Illustration: Angus Cameron
When Patricia Woo stood up to speak at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club in Bermuda in June 2019, delegates snoozing in the afternoon heat thought they knew what was coming.
They had no idea.
The annual forum on transcontinental trusts, which brings together more than 300 global banking, tax and legal practitioners, asked speakers to convey the foremost concerns of their clients, mostly high net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high net-worth (UHNW) families. Most did their boilerplate duty, citing protectionism, the US war on Chinese tariffs, or the UK’s looming departure from the EU.
When it was her turn to address the room, Woo, a fund, trust and tax lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs in Hong Kong, who helps UHNW families build and manage full-service family offices, decided to tack against the wind. Rather than discuss trade wars or the riots in her home city, she plunged straight into a topic that absorbs her: spiritualism and the pursuit of oneness with the universe.
