70% of Asian Families Are Set to Transfer Wealth, but Only Half Think the Next Generation Is Ready

Families need to spend as much effort developing their future stewards as structuring the future ownership of their assets, because having a succession plan does not equate to having a generation prepared to exercise stewardship, said the Wealth Management Institute in its report published on Monday 5 October.

The single most striking number: family offices that report cross-generational participation in strategic or operational decisions have 6.5 times the odds of viewing their next generation as prepared, compared with offices where this participation is absent.

“A succession plan can determine where wealth goes; stewardship development determines what happens when it gets there,” WMI said in the report, titled Stewardship by Design: Preparing Asia’s Next Generation for Leadership and Impact.

The report drew on 146 survey responses collected in the first half of 2026, from family-office principals and professionals predominantly based in the Asia-Pacific, with Singapore as the principal hub.

Not every member of the next generation will lead the operating business, WMI noted, and families that have sold their operating companies no longer need the next generation to possess the capabilities required to run that particular business. Families should therefore prepare the next generation for the enterprise they expect to own, not simply the business the founder happened to build.

“Families may need capable owners, governors, leaders, investors, philanthropists and conveners, rather than one successor expected to reproduce the previous generation,” the report said.

To do that, next-generation family members need opportunities to make decisions, explain the reasoning behind them, experience consequences and show they can progressively be trusted with greater responsibility.

WMI set out four key elements for developing stewards: identity, responsibility, accountability and legitimacy.

Identity connects personal motivation with family purpose. Responsibility gives that motivation a practical expression. Accountability requires decisions to withstand review. Legitimacy develops as contributions become visible.

Not all forms of participation are equal, however. Participation in strategic decisions was more strongly associated with preparedness than operational or oversight exposure. Within education and development, board and governance exposure had the clearest association with preparedness.

Preparing future stewards also requires current stewards to evolve their roles, as continuity should be built across people rather than around a replacement. Families seeking continuity over several generations need to create a system in which today’s stewards can develop tomorrow’s.

WMI warned against turning an informal, relationship-led family into a professionalised, rules-based one, given that there is no universal development model. Instead, families should preserve the relationships and practices that make development meaningful while adding the clarity required.

A key is to seek external advice, although only about a third, 32 per cent, of respondents identify external advice among the top three factors most often guiding family-office decisions. That gap, WMI suggests, is an opportunity to bring in expertise that strengthens a family’s ability to make consequential decisions across generations.

Families also need to understand that renewal can sometimes mean deciding not to repeat an inherited practice. “The values behind an earlier contribution can endure even when changing circumstances point towards a different response,” the report noted. “The stewardship task is to understand the purpose behind what came before, and determine how that purpose remains relevant now.”