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.
Secondary art market authority advising collectors on private sales and structures
Biography
Bigna Pfenninger is a Zurich-based art adviser who works with collectors on the secondary art market, with a particular focus on private sales and the structures through which significant works are held and traded. She runs Bigna Pfenninger Art Advisory, a sole proprietorship entered in the Zurich commercial register in August 2018 with art advisory as its stated purpose.
Pfenninger's practice is based in central Zurich. The firm operates as her own advisory business, and the commercial register lists her as its owner and sole authorised signatory. On Wealth Office X she was introduced as one of the leading authorities on the secondary art market, advising collectors who operate at the intersection of art, wealth, reputation, influence and power.
She describes her work at the top of the market as quiet, global matchmaking between owners and buyers. Much of this activity takes place away from public auction, and it often involves freeports and holding structures. In her account, the number of the largest trophy works is small, which makes the market thin, private and dependent on relationships. Access to these works depends on knowing who owns them and who might buy, which is the core of her advisory role.
Pfenninger takes a broad view of what counts as the secondary market. It covers any work that has already had at least one owner, and she argues that this includes living artists, who can and should develop a secondary market long before their work becomes historic.
She also regards patronage as a matter of proximity and ecosystem. She has cited Singapore as an example of a place where the transactional machinery is in place while the wider cultural ecosystem is still being built.
Pfenninger is an advocate of transparency, market growth and wider participation in art ownership. She says she tokenised a Picasso in Switzerland in 2021, and she expects tokenisation to become ordinary infrastructure for fractional ownership of high-value works.
Pfenninger appeared with fellow adviser Catherine Freeman in the Wealth Office X episode "Who Really Controls The Secondary Art Market?", hosted by Michael Macfarlane. The conversation examined how art acquires legitimacy, why the largest sales happen quietly, and what lending and tokenisation mean for collectors. Pfenninger explained why living artists need a secondary market, described patronage in terms of proximity and ecosystem with Singapore as a case in point, and put the number of the largest trophy works at around 2,500. She discussed her matchmaking work through freeports and holding structures, and responded to a Deloitte and ArtTactic projection that art-secured lending could reach US$42 billion to US$50 billion by 2027 by setting out her expectation that tokenisation will become standard infrastructure for fractional ownership.
Two secondary-market advisers explain how art acquires legitimacy, why the largest sales happen quietly, and what lending and tokenisation mean for collectors.
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]