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
Pearl Lam is a Hong Kong-born gallerist, curator and cultural commentator who founded Pearl Lam Galleries and has spent more than two decades working to change how Chinese art is seen and valued around the world. Her Chinese name is 林明珠. She is the daughter of Lim Por-yen, the property developer who founded Lai Sun Group.
Lam was educated in the United Kingdom and the United States, where she studied accountancy and law before turning her attention to art and design. She began staging pop-up exhibitions in Hong Kong in the early 1990s. In 2004 she curated Awakening: La France Mandarine, a Franco-Chinese exhibition in Shanghai, which reflected an interest in cultural exchange between Asia and the West that has run through her career.
In 2005 Lam founded Contrasts Gallery in Shanghai. The gallery was later renamed Pearl Lam Galleries and, since 2022, has operated as Pearl Lam Limited. A Hong Kong space opened in the Pedder Building in 2012 with an exhibition curated by Gao Minglu. A gallery at Gillman Barracks in Singapore followed in 2014, and a further Hong Kong space opened in Sheung Wan in 2015. Today the gallery describes itself as based in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and it continues to exhibit internationally at art fairs and in museum-linked shows.
The gallery is closely associated with Chinese abstract painting. Artists it has represented or exhibited include Su Xiaobai and Zhu Jinshi, alongside the British painter Maggi Hambling. Lam also took part in the first edition of Design Miami at Art Basel, reflecting a long-standing interest in design as well as fine art. Her artists include Mr Doodle.
On Wealth Office, Lam was introduced as a figure who has helped Chinese contemporary artists rise in the West while acting as a gatekeeper for Western artists seeking success in China. The Financial Times has called her a powerhouse of the contemporary art world, and Forbes listed her among the most powerful women in its 2013 "Asia's Women in the Mix" feature.
In 2008 Lam co-founded the China Art Foundation, which promotes contemporary Chinese art and culture internationally. In 2023 she launched The Pearl Lam Podcast, a series of interviews with artists, writers, designers and cultural figures. She speaks regularly on the art market, including at the Financial Times Business of Art Summit in London in 2023, a panel at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London in 2024 and the Art for Tomorrow conference in Milan in 2025.
Her inclusion in published lists includes Corriere della Sera's 100 Women of the Year in 2008, L'Officiel Art's Art Power 100 and Art+Auction's Design Power list in 2012, artnet News's top 25 women in the art world in 2014, Tatler Asia's Asia's Most Influential in 2021 and Prestige Hong Kong's Women of Power in 2023.
Pearl Lam appeared on Wealth Office in the episode "Why Is China’s New Wealth Changing the Art World?" with Michael Macfarlane. Starting from research that links art sales to stock markets over 300 years, she discussed why that correlation appears to have broken, pointing to generational and technological shifts accelerated by the pandemic. She described a geographical shift in collecting, with many young heirs in the West favouring experiences while younger buyers in China, the rest of Asia and the Middle East want to build collections. She also explained how the Chinese market differs, why credentials from museums and important collectors matter more than speculation, why she doubts fractional shares in artworks, and why she believes artificial intelligence raises the value of craft.
Pearl Lam on why art sales no longer track stock markets, why young Asian collectors still want to build collections, and what gives an artist lasting value.
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]