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.
From AI tutors and personally chosen scholars to pocket-money philanthropy and peer learning, guests describe how capability is built inside families and beyond them.
Oct 10, 2026 · 4 min read
From a family's doubts about Treasuries to AI-driven impersonation and narrowing mobility, guests explain why private wealth's most serious risks are often slow, quiet and personal.
Oct 7, 2026 · 4 min read
Guests see artificial intelligence widening access to education, sharpening threats to family offices and shifting value in art towards the things machines find hardest to supply.
Oct 4, 2026 · 4 min read
Guests describe the rules, outside experience, small allocations and freedom that families use to prepare heirs to reinvent the enterprise they will inherit.
Oct 1, 2026 · 4 min read
Elaine Chow, Marco Poon, Philip Marcovici and William Louey describe stewardship as an inheritance, an obligation to society and a daily discipline of restraint.
Sep 28, 2026 · 4 min read
From Shenzhen and Hong Kong to Belgravia and Zurich, guests explain what is drawing wealth, talent and families, and why some of today's freedoms may narrow.
Sep 25, 2026 · 4 min read
Marco Poon on stewardship, outside work, family-funded ventures and the Hong Kong peer communities where families compare notes on succession and education.
Sep 25, 2026 · 4 min read
Wealth Office guests describe private capital as a proof of concept, a patient funder of science and infrastructure, and a prompt for families to rethink purpose.
Sep 22, 2026 · 5 min read
Marco Poon on the Treasury recommendation his family rejected, and how time horizon, geopolitics and incentives change the way families measure risk.
Sep 18, 2026 · 4 min read
Irina Gamagina and Gary Hersham see ultra-prime purchases shaped by children, schools, privacy and a younger taste for new, practical homes.
Aug 24, 2026 · 4 min read
Marshall Jen, Philip Marcovici, Allen Law and William Louey explain why trusts alone rarely prevent disputes, and how communication, roles and trust hold families together.
Aug 21, 2026 · 4 min read
Gary Hersham and Irina Gamagina describe a super-prime market with few secrets, where discretion, judgement and long relationships decide who does the deal.
Aug 17, 2026 · 4 min read
Keyu Jin argues that more trade routes and alternatives have weakened choke points, and that efforts to suppress a competitor have rarely succeeded.
Jul 21, 2026 · 4 min read
Guests describe patronage, collecting and organic soft power as ways private wealth builds understanding between societies, while staying candid about art's financial limits.
Jul 18, 2026 · 4 min read
Keyu Jin explains how central direction, local execution and fierce market competition combine to build China's industrial clusters, and what the model costs.
Jul 14, 2026 · 4 min read
Maryann Selfe sees capital moving into women's health. She argues that long-duration family capital, particularly from Asia, is well placed for the early inflection points.
Jul 2, 2026 · 4 min read
Howard Bilton, collector and vineyard owner, describes art and wine as sources of pleasure with rare financial upside, and shows how a passion asset can still serve family and charity.
Jul 2, 2026 · 4 min read
Howard Bilton, William Louey, Elaine Chow, Kedge Martin and Jamie Webb describe philanthropy that multiplies through business models, scholars, due diligence and proximity.
Jun 29, 2026 · 4 min read
Data made art bankable, freeports made it portable and tokens may make it divisible. Bigna Pfenninger and Catherine Freeman explain what has changed, and what has not.
Jun 27, 2026 · 4 min read
Maryann Selfe traces how women were excluded from clinical evidence, and why the resulting data poverty sustains itself until capital breaks the cycle.
Jun 25, 2026 · 4 min read
Howard Bilton built a charitable ecosystem around art prizes that he says doubles the money he puts in. It offers a design brief for founders seeking compounding impact.
Jun 25, 2026 · 4 min read
Catherine Freeman and Bigna Pfenninger argue that collectors, through the collections they build and share, help decide which artists earn a lasting secondary market.
