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
Philip Marcovici has spent more than four decades advising wealth and business-owning families, first as a tax lawyer in Hong Kong in the years leading up to the handover, then in Zurich as private banking moved from undeclared money to transparency. In this conversation with Michael Macfarlane, he starts from an uncomfortable premise drawn from that experience. Any amount of wealth, he says, is enough to destroy a family. His first book examined that destructive power. His more recent one, The Transformative Power of Family Wealth, asks how the same resources can strengthen a family and its wider community.
Much of the discussion concerns the human system around money. Marcovici argues that society is not optional for wealthy families, however mobile they are, and that philanthropy and impact can draw in family members who have no interest in the operating business. He is frank about psychology. In his words, money makes people nuts, at every level of the family, and he describes cultural explanations for avoiding succession planning as overplayed. His remedy is open communication and involving the next generation in decisions that will ultimately rest with them. He also urges that every family member, including those who may one day inherit as widows, be prepared for the role.
The conversation widens to mobility and government. Marcovici distinguishes three kinds of mobility, of the wealth, of the holding entities and of the owner, and expects all three to become more restricted over time. He singles out Singapore and Switzerland as places where wealth owners pay meaningful tax in exchange for security and a fair society, and describes the UK's removal of the non-dom regime without a sensible replacement as an own goal. He closes by insisting that none of this is confined to the very rich. How parents decide to leave a single house can shape their children's lives as much as any family fortune.
Marcovici's starting point comes from decades of client work. Whatever the level of wealth, he says, it is enough to damage relationships and businesses within a family. His earlier book, The Destructive Power of Family Wealth, documented that pattern. The newer book shifts the emphasis to how families, their advisers and governments can turn the same resources into something that strengthens the family and the communities around it.
Borrowing the term optional society from a friend's book, Marcovici asks whether highly mobile wealth owners need to embed themselves anywhere. His conclusion is that they do, for business reasons, personal reasons and every other reason. A family thinking beyond one or two generations, he argues, cannot expect its business to survive if the planet and the communities around it do not.
Marcovici sees wasted resources in families that focus only on the children who return to run the business. Impact and philanthropy, in his account, can draw other family members into stewardship. He describes a daughter who planned to give away a couple of hundred million US dollars and instead became interested in stewarding it, and the family's larger assets, to do good over generations.
Women, Marcovici observes, end up with the money, because they tend to outlive men or through divorce. He has seen elderly family members placed under undue pressure to change succession arrangements. His remedy is preparation for all family members, women and men, and a planning discipline he summarises as trusting nobody. The point is to ask what could go wrong and plan from that basis.
Marcovici separates the mobility of wealth itself, of the entities that hold it, and of the owner. All three exist today and, he argues, families with multigenerational plans need all three, including diversified ownership across family members in different countries. He expects exit taxes and limits on multiple citizenship to spread, citing Singapore's single-citizenship rule, so the options will narrow.
Marcovici declines to praise jurisdictions for offering wealth owners a free ride. His examples of getting it right are Singapore and Switzerland, where wealth owners pay meaningful tax in exchange for long-term safety, security, good public services and a fair society. He describes the UK's removal of the non-dom regime without a sensible replacement as an own goal that cost it families' children and capital.
Asked how to avoid a toxic succession battle, Marcovici says nothing works better than open communication. Success in succession, he argues, is dictated by the next generation, so they should help shape the plan. He interviews each family member individually when working on family constitutions, and he regards claims that a particular culture's families do not fight as an excuse to avoid necessary work.
And sadly, I have to say that no matter what level of wealth, any amount of wealth is enough to destroy a family.
— Philip Marcovici, Wealth Office
My conclusion is society is not optional for business reasons, for personal reasons, for every reason.
— Philip Marcovici, Wealth Office
The first step is to recognise money makes people nuts.
— Philip Marcovici, Wealth Office
The bottom line is culture is important. However, it's way overplayed and it's way used as an excuse to not do the work necessary within families to really think about succession and transition.
— Philip Marcovici, Wealth Office
In other words, the success is not dictated by the older generation, it's dictated by the next generation.
— Philip Marcovici, Wealth Office
Quotes are taken word for word from the episode transcript.
Marcovici describes it as a guide for families, younger generations and advisers, following his earlier book on the destructive power of family wealth. It draws on his teaching at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and examines how wealth can benefit families and their wider communities. He also hopes it helps governments understand how wealth and business-owning families can transform economies positively.
He says nothing works better than open communication. Because success in succession is dictated by the next generation, he encourages older generations to discuss their plans openly and seek the younger generation's input. In his own work on family constitutions he interviews each family member individually, and he warns against treating culture as a reason to skip succession planning.
Marcovici says it is. Any amount of money can create psychological issues and divide a family. For a family whose main asset is a house or modest savings, how parents decide to leave those assets may affect the children's lives even more than the decisions of a far wealthier patriarch. He says everything discussed applies at all levels of wealth.
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.
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