it's very important that people get out and visit before they start their philanthropy journey.
— Kedge Martin, Wealth Office
Philanthropy doesn't have to live forever. I think it very much is determined by the cause, the issue that you're working on and its time horizon.
— Jamie Webb, Wealth Office
I think cheque signing works very well for some people who want to be anonymous and be distanced and then you can be much more integrated and on the ground and then people get addicted to it. Doing good can be addictive.
— Kedge Martin, Wealth Office
Well, first of all, it should be joyful. … I think if it feels like your work, setting up your business or managing your investment portfolio, I think there's something gone a bit wrong there.
— Jamie Webb, Wealth Office
Quotes are taken word for word from the episode transcript.
Kedge Martin and Jamie Webb, both of whom have worked on philanthropic projects connected to the British Royal family. Martin was running the charity that became Prince Harry's first patronage and later advised Prince William and Prince Harry at St James's Palace. Webb worked at the Prince's Trust and Help for Heroes and now leads a global peer network for philanthropists.
Macfarlane uses the phrase for gatherings where privileged people talk at length about the world's problems with too little focus on solutions, even though they hold the resources to act. He adds that the people affected are rarely in the room and that the perspective remains largely Western. Martin agrees and urges philanthropists to visit and listen before they give.
Webb says philanthropy should be joyful. He advises taking time to reflect, learning from peers and networks, being careful of ego and remembering that leadership and catalytic roles can matter as much as grants. He also cautions against taking on too much and disappointing partner organisations. Martin's advice is to start with the change you want to see and keep learning.
News
Weekly briefs on billionaires, family offices and private capital, drawn from Bloomberg, Forbes, the South China Morning Post and other leading titles, with context for families and their advisers.
About
Wealth Office is an independent media platform built for the private client world, launched in September 2025 and produced in London.
What Wealth Office is
Wealth Office explores the structural forces reshaping the private client world: the rise of private capital, the globalisation of family wealth, the shift of ambition and innovation toward Asia, the psychology of intergenerational stewardship, and the responsibility that comes with significant capital.
The series speaks with the principals themselves: founders, inheritors and long-term holders of capital, together with the authors and academics who study them. It does not cover market commentary or portfolio management. It asks how private wealth is used, governed and passed on, and what it is building.
Wealth Office is hosted by Michael Macfarlane and produced by a dedicated team in London and Hong Kong. Full biographies follow below.
Ultra-high-net-worth individuals, business-owning families, family offices, next-generation wealth holders, founders, and the lawyers, trustees and advisers who serve them.
Michael Macfarlane, Principal Partner of Michael Macfarlane Associates, is the principal host. Joe Wallen in Mumbai and Stephanie Chen in Hong Kong join as hosts.
The Wealth Office series is never sponsored. Wealth Office X episodes may involve a paid collaboration partner and are always editorially led.
On YouTube at @wealthofficeofficial, with clips on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Substack, RedNote and Bilibili (as 财富办公室), and audio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
Hosts and team
A London-based team with deep relationships across Asia's family offices, and fluency in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Wealth Office XWhere paid collaboration lives. Always editorially led.
Collaboration partners
Firms that serve the private client world collaborate with Wealth Office to own a theme: credible, independent, long-form video in front of the audience that matters, in the format AI-driven search now rewards.
The full collaboration brief, packages and audience data. Approved partners receive a one-time sign-in code by email.
Open the partner briefFor collaborations, Wealth Office X, interviews and press, write to us. Tell us about your firm, the theme you would like to own and your timing.
Email [email protected]