Elaine Chow on Wealth Office | Wealth Office
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Elaine Chow

Elaine Chow

Managing partner of Trinity Capital, a single family office in Hong Kong

Biography

Elaine Chow is a Hong Kong investor and philanthropy convener who leads Trinity Capital, a single family office in Hong Kong, where she serves as managing partner.

Family background and Trinity Capital

Chow worked in her family's business before establishing the family office, which she set up when her brother wanted to leave the company. She traces her approach to wealth to her grandfather, who carried out infrastructure work in China, later settled the family in Hong Kong and started a school for families of little means that charged only a nominal fee. She has described him as a careful steward of resources, and that idea of stewardship shapes how she runs the office.

Industry coverage has listed her variously as founder and chief executive, principal, managing director and managing partner of Trinity Capital. At the Private Wealth Management APAC Summit in Macau in April 2017 she spoke on a panel about building a real estate portfolio through geographic diversification, describing a UK property strategy that used local financing to hedge currency risk and the value of real estate and club investing groups as sources of market intelligence. In 2024 she spoke at a G.I.L.C. Family Office Gathering, where she stressed the importance of trusted introductions for anyone seeking capital from single family offices.

Her investment approach, as she has described it, combines steady income-producing holdings such as companies with strong balance sheets, value-led real estate bought when cycles bottom out and later sold, as Trinity has done in Sydney and London, and an allocation of less than 10% to riskier opportunities such as pre-IPO technology, often alongside family offices with deeper sector expertise.

Philanthropy and public roles

Chow sits on a Chinese University editorial committee on family offices. With a business partner she co-hosts small fireside dinners at which eight to ten family offices examine philanthropic organisations working on issues such as illiteracy, human trafficking, disadvantaged youth, special needs and ageing. The aim is to help families vet charities with the same rigour as an investment, and to showcase organisations that pass that scrutiny.

On Wealth Office

Chow appeared on Wealth Office in the episode "Can a Family Office Be More Than a Money Machine?". Speaking with Michael Macfarlane, she discussed stewardship as a family inheritance and her view that whatever a family accumulates beyond its needs should be shared with the community. She argued that steady investing still requires active work, including engagement with banks in difficult periods, and identified opportunities in converting Hong Kong's distressed offices into medical or experiential space and in build-to-rent housing. She explained how a family office can give family members who do not want to work in the family business a vehicle for the causes they care about, and suggested that patriarchs give younger relatives sums to steward from their teens, so that heirs come to see themselves as stewards. She grounded this in her faith. The conversation closed on Hong Kong as a financial and talent hub, supported by common law, accessible business conditions, deal flow, a strong art market and links with the Greater Bay Area.

On Wealth Office

Can a Family Office Be More Than a Money Machine?

Elaine Chow, managing partner of a Hong Kong single family office, on stewardship, vetting philanthropy like an investment, and Hong Kong's role as a hub for Asian wealth.

Insights drawing on Chow