Reputation On The Line: Michael Macfarlane At The STEP Alpine Conference In Interlaken

Michael Macfarlane, Principal Partner of Michael Macfarlane Associates, joined a panel at the STEP Alpine Conference in Interlaken on 7 May 2026. The conference, organised by STEP, the global professional body for advisers to families across generations, took as its theme resilient succession planning for private wealth.

The session, Reputation on the line: fighting fires, shielding advisers and making the best of bad press, brought together reputation and legal specialists to consider what happens to families, and to the trustees, lawyers and private bankers who advise them, when reputation comes under attack.

Why reputation belongs in succession planning

Succession is usually planned in terms of structures, assets and governance. Reputation is often left out, even though it is frequently what decides whether a transition succeeds. A family’s standing with banks, regulators, counterparties and its own members can change quickly, and a generational transition is often the moment when it is most exposed: new principals become visible, disputes surface and old coverage is read again.

The modern information environment

The firm’s view is that reputation is now formed less by headlines and more by what search engines and AI platforms say when someone asks about a family. Those answers draw on a small set of sources, and they can be shaped deliberately, sometimes by hostile campaigns that seed articles across sites designed to look credible. For families and their advisers, the first impression of a principal may be an AI answer they have never seen.

Shielding advisers

Advisers are increasingly drawn into the story. Trustees, family office executives and lawyers can be named in coverage, questioned by counterparties or targeted alongside the family. A coordinated approach, where reputation, legal and family advisers agree a strategy before a crisis, protects the family and the people who serve it.

Outcomes, not activity

Michael Macfarlane Associates manages reputation for the modern information environment where access, trust, capital, influence and opportunity are shaped by platform dynamics, cultural intelligence and AI. Its work with families and family offices is set against the outcomes they need: access on the right terms, trust with those who matter, capital and opportunity, and resolution when things go wrong. Read more about family office reputation management, private client crisis management and the firm in the media.