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.
Biography
Nicolas de Santis is a technology entrepreneur, strategist and author who co-founded the European online travel company Opodo and was a founding team member of the early digital currency business Beenz.com. Born in Madrid in 1966 and an Italian citizen, he is president of the Gold Mercury International Award and a non-executive director of Ferroglobe, a Nasdaq-listed producer of silicon metal and alloys.
De Santis began his career at the brand consultancy Landor Associates, now part of WPP, where he worked as a strategy adviser to clients including British Airways, Morgan Stanley and Coca-Cola. In the 1990s he worked with Enrique Barón Crespo, a former President of the European Parliament, advising on European identity and the launch of the euro, and developed the character Captain Euro. In 2013 he launched the Brand EU Centre, a pro-European initiative.
In 1999 de Santis joined the founding team of Beenz.com, a web-based digital currency, as chief marketing officer. The company raised around US$100 million from investors including Carlo De Benedetti and François Pinault, and was sold to Carlson Marketing Group in 2001. That year he was recruited as chief marketing officer of Opodo, one of Europe's first large-scale online travel platforms, and is recognised as one of its co-founders. He left in 2003. Opodo went on to report gross sales of €1.3 billion in 2008.
Since 2004 de Santis has been president and secretary general of the Gold Mercury International Award, a global think tank founded in 1961 by his father, the film producer Eduardo De Santis. Through Gold Mercury he leads the DISRUPTOR AI Task Force on artificial intelligence governance. He founded Megavisionary Labs, an advisory firm and ventures incubator, and is chief executive of Corporate Vision, a strategy and innovation consultancy.
His board roles have included Lyris Technologies, a Nasdaq-listed company acquired by AUREA Software in 2015, and the Global Virus Network, which he joined in 2013 and serves as a senior adviser. He joined the board of trustees of the World Law Foundation in 2019 and the Ferroglobe board in 2021, where he chairs the Nominations and Governance Committee and sits on the Compensation Committee. He has written several books on business strategy and innovation, lectures at institutions including IE Business School and the University of Wyoming, and describes his current work as "Future Worldbuilding". He advises families that own large corporations through an approach he calls visioneering and created the Planetary Futures scenarios.
De Santis spoke to Michael Macfarlane in the Wealth Office episode "Can Visionary Entrepreneurs Build the Future Governments Cannot?". He defined visioneering as the ability to explore and create the future, drawing on imagination and science fiction narratives, and presented it as a way for families to reinterpret their mission and purpose. He described the current AI boom as a bubble, urged families to treat global challenges such as longevity as the source of future industries, and set out his three planetary futures: maximum human potential through cooperative global governance, stagnation driven by nation-state thinking, and self-destruction through conflict. He argued for a new level of global governance, distinct from global government, and discussed capital mobility, Asia's thinking about the future and energy. His advice to a young heir was to get their hands dirty and focus on value creation.
Nicolas de Santis, co-founder of Opodo, explains visioneering, his three planetary futures and why he believes private capital will probably be what changes the world.
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]