China is the opportunity. Gen Z is the inflection point. And this is where The Macallan underplays its hand. From the perspective of a firm that designs experiences for the world’s most exacting brands, and as a whisky fan myself, I read the report on The Macallan’s recent China activation with interest. Then disappointment. While many markets are seeing declines in drinking overall, the opportunity for luxury spirits in China is not just intact, it is accelerating, particula

Mountaineering is one of the few places left where judgment still matters more than confidence. You can be strong and still make the wrong call. You can be experienced and still misread the conditions. The mountain doesn’t reward bravado. It responds to preparation, restraint, and the ability to turn back early without needing to explain yourself. That lesson translates more than people realize. The best leaders I know don’t rush clarity. They don’t confuse movement with prog

That assumption is quietly killing differentiation in wellness and specialty medicine. Over the last 12 months, we have worked inside elite concierge medicine, plastic surgery, fertility, regenerative, and advanced specialty practices across major U.S. markets, Dubai, and Seoul. The most consistent failure is not clinical, operational, or even cultural. It is experiential misalignment. What we are seeing go wrong, repeatedly: 🔹 Experience is being imported, not engineered Ma

So many UHNW conversations feel identical right now and so many luxury responses feel so late. The homogeneity is suffocating. I see it every day: repackaged “storytelling” and manufactured theater, hubris dressed up as vision, followed by customer loss and weak market returns. Then everyone sits in a room to figure out what happened. It’s not because brands don’t understand wealth. It’s because they misunderstand saturation. When you operate at permanent access, novelty coll

The AHA Group was honored to be recognized by Digital Reference as one of the Top 10 Customer Experience Consulting Firms in the U.S. for 2025, coming in at Number 6. Last year, we completed over eighty engagements across industries where experience is not a nice-to-have, but a material driver of trust, reputation, and long-term value. This recognition was based on three things that matter deeply to us: 🔹 Measurable and impactful client outcomes-- not just theory 🔹 Sustaine

Last week, I spent time inside a UUHNW private club that required a signed confidentiality agreement to enter. No video. No voice recording. No photography. No exceptions. Even the architecture was built for discretion, with both a main and private entrance. What struck me was not the policy. It was the absence. No phones. Not face down. Not half-hidden. Not checked between courses. Unseen for hours. I had not been in a truly phone-free environment in a long time, and the eff

The first week of January takes me to four cities in four days. Four active client engagements. That is how this year is opening for me. Not with reflection, but with continuation. Last year never really slowed down, and this year is already in motion. Over the past year, our firm ran over eighty engagements across four contents. The work spanned global enterprises, financial institutions, luxury and lifestyle brands in every category, UHNW platforms, private member organizat

I was slow. My diet was a mess. My body was weak. In 2025, I completed a climbing expedition on a remote 22,000 ft peak in the Andes, including surviving an extreme windstorm at 19,000 ft that nearly ended the climb (blog link in comments). Between those two experiences: ▪️ I lost 35lbs to optimize for climbing ▪️ I’m nearing a bodyweight bench press ▪️ I ran over 100 miles with 21,000 ft of vertical the week before Christmas, mostly above 10,000 ft ▪️ I train twice a day mos

A CEO of a multinational high-end brand said this to me recently. And he’s right. Luxury has become ubiquitous, and in the process, diluted. Everyone now has a luxury offering. You can buy a “luxury” lunch in the USA for $5. Taco Bell and their Luxe Box has you covered. It’s a good deal, but is it luxury? And that is the problem. Luxury has become an abused word. It now means everything, which means functionally it means nothing. It’s lazy shorthand. And there are real conseq