Jun 20, 2026 · 4 min read
Jamie Webb questions the assumption that family foundations should last for ever, arguing that the lifespan of philanthropy should follow the time horizon of the cause it serves.
May 28, 2026 · 4 min read
Kedge Martin and Jamie Webb argue that the distance between donor and recipient explains many philanthropic failures, and that seeing the work first hand builds more durable giving.
May 21, 2026 · 4 min read
As global power shifts, Lady Linda Wong Davies argues that cultural platforms change minds where statistics cannot, and that fusion between cultures is already under way.
May 4, 2026 · 4 min read
Lady Linda Wong Davies draws on nearly two decades of work between China and the West to show what conviction, pragmatism and empathy achieve in cultural philanthropy.
Apr 27, 2026 · 4 min read
Elaine Chow on steady income, value-led real estate, Chinese capital moving abroad and why demographics shape her view of Hong Kong.
Mar 23, 2026 · 4 min read
Elaine Chow explains how she brings family offices together to vet charities, and why she wants the next generation to see itself as stewards.
Mar 16, 2026 · 4 min read
Marshall Jen on why next-generation leaders of Asian family offices struggle to gain real authority, and how a small portfolio allocation can change the conversation.
Mar 15, 2026 · 4 min read
Marshall Jen argues that trusts and insurance do not prevent family disputes, and proposes that families act as strategists and professionals as tacticians.
Mar 8, 2026 · 4 min read
Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe argues that family offices should plan for a breach, read early signals and build relationships before a crisis tests them.
Feb 25, 2026 · 4 min read
David Ferbrache OBE argues that cyber security must start with what a family stands to lose, which makes it a matter for the principal as well as IT.
Feb 18, 2026 · 4 min read
Nicolas de Santis maps three trajectories for humanity, all visible today, and argues that cooperative governance and a shared vision will decide which one prevails.
Feb 14, 2026 · 4 min read
Nicolas de Santis argues that most family strategy is constrained by history. Visioneering, his discipline for imagining and building the future, asks families to think much bigger.
Feb 7, 2026 · 4 min read
William Louey on self-knowledge, ownership and freedom for the next generation, and how those choices have helped a family business reach its fourth generation.
Feb 5, 2026 · 4 min read
For three decades William Louey has funded scholars from underprivileged backgrounds. Some now fund others in turn, multiplying the impact of the original gift.
Jan 29, 2026 · 4 min read
A scholarship changed Shield Xiao Dun's life. He now believes a self-sustaining company can carry that kind of opportunity further than philanthropy alone.
Dec 27, 2025 · 4 min read
Shield Xiao Dun once needed 20,000 staff to personalise learning in China. He argues that AI tutors now shift the challenge to motivation and assessment.
Dec 20, 2025 · 5 min read
Philip Marcovici on three kinds of wealth mobility, why the options are narrowing, and what makes a jurisdiction worth paying tax in.
Nov 28, 2025 · 4 min read
Philip Marcovici argues that money affects every member of a family, and that preparation, open communication and purpose decide whether wealth damages heirs or strengthens them.
Nov 21, 2025 · 5 min read
Pearl Lam argues that artificial intelligence threatens conceptual art more than painting and sculpture, and that commercial caution, more than technology, is making culture homogeneous.
Nov 5, 2025 · 4 min read
Pearl Lam describes a geographical shift in collecting, and argues that motive and credentials, more than budget, decide whether a collection lasts.
Oct 29, 2025 · 4 min read
Allen Law's family rule turns every new generation into a reason to build. He explains how it sits alongside preservation, calculated risk and impact.
Sep 25, 2025 · 4 min read
Allen Law argues that the value in longevity lies in closing the years people spend in poor health, and that private capital can move faster than governments.
Sep 18, 2025 · 4 min read
Michael Macfarlane traces wealth from Britain's stately homes to today's mobile family offices, and argues that its role is shifting from opulence to impact.
Jul 20, 2025 · 3 min readEpisodes
Long-form episodes from both series, with an overview, key ideas and verified quotes for each.
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]