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.
Themes / No. 6
How artificial intelligence and new technologies are reshaping education, security, art and the industries families invest in.
Theme hub
Artificial intelligence and related technologies run through many Wealth Office conversations, often in unexpected places. Shield Xiao Dun, who built an education company to 20,000 staff, now builds AI tutors and sets out the dystopias he fears. David Ferbrache OBE and Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe describe how AI is making impersonation and extortion easier for criminals targeting family offices. Pearl Lam believes AI threatens conceptual art and raises the value of craft. Bigna Pfenninger expects tokenisation to become ordinary infrastructure for fractional ownership. Nicolas de Santis calls the current AI boom a bubble within a longer cycle, and Keyu Jin explains how China's innovation flywheel turns production into progress. This theme gathers those views on where technology is creating value, where it is shifting risk and what guests believe it cannot replace.
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.
Insights
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
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
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
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
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
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 readNews
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]