The Family Office Summit Dubai brought together world leaders in family offices to discuss how the wealthy families are transforming capital, governance, and decision-making.
The summit, hosted in Dubai, underscored its role as a place of family wealth and private capital across the globe, with local family offices being a part of an ecosystem that handles over $1.2 trillion in assets.
With 12 moderated expert-led panel discussions, 10 moderated roundtables, and 254 participants, including 81 family offices and 103 family holdings, the summit included practical discussions on how family offices are changing in response to structural changes across private markets, technology, governance, and global diversification.
Obediah Ayton, Chairman of the Family Office Summit, said, “The Family Office Summit in Dubai highlighted how global families are redefining capital allocation, governance, and investment strategy in a rapidly evolving landscape. The discussions from private markets and venture capital to AI and cross-border opportunities, the conversations reflected a disciplined, forward-looking approach to wealth management.”
Some of the 12 panels included Rafael Haselberger of Allianz Global Investors, Maha Azmy of Invest Hong Kong, Tim Heath of Yolo Investments, and Reem Al Otaiba, Family Principal, and each of them had a different insight into the investment discussion.
Topics included co-investments and selective private markets, making Asia and Hong Kong strategic gateways, considering high-yield FinTech and iGaming opportunities, and focusing on technology, sustainability, and robust governance.
The first panel emphasized the separation of family business and family wealth and the need to have governance frameworks that encourage less emotional decision-making.
Experts addressed holding structures, trusts, and investment models that maintain alignment in addition to being less complex, and observed the way in which family works with UAE governmental organizations to venture into new sectors and move into new geographies.
The private markets were an important area of emphasis, and as such, UAE family offices were becoming more active in co-investments, direct deals, secondaries, club deals, and even private credit as a component of their overall private equity programs.
In the first half of 2025, UAE family offices facilitated approximately USD 3 billion in venture capital transactions, indicating a sustained momentum in their investment activity.
The firms also enjoyed robust development in the regional financial ecosystem, such as a close to 40 percent increase in new asset and wealth management registrations in Dubai in 2025.
This theme of geographic diversification was followed by a strategic discourse on the geography of Asia and Hong Kong. The family offices in the UAE are exploring potential investments in Hong Kong, driven by robust interest in technology.
Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced biology, quantum computing, and space technology are becoming new frontier technologies in China. The nation is also investing in the development of electric cars and humanoid robots, and the Chinese corporations are investing more in the UAE, especially in AI and advanced computing infrastructure.
One of the main recurrent themes was technology-driven opportunity and risk. The discussion formulated the artificial intelligence within the context of family offices as a realistic productivity device instead of a conceptual notion, and the role it plays in enhancing due diligence, reporting, operational efficiency, and governance without substituting human judgment.
Another significant point at the summit was the moderated round tables immediately after the panel discussion, which helped to have a specific discussion on the topics of re-engaging with the public market, organizing the venture capital and the exposure to the private credit, reevaluating the real estate, and institutionalizing passion assets.
The Family Office Summit Dubai, which was well attended by the Middle East, Europe, Hong Kong, Asia, and North America, consolidated the emirate as a global meeting point where wealth is being made serious discussion as families gather not just to preserve their capital, but to place it in smart positions to meet the decade to come.
