The age gap behind the job title

Michael Macfarlane cites a striking figure. More than two-thirds of family offices in Asia, he notes, are led by next-generation executives with an average age of just 44. Marshall Jen accepts the figure and then qualifies it. The person in front of the family office may be 44. The person still driving the decision is often a patriarch in his eighties.

Jen draws a clear distinction between the face of a family office and the person who actually decides or influences its choices. The next generation, in his experience, is innovative and receptive. The constraint lies in empowerment.

The next generations are very innovative and they're very open to ideas. … the problem is when are they actually empowered to make certain decisions?

— Marshall Jen, Wealth Office

The hidden cost of waiting

Jen describes what this does to young executives. Gaining the family's approval for new projects takes a long time. They become wary of making decisions that could hurt their reputation, and, he notes, some fear that being seen as less than competent could affect what they eventually inherit. He raises a second issue too. By the time control finally passes, the next generation may no longer be as mobile or agile as it once was.

He refers to Li Ka-shing, who he says formally handed over at around 90, when his eldest son was already in his sixties, while acknowledging that this may not be the best example. The broader gap, in Jen's account, is one of perspective. Patriarchs gave their children international education and exposure. That is why the next generation is such an advocate for crypto, the space economy, stablecoins and AI. They see and feel these developments every day. The difficulty is translating that conviction into a story the family will back.

A wedge in the portfolio

Jen's practical answer is incremental. Many family portfolios, he observes, are still concentrated in property and other bricks-and-mortar assets, while some families are shifting towards technology companies and seeding start-ups. If the next generation can secure a wedge, such as 5% of the portfolio, and show that it has delivered a meaningful return, the conversation can change. The family as a unit may then begin to look seriously at AI and other new areas.

He places this within a wider view of how Asian family offices back the next generation. Many heirs he works with wear two hats. They have the family office to look after, and they also have their own business, perhaps investing in AI. Jen distinguishes between a family office investing in assets and a family office investing in people. Supporting a next-generation member's venture is, in his view, an investment in the future. He adds that families will hate it when money is lost, but that the door is open.

What decides whether this works, Jen says, is communication. Families that can operate as a unit and talk through these choices are the ones whose new money, and newer family offices, can become legacy family businesses because they made the right decisions early.

Entrepreneurship, convergence and Hong Kong

This entrepreneurial streak is, for Jen, a defining feature of Asian family offices. Macfarlane suggests that Asian-origin family offices remain more family-led and agile, at the cost of more emotion and more disputes. Jen agrees on the entrepreneurial point and draws out a consequence. Successful families tend to turn every good model into a business. A single family office that works well invites friends and family to participate, becomes a multi-family office, and must then report to other stakeholders. That is where institutionalisation begins, and it is why he expects most Asian and Western models to converge.

For now, he sees Asian family offices as still doing identity planning and building investment mandates, often investing alongside friends and family in a future they intuitively believe in. Western family offices, in his account, are more professionalised and evidence-based and keep more functions in-house, with family members acting as the face of the family while professionals run the engine.

Jen also sets the next generation within a regional picture. He describes himself as an advocate for Hong Kong, where he founded the NGO Hong Kong for Families, and points to the Greater Bay Area, which joins Hong Kong and Macau with neighbouring mainland cities, as a source of synergy in investment, research and development, cultural exchange and education. He questions whether Hong Kong and Singapore are really competitors, and notes that at conferences in both cities families are increasingly being encouraged to look at Dubai. In his view, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the bigger challenge.

He also sees families in the Greater Bay Area working to secure a place on international platforms in fields such as education, healthcare and technology. For these families, he says, such efforts are becoming part of their legacy.

The thread running through Jen's analysis is timing. Next-generation leaders bring ideas suited to the technology-driven decades ahead. Whether those ideas reach the portfolio depends on how quickly authority follows the title, and on whether families can communicate as a unit while the older generation is still in the room.