Search
Most family office events in Asia are free to attend if you qualify, and closed to everyone else. The price of a pass is not the thing to compare. Who is allowed in the room is.
It depends on which of three things you are there to do, and events sort cleanly into those three: allocation and manager access, peer conversation in a screened room, or stewardship, succession and philanthropy. The Business and Philanthropy Forum is built for the third.
Access matters more than programme quality when choosing, because most of these events are free for qualifying family offices and closed to everyone else. Nearly all of them are in Singapore.
In short: Nine family office events run in Asia across 2026 and early 2027, eight of them in Singapore. Qualifying single family offices attend most of them at no cost; service providers pay, and at several events cannot attend at any price. Choose on three questions: whether you are allocating capital or working on stewardship, whether you need the room screened of advisers, and whether you are attending as a family or as a provider. Only one event on the list publishes its prices.
The three questions that decide it
Work through these in order. The first two questions eliminate most of the calendar.
Question one: are you working on the family, or allocating capital?
Family work means succession, governance, next-generation preparation, philanthropy and the family’s public role. Allocation means managers, funds, co-investment and portfolio construction. Almost no event does both well, because they need different rooms. An allocation event needs managers present, which by definition fills the room with people selling.
Question two: does the room need to be screened?
Some events admit qualifying families only and remove institutional advisers at registration. Others admit providers in controlled numbers. Others are open marketplaces. If your reason for attending is to say something you would not say in front of your bank, only the screened events work, and the Chatham House Rule is worth checking for by name.
Question three: are you attending as a family, or selling to families?
Families attend most of these free. Providers pay, and at the most tightly screened events are excluded regardless of budget. Providers should read the eligibility line before the agenda.
| If this is your answer | The kind of event to look for |
|---|---|
| Family work, and philanthropy is the point | The Business and Philanthropy Forum, where foundation leaders sit with principals |
| Family work, room must be screened of advisers | An event that removes institutional advisers at registration rather than capping them |
| Allocating capital, room can be mixed | A large private markets conference with a family office day attached, for manager density |
| Allocating capital, room must be screened | An invitation-only summit limited to principals, CIOs and allocators |
| Peer conversation with nothing on the record | A roundtable run under the Chatham House Rule with media excluded |
| Technical grounding rather than networking | A programme run by a training institute rather than a conference organiser |
| Based in Hong Kong or North Asia | One of the few events held outside Singapore |
| Selling to family offices | An event that publishes a provider price and a family-to-provider ratio |
Business and Philanthropy Forum: best for stewardship, succession and philanthropy
6 and 7 November 2026, Shangri-La Singapore. Tenth edition. Convened by Alliance for Good.
The only event on this list built around what a family does with capital rather than where the capital goes. The four conversation areas are Asia in a changing global order; entrepreneurship, innovation, technology and capital; stewardship, succession and legacy; and philanthropy and social progress. The organiser expects more than 500 participants, more than 100 speakers and representation from more than 30 countries under the theme Leaders at the Frontier: Insights into the Future.
The structural difference is who else is in the room. Foundation and philanthropic leaders attend alongside family principals, founders and next-generation stewards, so a family working out how to organise its giving can talk to people who run the receiving institutions rather than only to other donors. No other event on this list puts those two groups together. The format is described as a private forum with public purpose: closed-door peer dialogue combined with public channels for sharing conclusions.
Where a different room fits better. For manager selection, fund diligence or allocation decisions, a large private markets conference is the better use of two days. Philanthropy and succession are the agenda here, and a CIO sent to find managers would return with little that is actionable. This Forum is also ticketed rather than free, which is worth knowing in advance.
If you are a service provider
The third audience for this search, and the one every organiser page is written for without saying so. Three things decide whether an event is worth your budget.
Whether you are admitted at all. The most tightly screened events remove institutional advisers at registration, and some are closed to everyone but single family office executives, and to media entirely. No budget changes that. Others admit providers in limited numbers and state plainly that willingness to pay does not create a right to attend.
What the ratio is. Very few organisers publish one. The strongest version is a written commitment that families outnumber providers both on stage and in the audience. Everywhere else, ask the organiser directly for the expected split and treat an unwillingness to answer as the answer.
What you are buying. At the largest events the product is volume, and the family office day is one part of a multi-day conference with hundreds of general partners competing for the same attention. At the smallest the product is scarcity. Those two require different budgets and different expectations, and the cheaper pass is not always the cheaper meeting.
Questions about family office events
What family office conferences are scheduled to take place in 2026?
The Asian calendar clusters in two windows. Most of the allocator-facing events run between May and October, and most of them are in Singapore. The Business and Philanthropy Forum runs on 6 and 7 November 2026 at Shangri-La Singapore. A handful of provider-facing forums sit in the following April. If you are planning a year, work backwards from the two or three rooms that match your reason for going rather than trying to cover the calendar.
What is the family office summit?
Several unrelated organisers use the phrase, which is why the name on its own tells you very little. In Singapore it covers at least two quite different events: one education-led and run by a training institute, one allocator-led and limited to principals and CIOs. Check who runs it and who is admitted before assuming which one you have found.
What are the top family offices in Asia, and which is the largest in Singapore?
Neither question has a documented answer, because individual family offices are not required to publish assets under management, so any ranking rests on estimates. Attendance criteria are a better signal of scale: one Singapore event sets its free-attendance threshold at USD 150 million in assets, which shows where organisers draw the line.
How much money do you need to open a family office in Singapore?
The conditions attached to Singapore’s fund tax incentive schemes are set by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and revised periodically. No figure is quoted here because the current thresholds were not confirmed at source for this article. Confirm with the Monetary Authority of Singapore or a licensed adviser before planning a structure.
Before you book
Answer the three questions first, in order: allocation or family work, screened room or open room, attending or selling. Two or three will survive, and the agenda is then worth reading. Most people do this backwards, start with the agenda, and end up in a room built for somebody else.
Then ask the organiser three things their page will not tell you: the expected ratio of families to providers, whether any confidentiality rule applies to the sessions, and what a provider pass costs even if you are not a provider, because the price of access reveals what the organiser thinks the room is worth. Annual events move their dates, so reconfirm directly with an organiser before committing travel.
Before you book
- Which of the three questions actually describes your reason for going?
- Have you asked the organiser for the expected split between families and providers?
- If you are a provider, have you confirmed you would be admitted at all before budgeting for it?
- Are you booking the room you need, or the one with the best-known name?
One thing to do this week. Pick the one event you are most likely to attend and ask the organiser for the family-to-provider ratio. An unwillingness to answer is the answer.
Sources
Access rules, eligibility and cost patterns were taken from organisers’ own published pages in September 2026. Event organisers change their terms between editions, so confirm directly before booking.
- Alliance for Good, Business and Philanthropy Forum 2026
- Business & Philanthropy Forum interviews with family principals and foundation leaders
Related: Family philanthropy in Asia: how giving actually works and Philanthropy in Singapore
The Business & Philanthropy Forum publishes interviews with the family offices and principals who attend these rooms.
The Business & Philanthropy Forum 2026 runs 6 to 7 November at Shangri-La Singapore.
Two days with the families, family offices and foundations making these decisions, rather than reading about them afterwards. Reserve a place, or read the interviews first.
