Plant Prophets

Weedmaps with COO and Veteran Steven Jung. Founded in 2008, Weedmaps is a leading technology and software infrastructure provider to the cannabis industry. Their suite of cloud-based software and data solutions includes point of sale, logistics, and ordering solutions that enable customers to scale their businesses while complying with the complex and disparate regulations applicable to the cannabis industry. In addition, the Weedmaps platform provides consumers with information regarding cannabis products across web and mobile platforms, including listing local retailers and brands, facilitating product discovery, and allowing consumers to educate themselves on cannabis and its history, uses, and legal status. Headquartered in Irvine, California, Weedmaps employs more than 400 professionals around the world, including in Barcelona, Berlin, Boston, Denver, New York, Phoenix, and Toronto.

Nothing But Hemp with CEO Steven Brown. Nothing But Hemp is one of the first hemp dispensaries in the midwest. In under a year, his company grew from one location to 11 nationwide. Steven has been featured on MPR, Marijuana Ventures, Tom Bernard show, and Ministry of Hemp. Steven is a founder of the Minnesota Hemp Association and former United States Marine. Steven has over 20 years of retail experience and started his first retail job at age 13. After his service in the Marine Corps, Steven managed a GNC. He turned his GNC store into the #1 GNC store in the nation. After years with GNC, he left and became a regional sales director for T-Mobile. In his first year, he was awarded the T-Mobile Winner Circle Award for being in the top 5% in sales. Steven left the wireless industry and started a retail training & consultant company Connecting Innovations Inc.

C21 Investment is an ecosystem of leading brands in strategic markets. They are focused on consumer value creation through supply chain optimization, superlative manufacturing processes, brand equity, distribution, and retail channels in North America and abroad. Their mission is to unlock the environmental, social, and economic utility of cannabis by developing, producing, and delivering premium quality and high performing cannabis brands and products internationally. Sky Pinnick is a founding partner and the CEO of Phantom Farms, one of the most reputable cannabis brands in Oregon. Pinnick began his career as a Producer and Senior Designer at Microsoft Studios. Since Microsoft, Sky has started and sold several successful tech ventures, including a video compression platform used by media giants like MTV, AOL, and NBC. Before starting Phantom Farms, Sky focused on building his film business, Rage Productions, producing numerous films including award-winning titles, Boom Varietal (2011), and Down Days (2008). Sky also produced a TV series for NBC Sports called Rally America and has worked as a commercial director for companies such as Facebook, Nike, GoPro, RedBull, Garmin, and PetSmart.

Hi-Cone is a leading supplier of ring carrier multi-packaging systems for the global Beer & Non-Alcoholic Ready to Drink (NARTD) beverage markets, providing sustainable packaging solutions to major Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies. Hi-Cone has set ambitious goals to become 100% recyclable, biodegradable or compostable by 2025. They realize they cannot do this alone and need to work collaboratively with consumers, governments, and industry to meet consumer’s desire to reduce their plastic use and meet the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Their aim is to educate consumers on how to reduce plastic consumption and how to recycle all aspects of the circular economy; an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. Hi-Cone partners with consumers, retailers, and industry experts to make tangible and impactful changes to advance the circular economy through our ongoing innovations in packaging design and material development. For more information on Hi-Cone, please visit hi-cone.com or follow news on LinkedIn.

Gage Cannabis Co. With Jason Desentz, EVP of Human Resources. Gage Cannabis sets the standard for quality cannabis products, bar none. They cultivate and curate experiences that empower patients to make the most of the plant’s benefits and amplify their lives. They operate three licensed cultivation and processing centers in Michigan that serve 13 provisioning centers throughout the state with more on the way. Gage grows its plants in small batches using 100% hydroponic cultivation methods for sustainable and responsible operations. From handpicking every plant to employing their proprietary drying, trimming, and curing method, each step of our process is deliberately designed to deliver the best flower possible. They hold themselves to the highest possible standards. Every day we are guided by values that bring our promise to life for their patients. Gage is setting the industry standard for quality in craft cannabis products and service, cultivating and innovating expressions that empower patients to make the most of the plant's benefits in their lives.

