Michael North
Professional and Personal Website

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Michael North works with growing companies in the fields of finance, marketing, business development, alliance development, telecommunications and technology. He is active in venture capital, private equity, mining and metals trade, and royalty financing, with local projects in Hawaii, across the U.S. mainland, and in greater China.

Michael is Chairman of Galaxy, a commodities trade and applied science company focused on the global magnesium market, and applications of magnesium in the automotive, aerospace, construction, pharmaceutical, energy and consumer fields. The  corporate website is Galaxy Trade and Technology, and the public, client website is Galaxy Magnesium.

Galaxy is based in Honolulu, and its China subsidiary is based in Yulin, Shaanxi Province; its mission is to support the development of the global magnesium export industry, and to participate in advanced technology applications of magnesium science.

PW Global is an investment management company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company is engaged in international commodities trade, with an emphasis on gold, sourcing unrefined ore and delivering finished, refined gold to global centers. Mr. North serves as Chief Investment Officer.

Pacific Royalties was established by Michael North in partnership with a renowned expert in financial systems, Arthur Lipper. The company is forming a private investment fund to provide royalty finance for companies. The group plans to implement a public securities exchange based on issues of high-quality royalties.

Relative Valuations is an original approach to securities analysis conceived by Arthur Lipper, developed with the assistance of Michael North. Investors may quickly compare key measures of financial performance by listed companies on the major US exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, others). A one-line chart is generated, comparing the performance of two stocks or ETF, in seven key categories specified by Mr. Lipper -- for example Revenues, Earnings per Share, and PE Ratio.

ARK Power Technology is a Texas company led by Dr. Wonbong Choi, a pioneer in advanced materials science. His work is focused on nanoscale processing of lithium anodes and cathodes. The objective is to make more efficient batteries for electric vehicles, and enhanced grid storage for renewable energy. Michael serves as Chief Investment Officer.

Taran Therapeutics is a leading biomedical research firm that specializes in monoclonal antibodies. Michael North serves as Strategic Advisor, working directly with the chief executives of the company, helping to formulate its mission, vision, and long-term investment strategy. He has a long commitment to the life sciences, specifically to making fundamental therapies that penetrate to root causes widely available.

Asia Pacific Group is a group of allied professionals which provides comprehensive services to investors in America from Asia. Michael serves as Managing Member, and directs the firm's business development advisory services.

International Mining Services is a natural resources licensing company, which assembles mining claims to vital mineral resources in North America on behalf of major metals manufacturers. Michael  is a finance, communications, management and technology advisor to IMS, with a special emphasis on energy-efficient mining operations and carbon-reduction strategies.

China Royalties is a joint effort with Arthur and Anni Lipper to introduce the new vehicle of royalty financing, and a public exchange for royalty contracts, to China. Royalties are superior to equity and debt as a means of financing growing companies, because they pay a simple percentage of company revenues to investors.

Wealthbridge is a private wealth asset management firm with several hundred individual and business clients. Michael North serves as a senior associate and strategic advisor to Wealthbridge, as it expands its assets under management.

Revenue Ventures: Michael North was the co-founding CIO (Chief Investment Officer) of this ground-breaking diversified income-oriented fund of seven international enterprises with fast-growing revenues. Because of market conditions, that effort was suspended in September 2023, but Mr. North maintains connections with several key companies about their long-term financing requirements.


Understanding China is a television series in which Michael North, from a studio in Honolulu, interviews leaders of China's government, business and cultural communities.

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Asia-Pacific Business Strategies is a series of live, syndicated television programs, hosted by Michael North, featuring personal conversations with accomplished people in all walks of life, to understand their keys to success.



Zhou EnlaiMichael is co-founder of the non-profit public policy group, The Zhou Enlai Peace Institute. The Institute educates the people of China and the world about the great Chinese thinker, diplomat and peacemaker, former Premier and Foreign Minister


Zhou Enlai, who led the way to opening China to the West, and stood for international peace and co-operation. Michael's wife, Xiaofang Zhou North, is the co-founder of the Institute.

Activities include a major conference and delegation at  United Nations headquarters in New York, "The Right to Peace," bringing students and artists from across China to celebrate UN Peace Day, and the 120th Birthday of Zhou Enlai, with the United Nations community. The Peace Institute has a broad-based cooperation agreement with the National Zhou Enlai Memorial in Huaian, Jiangsu Province, to further research and education and China's peacemaker.

