Customer Experience

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

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

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

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

This $8B market is quietly moving into the most advanced UHNW projects in the world, and most brands are not paying attention yet. We already all know that Ultra-luxury is shifting away from one-off experiences and pretty design moments. Some of the most advanced UHNW environments in development today are no longer organized around views, amenities, or narrative. They are structured around embedded production systems including agriculture, ranching, crop cycles, food cultivat

A framework we recently built for a client serving the UUHNW segment ($300 million net worth and up) made one thing clear: a new type of connoisseurship has quietly become the new power language of luxury. Across demographics, including Gen Z, there is a rising intolerance for anything surface-level. The modern luxury client wants to own the depth behind what they choose: the origin, the engineering, the mind of the maker, and the purpose encoded in every detail. They are not

Projects now in development, launching in the next 12 to 24 months, will reset UHNW expectations so sharply that many “best in class” brands will realize they were never in the right race. The truth is, the future of UHNW experience is already being built, but not by the brands currently celebrated for excellence. I saw this in my formal evaluation of UHNW and UUHNW experiences this year. Across flagship environments, private membership models, ultra-limited programs, and hos

On a recent project in Japan, I watched a team pause over a gesture that would last no more than two seconds. It took me straight back to my student years there. With debates swirling about Asia’s dominance in the Top 50 hotels, that moment reveals something critical. In the finest Japanese hospitality teams, a micro-gesture is treated with the same strategic weight as a major decision. This is not formality. It is philosophy. And it is an operating system that global leaders

Grit in the dust. Neon in the air. Vegas just became the capital of the modern cowboy. National Finals Rodeo (NFR) has landed, and with it comes a global obsession that refuses to fade. 🔹 China’s Western-luxury fixation is accelerating. In 2025, Ralph Lauren’s China revenue jumped mid–double digits, and searches for “American Western style” on Tmall rose 40%. 🔹 Ranchland is the new wealth signal. Jackson Hole, Whitefish, and the Montana and Texas ranch corridors helped driv

Luxury watch and jewelry showrooms in the region carry a different gravity. They serve heritage families, global collectors, multi-generational rituals, and an unspoken code of respect that stretches far beyond the sale. So when a major multi-brand group invited us in, despite having immaculate showrooms, strong in-house luxury talent, and a respected regional reputation, they weren’t seeking modification. They were safeguarding their position at the forefront of ultra-luxury

I can meet with a cross-section of your customer-facing employees for ninety minutes and know instantly whether you are as good as you think you are. These can be wealth managers, client advisors, flight attendants, front desk agents, or janitors. This week proved it again. I led an advisory session with ten top performers from a major brand. Three questions… then I let the room breathe. Listen. Probe. Watch the space between what they say and what they believe. And here is w

We just wrapped up an Event Activation in Wealth Management for thirty-two UHNW+ millionaires and billionaires. Here is what made the event a standout… But first, let’s be honest: as we move into the holiday season, we are about to see a tidal wave of “luxury events” on LinkedIn. Beautiful rooms. Michelin-adjacent food. Acclaimed performers. Mood lighting that photographs well. But it all blends together: luxury theater without luxury psychology. In truth, UHNW events do not

Everyone plans for “The Moment”; the point of sale, the start of delivery, that pivotal conversation. Everyone has a script for “The Now”. However, almost no one has a strategy for “The Echo”. Across every category: wealth management, automotive, hospitality, retail, technology, healthcare — the pattern is identical; companies executing meticulous orchestration UP TO the point of close. And then silence. Or worse, they adopt an overused “nurture” tactic that earns an instant

It happens in airports, in boardrooms, and in those quiet, late-night hotel moments when a leader finally decides to build something no one else has had the courage to attempt. I’ve been on the road for six weeks. I love hand-picking client projects to lead myself, and these currently include fascinating projects underway in Seoul, Dubai, California, Geneve, and The Kingdom. Five industries, five transformations, each centered on a single question: What does it take to serve

“Are we creating something truly distinctive or just executing someone else’s formula better?” We were discussing an industry plagued by copy-cat behavior where the product is commoditized. Moments later the conversation turned to real estate, and a well-respected real estate millionaire at the table leaned in and said, “Antonia, I could swap the name on my building tomorrow, and my life wouldn’t change an inch.” He wasn’t exaggerating. The ultra-luxury Branded Residential la

.... and think the market has a winning formula on how to do so – you may have already lost. Building offerings for UHNW is not a marketing exercise. It’s a strategic architecture. And right now, most brands are replicating legacy models instead of focusing on where the UHNW space is going. I’m currently leading a fascinating project with a company that understands this. This is a brand with real heritage, deep resources, and the courage to think differently about how they en

And in 2025, it’s akin to declaring that water is wet. This isn’t strategy. It’s nostalgia. Personalization has been the vocabulary of luxury for decades. It’s the language every serious brand has already spoken, scaled, and saturated. From boutique houses to global icons, the concept has been polished so thoroughly it’s lost its edge. So when Hyatt presents it as revelation, it doesn’t feel visionary. It feels like déjà vu. Luxury has always been personal. The question isn’t

... and still found three dawns to disappear into the mountains. Three solo days. Nearly 50 miles. More than 23,000 feet of vertical. Three to four summits each day. I like to stack nearby peaks and test both endurance and recovery. Instead of early meetings, I drove off-road to remote trailheads. No teams. No cameras. No noise. Just endurance meeting elevation. My favorite combination. I don’t climb for adrenaline. I climb for perspective: the same thing I chase in the work

We’ve all done it. The food is fantastic. The ambiance is stunning. The service is impeccable. But the meal is…. instantly forgettable. Or worse: Forced. A restaurant leaning on theater to disguise the fact that there’s no real experience underneath. In luxury, those tricks might feel novel for a month, but they have no staying power. That’s the epidemic right now: flawless service with zero impact. Too many brands confuse service with experience. Or mistake extravagance for