House of Saka was founded in 2018 when cannabis industry insider, Cynthia Salarizadeh and wine industry veteran, Tracey Mason, came together with a mission to create the world’s most advanced line of luxury, cannabis-infused products made by and for women. Discovering a shared passion for wine, beauty products, and the boundless properties of the sacred cannabis plant, the pair assembled an unparalleled group of powerful females from both the cannabis and wine industries to help bring their mission to life and provide the foundation on which it could flourish. Tracey Mason is a 25–year veteran of the adult beverage industry with experience in nearly every facet. She has held executive-level marketing positions at some of the world's largest beverage companies, including Diageo, where she worked her way up from sales management to Director of Commercial Innovation and Fosters Wine Estates, where she held the position of Vice President of Marketing/Innovation until 2006 when she left to pursue her dream of running a small business.

Canopy Growth with Sol Clahane, Vice President and General Manager, U.S. Region for Canopy Growth. Sol oversees all of Canopy Growth's commercial operations and brands available in the U.S. market, including BioSteel, First & Free, This Works, and much more. With a deep background in beverages and CPG, our hosts sat down with Sol to talk about making the switch to the cannabis industry, the major partnership between Martha Stewart and Canopy, the organization’s work with Constellation, and what’s next for the company as it looks to expand its footprint in the U.S. Additionally we talk with Sol about the importance of female leadership and diversity in the upper echelon of the space, what it is like to work with a celebrity of Martha Stewart’s stature and how she talks to her daughter about working in cannabis and CBD.

Humble Bloom With Co-Founder and Cannavist Solonje Burnett. Solonje is a community leader, humanist, cannavist, and co-founder at Humble Bloom where it is her mission to give the underrepresented a seat at the table in the cannabis industry. She believes that we can shatter stereotypes, structural inequities, and biased business practices through culture curation and by providing strategic branding and hiring, advocacy, and inclusive purpose-driven community experiences. Solonje sits on the Equity First Alliance Steering Committee, is an advisor for the Virtue Project’s Business Equity Council, and an Advisory Board member at CRUDE. She was recognized as 15 Women to Watch in the CBD Industry in Marie Claire and Culture Magazine’s Five Cannabis Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2019. She has spoken at PopSugar Playground, NECANN, and Yale Business of Legal Cannabis Conference. Solonje has been featured in publications and podcasts including Black Enterprise, Refinery29, Vogue, VICE, WGSN, Cheddar, Skunk, Women & Weed, Miss Grass, Maria and Jane, Supermarket, and more. Solonje produces events and festivals for conscious companies, hosts nightlife parties, as well as programs music at membership clubs.

Improving Recovery For Athletes Using Cannabis with Rachael Rapinoe, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mendi. Our next guest runs an athlete-built and women-owned company with a mission of improving recovery for all athletes. She continues to apply her expertise in training, competition, and recovery in an effort to better understand the role recovery has in performance and the human body. With her network of influential athletes and passion for competing, she shapes a product line to meet the relevant demand in cannabis and sports. Rachael won an NCAA national championship with the University of Portland in 2005, played pro soccer in Europe in 2010, and eventually retired to pursue her passion in the health and fitness industry. Leveraging her Masters in Health and Exercise Science from PSU, Rachael went on to build Rapinoe SC — a soccer performance training company & lifestyle apparel brand with her twin, US Soccer star sister, Megan Rapinoe. Rachael Rapinoe wrote an op/ed for Portland Business Journal titled: In a 'different' Pride month, representation matters. Mendi set out to convince the masses that CBD could offer athletes a break from addictive pain pills and excruciating recoveries. While there have been reports of professional male athletes who use cannabis, it seems that women in the industry may be a little further behind in their support.

The youngest black dispensary owner with Seun Adedeji, CEO and Founder of Elev8 Cannabis. Our guest today is the youngest black dispensary owner in the country. A recent feature proclaimed him “the epitome of a self-made businessman who created his own opportunities.” At three-years-old, Adedeji migrated from Nigeria to the Southside of Chicago and later to the state of Texas, where he spent his teenage years. Now, Adedeji is the youngest Black man to own a cannabis dispensary in America. Seun immigrated from Nigerian to the south side of Chicago as a small child. He got caught up briefly in the street life but managed to recognize his ambition and let it lead him. This led to him securing a cannabis license in the state of Oregon and to opening his first dispensary there. He will open his second dispensary next month in Athol, Massachusetts, and then two more near Boston by January 2021. In an interview with Face2FaceAfrica, he said “I started reading more about emerging markets and the cannabis industry kept popping up. My goal has always been to create generational wealth for my family, so I saw the cannabis industry as a great way to do just that. Whites own 80% of the cannabis business, African Americans are 4x more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, even though we consume cannabis at a lower average rate than whites.”