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
This short film introduces Wealth Office, the series in which Michael Macfarlane examines the role of wealth at a moment of global change. Macfarlane begins with history. For centuries, he says, the history of wealth has been closely tied to geopolitics, and each new age has expressed wealth in different ways. At the turn of the twentieth century, by his figures, Great Britain accounted for 2.5% of the global population but held 25% of global wealth, which manifested in grand stately homes and palaces filled with Renaissance art. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the USA accounted for 4.2% of the global population and held over 30% of global wealth.
Macfarlane argues that the global order is changing once again, and that wealth is no longer clustered into regions by geopolitics. He describes a brand new era of highly mobile wealth and of the family office, in which wealth is less about opulence and more about impact. He locates that impact across business and commerce, investment and philanthropy. In his account this is a period of tremendous global transformation, with wealth flowing into innovations and technologies of vast potential impact, and into supporting creativity and the arts in ways he describes as unprecedented.
The film then sets out the purpose of the series. Macfarlane says he will examine what is really going on, lifting the veil on the secretive world of wealth and exploring how it can make the world a more dynamic and more beautiful place. He will speak to wealth holders and wealth creators about their passions and examine the impact they want to have in the world. The introduction establishes the questions that run through the series about how wealth is held, where it is moving and what it is being used to achieve at a moment of great change.
Michael Macfarlane opens the series with the observation that, for centuries, the history of wealth has been closely tied to geopolitics. Each new age, he says, expresses wealth in different ways. The series uses this historical lens to frame its interest in the present, which Macfarlane describes as another period in which the global order is changing and the role of wealth is changing with it.
Macfarlane offers two reference points. At the turn of the twentieth century, he says, Great Britain accounted for 2.5% of the global population and held 25% of global wealth, expressed in grand stately homes and palaces filled with Renaissance art. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the USA accounted for 4.2% of the global population and held over 30% of global wealth.
In Macfarlane's account, wealth today is no longer clustered into regions by geopolitics. He describes a brand new era of highly mobile wealth. The implication he draws is that the earlier pattern, in which a leading nation held a disproportionate share of global wealth, no longer describes the present. The series sets out to understand what that mobility means for how wealth is used.
Macfarlane calls the present the era of the family office, in which wealth is less about opulence and more about impact. He identifies that impact across business and commerce, investment and philanthropy. The contrast with the stately homes of an earlier age is deliberate, setting the visible display of wealth against its use as an active force in the economy and in society.
Macfarlane describes a period of tremendous global transformation in which wealth is flowing into innovations and technologies of vast potential impact. He also points to wealth supporting creativity and the arts in ways he describes as unprecedented. Both strands connect private capital with the forces reshaping the world, from technological change to cultural life, and frame the conversations that the series sets out to hold.
The film sets out the purpose of the series. Macfarlane says he will lift the veil on the secretive world of wealth and examine how it can make the world a more dynamic and more beautiful place. He will speak to wealth holders and wealth creators about their passions and the impact they want to have, examining the role of wealth at a moment of great change.
For centuries, the history of wealth has been closely tied to geopolitics. And for each new age, wealth manifests itself in different ways.
— Michael Macfarlane, Wealth Office
We're in a brand new era of highly mobile wealth. We're in the era of the family office, where wealth is less about opulence and more about impact.
— Michael Macfarlane, Wealth Office
It's flowing into supporting creativity and the arts in ways that are unprecedented.
— Michael Macfarlane, Wealth Office
I'll be lifting the veil on this secretive world of wealth and how it can make the world a more dynamic and more beautiful place.
— Michael Macfarlane, Wealth Office
Quotes are taken word for word from the episode transcript.
Wealth Office examines the role of wealth at a moment of great global change. In the series introduction, Michael Macfarlane says he will lift the veil on the secretive world of wealth, speaking to wealth holders and wealth creators about their passions and the impact they want to have, and exploring how wealth can make the world more dynamic and more beautiful.
Macfarlane argues that the history of wealth has long been tied to geopolitics, with each age expressing wealth differently. He cites Great Britain at the turn of the twentieth century, holding 25% of global wealth with 2.5% of the global population, and the USA a century later, holding over 30% with 4.2%. He says the global order is now changing again.
Macfarlane describes the present as an era of highly mobile wealth that is no longer clustered into regions by geopolitics. In this era of the family office, he says, wealth is less about opulence and more about impact across business and commerce, investment and philanthropy, with capital flowing into new technologies and into creativity and the arts.
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]