Mr. North is the co-author of "The Xi'an Incident: A Turning Point in Chinese History," written for an international forum at Nankai University, Tianjin. The paper was given a thoughtful review in a publication from the University.

In November 2023, Michael and Xiaofang created, sponsored, hosted and produced "Families of Peace" -- an international forum to celebrate the role of families in establishing, sustaining and extending a durable peace, through people-to-people connections. A full-length documentary is in production, and a condensed version is available here: The Story -- Trailer.

Business and international trade is vital to the China relationship. Michael directs America-China Bridge, a company committed to building peace and understanding between China and America. The Bridge works across several bi-lateral fields, including business, education, culture, technology, communications, citizen diplomacy and investment strategy. It seeks to bring the best of America to China, and the best of China to America.

The Bridge sponsored a series of high-level investment education seminars in the heart of Beijing, presented by Board member Mary Buffett. As the daughter-in-law of the most successful investor of all time, Warren Buffett, Mary shared her insights into means, methods and philosophies with an audience that included hundreds of private investors, bank, government and diplomatic officials. The event was actively supported by the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the  Ministry of Commerce.


Michael North is the original President and co-founder of Greenstar Corporation, a technology company that focuses on solar power, wireless communications and media development.

Through Greenstar's "digital culture" programs in the developing world, solar-powered community centers are installed in remote, rural off-the-grid villages. A Greenstar system includes health, education, employment, telecommunications, agriculture and ecommerce services.

This model was pioneered in Al-Kaabneh, on the West Bank near the Dead Sea, with subsequent projects in Swift River Jamaica, Parvatapur India, Patriensah Ghana, Suruaca Brazil and Pang Do Tibet. Special projects have been completed in Afghanistan. The company is establishing a network of centers in remote rural off-the-grid villages around the world.

For each village, a special media program is developed, recording original traditional music, artwork, photography, poetry, animations and recipes that communicate the true voice of the community, in digital form, to the world, in all-digital form. Through direct consumer purchases, and through commercial licensing, Greenstar returns income to the village.

Greenstar co-operates with the US Department of Energy, US Agency for International Development, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Labs, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Telecommunications Union, the World Bank, the World Resources Institute, Capital Missions, Rotary Clubs International, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, the Technology Empowerment Network and other international organizations. 


Let there be peace for all.
Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
Let each know that for each body, the mind
and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves...
Let freedom reign.

Nelson Mandela


Michael North is the original founder of North Communications, a leading public access network company. Beginning in 1986, the firm built scores of electronic commerce solutions that deliver complex transactions to the general public through public access touchscreens.

The company's clients included the states of California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Michigan, Kansas and Florida, the U.S. Congress, Los Angeles, Tulare and San Diego Counties, Northrop, Cadillac, City of Chicago, New York City, University Credit Union, Citizens Bank, Microsoft, IBM, BellSouth, GTE, MCI, Sears, Hewlett-Packard, the PGA, Social Security Administration, Veterans Administration, Medicare, U.S. Postal Service, Puerto Rico, the Republic of Singapore, Brisbane Australia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Canada, and others.

As President and CEO, Michael initiated and developed a strategic relationship with billionaire broadcasting and telecommunications investor John W. Kluge of Metromedia Company, New York. Metromedia became the majority shareholder of North Communications, and Mr. Kluge assumed the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors.

North Communications has received many international awards for its work, including the Gold and Silver Cindy (Cinema in Industry), the Kennedy School of Government/Ford Foundation (twice), and the Byte Invision Award (twice). Michael speaks extensively to industry and professional groups, including Comdex, Service to Citizens, Government Technology, the Library of Congress, the National Science Foundation, the Congressional Forum on Social Security, the General Services Administration, the International Engineering Consortium, PlanetWorks, Capital Missions, the Technology Empowerment Network and the International Telecommunications Union.

He served as a judge on the annual Global Information Infrastructure Awards, was a founding member of The Standard for Internet Commerce, authors papers for network and media industry publications, and has consulted independently on internet security and biometrics to GTE Corporation (now Verizon).


