Hampton Tao is a third-generation family member at Hong Kong-based family office New Heritage Group.

We first encountered Tao on a panel at the annual SFO Week event in London, and have since noticed just how active he is within the APAC family office ecosystem, regularly speaking at private bank, Big Four and FinTech events as well as regional family office summits.

When he’s not engaged with these activities, Tao works together with his father and uncle, but his story of family wealth begins with his grandfather.

“He established several businesses in commodities trading and shipping before becoming a real estate developer focused on Mainland China in the 1980s. Together with his two sons, my father and my uncle, they took the family business public on the main board of Hong Kong Stock Exchange and ran it for close to a decade. After a liquidity event, we transitioned to managing our own capital.”

That liquidity event occurred in 2014, when they sold their controlling interest in the family business to a Shenzhen real estate developer.  

“Looking back, this was a significant milestone for our family in two ways. On one hand, we received liquid financial assets that were readily and legitimately deployable in a USD-denominated investment universe. Most other families who made their money in China have no such luck. On the other hand, we escaped unscathed from the mainland Chinese real estate downturn beginning in 2019.” 

Tao started working with his family after a stint in e-commerce startups and deep tech venture capital.  

“Initially, I joined our family foundation and sourced NGOs focused on solving issues arising from Hong Kong’s aging population.  Later, I transitioned to our single family office as an investment manager, involved in sourcing, diligencing, and monitoring our investments across various alternative asset classes.” 

He also became involved in monitoring the family wealth preservation strategies, as well as managing private banking, multi family office, and OCIO relationships.

Through this he noticed how the nature of trust in wealth management was starting to shift with younger generations.

“It is currently impossible for the Boomer generation to trust agentic wealth advisors, but that is not unthinkable for the next generation. Against the backdrop of a $120 trillion generational wealth transfer, how AI agents build trust with Millennial and Gen Z wealth owners will be the trend to watch.”

Being a third-generation member brings its own specific challenges, and raised a lot of questions for Tao that spanned everything from family dynamics to legacy management. 

“How do we balance access to family resources and independence from family control? How do we build trust with and contribute to the legacies of our families? How do we release our resentment towards our family? How do we mitigate the corrosive effects of wealth?”

Answering these questions led him to discover the complexities next gens face before, during, or after working with their family. Rather than shy away from these, he’s taken a different tack, “openly documenting my experience and reflections as a 3rd-generation millennial unpacking some of these issues.”

Earlier this year he started sharing his perspective in a Substack publication titled Totemic Families. His aim was to “address a gap in the market: the lack of shared lived experiences among millennials and Gen Zs from multi-generational family enterprises and single family offices.” 

“While technical advice is plentiful, there is very little honest sharing about the emotional weight of these roles. I want to share my story to encourage others to do the same.”

This evolved into a podcast where he could share similar stories but from peers.  

“The format is simple.  For every episode, sitting around my guest and I are 20-25 family enterprise heads, heirs, or single family office gatekeepers.  After an hour-long conversation, we all break bread together and mingle.”

Tao believes that safe spaces for peer learning and bonding are evolving. 

“While the largest families are understandably private, the long tail of single family offices and multi-generational family enterprises are self-assembling through content and community.”

Sharing the stories of his peers and their journeys of building trust and relationships with their family is his way of helping this evolution.

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