News Bites
Kitco News' new Editor-in-Chief: Michelle Makori
(Kitco News) - Gold and silver are attracting a lot of attention early in the new year and Kitco News will be on the front lines covering all the market moves with new leadership for its comprehensive news team.
Monday, Kitco News, a global leader in precious metals news coverage, announced that internationally acclaimed broadcast journalist and producer Michelle Makori has joined as Editor-in-Chief and Lead Anchor.
As an anchor and reporter, Makori has covered and analyzed the most significant global economic, financial, and geopolitical events of the past two decades.
"I'm thrilled to welcome Michelle to the Kitco News team," said John Dourekas, Kitco Media Director. "We aim to deliver information that empowers our global audiences to take control of their investment decisions by passionately delivering fast, accurate, unbiased, and accessible information. Michelle, with her wide-ranging news broadcast background and business reporting acumen, was the ideal candidate to lead the Kitco News team."
Dourekas added: "Michelle is a superb journalist with powerful interviewing skills and first-rate reporting. I have great confidence that she will guide Kitco News to a new era of audience growth, bringing our global news coverage to the next level during this critical market cycle and for many years to come."
"I am very excited to join the Kitco News team and help it continue to excel as the leading source of commodities-focused content and to further expand Kitco's financial news coverage. In this unprecedented era of waning faith in the media, we will continue to provide Kitco viewers and readers with reliable, accurate news and fact-based analysis, insight, and opinion," said Makori.
Makori was most recently Lead Anchor and Editor-in-Chief at i24News, a news channel broadcasting worldwide and across the USA. She hosted the i24News’ flagship show 'ClearCut with Michelle Makori.' Makori was hired in late 2016 to set-up the U.S. division of i24News and helped launch the live broadcast operations in February of 2017.
In a telephone interview with Kitco News, Makori said that covering commodity markets is a natural extension of her passion for international current affairs and geopolitical developments.
"Covering commodity markets, is a great way of contextualizing big macro trends. Precious metals can be seen as barometers of major global events and financial and economic trends,” she added.
Makori explained that the renewed focus on silver - as groups of retail investors, organized through social media drive prices to a multi-year high - is the latest example of renewed unrest in financial markets.
"The interest in silver highlights a big trend of frustration and lack of faith in big institutions,” she said.
Makori comes to Kitco News with an extensive journalism background. She first started reporting, covering sports in South Africa, when she was 18 years old. Her achievements have only grown from there. She later became one of the main anchors and producers for SABC Africa Television broadcasting throughout the African Continent, from Johannesburg before moving to New York to join Bloomberg news.
"Growing up in Johannesburg, South Africa, you could say I have a natural affinity for precious metals," she said. "At the age of seven, I visited my first gold mine. My family has been involved in the mining sector, so commodities are in my blood."
South African was once the biggest gold producer in the world. The nation still produces the most Platinum Group Metals globally.
"Johannesburg was developed in 1886 after the discovery of gold sparked a gold rush, its essentially a mining town and it's literally surrounded by these golden-white mountains, which are mine dumps; the sand that was extracted from the mines. Gold mining is very much a part of the culture," she said.
Makori has gone on to interview other heads of state, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and other political, business, and entertainment leaders.
“One of my career highlights happened during my SABC days when I had the opportunity to interview Nelson Mandela.”
Working as a journalist and broadcaster for more than 20 years, Makori has extensive experience creating and producing flagship news programs. Some of her career highlights include working as a reporter for CNN Money and as a news anchor for Bloomberg TV. She has also been a featured guest on Fox Business.
Makori also brings a wealth of Wall Street experience to her financial news coverage, having received her FINRA financial adviser license (Series 7), and working with The Beryl Consulting Group, GFI, Context Capital Partners hosting "Context Summits TV” and iConnections, a leading capital introductions technology platform for the alternative investment industry.
Born in Israel, raised in South Africa, and now a proud American citizen, Makori speaks five languages. With her expertise in Africa, China, and the Middle East, she brings a truly global perspective to Kitco News.