Michael's early professional background was in publishing (editor of New Directions magazine), in computer networking (a primary organizer of conferencing projects in the 70's including EIES on the proto-Internet at the New Jersey Institute of Technology) and in television production (associate producer of prime-time shows for CBS Network, including "That's My Line."). In 1983 and '84, as vice president of CompuSave, he directed media and software development for a pioneering multimedia public access retail operation, the first fully online transactional department store, which deployed several hundred transactional kiosks in grocery stores across America.


He serves as Board Member and past-President of Iona Contemporary Dance Theatre, Honolulu's leading experimental dance group. He also assists with several Hawai'i non-profit groups, including the Hawai'i Forgiveness Project, where he is media developer and organizer of an annual public festival. Michael is a principal business and marketing advisor to a leading jade import business in Honolulu, Jade Gallery Hawaii. He works with his wife, Xiao Fang Zhou, to manage a professional Chinese-language translation service, XiaoFangZhou.com. In Michael is a member of advisory boards for Upstream, an international organization focused on conflict prevention; for Sustainable Business, an ecommerce portal serving the "green" renewables industry; and for IDC's Technology Trends Advisory Council. He serves as a Board member of AchieveZero, a non-profit organization dedicated to guiding houseless people to new homes of their own, where they can realize their full potential. ###


Publications:

Several papers are available online: The 21st Century ATM The Greenstar Opportunity and Digital Culture, E-Philanthropy and Sweatshops and Butterflies. He is the editor of an art and poetry volume, Gallery of Forgiveness Arts (pdf) and the short journal-book, which Michael edits, Forgiveness Stories.

With his wife, Xiao Fang Zhou, he is co-author of Zhou Enlai: Man of Peace, a pictorial biography of the former premier of China, and the producer of a DVD by the same name, filmed at the 2011 Ministerial Conference of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation).

He and Xiao Fang are also co-authors of Through American Eyes, and of Deep Love, books published together with recognized authorities in China on the life and significance of Premier Zhou Enlai. He was an editor, and wrote the foreword, for the autobiography of Zhou Bingde, "My Uncle Zhou Enlai," published at the United Nations in English translation in 2018 by China International Publishing Group.

He was selected by the Zhou Enlai Study Center at the Central Committee in Beijing to present a peer-reviewed paper at Nankai University in Tianjin, for the Fourth International Zhou Enlai Symposium. The paper is titled The Business Principles of Zhou Enlai. He wrote and produced a short documentary about The Five Principles of Peace, for the 60th Anniversary celebration at the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Michael researched and authored a second peer-reviewed paper for Nankai University, titled "The Five Principles: Long-Term Effects in Ghana, Turkey and Indonesia," for presentation at the Fifth International Zhou Enlai Symposium in 2018. . He was invited back in 2023 to write a third peer-reviewed paper at Nankai University, Zhou Enlai School of Government, "The Xian Incident." This paper was successfully presented in person by Xiaofang Zhou North.   

Michael North is the author of Reciprocal Journal, a regular online series of observations of polticial, social and cultural developments, largely focused on China and global issues. Sponsored by Asia-Pacific Group.

An article providing historic review of three events in early 2022, was published by the Zhou Enlai Peace Institute: Shanghai Communiqué,  Zhou Enlai Anniversary,  Beijing Winter Olympics. Available in English and Chinese.

Michael co-authored a book with well-known financier, Arthur Lipper, titled "A Study of the Implementation of a Royalty Exchange in China." He also co-authored, with Liu Meiyan of CITIC Trust and Arthur Lipper, a White Paper on the use of revenue royalties in public-private partnerships in China, titled New Financial Methods for Public-Private Partnerships in China.

 


Online persona and bio: http://www.michael-north.com

business:
Asia-Pacific Group: http://www.asiapacificgroup.us
Galaxy Trade and Technology: http://www.galaxytradetechnology.com
Pacific Royalties: http://www.pacificroyalties.com
International Mining Systems: http://www.internationalminingsystems.com
China Royalty Exchange: http://www.chinaroyalties.com

public interest:
North Communications: http://www.northcommunications.net
Greenstar: http://www.greenstar.org.
America-China Bridge: http://www.americachinabridge.com
  Zhou Enlai Peace Institute: http://zhouenlaipeaceinstitute.org
Hawaii Forgiveness Project: http://www.hawaiiforgivenessproject.org

Further materials, video, music, photography and personal papers
are at http://www.mediasense.com


Email mjnorth@ix.netcom.com.


MNorth-headshot

"The Lesson" -- Edouard Frère





English 英 | Chinese 中国