Plant Prophets

The Future of Wellness & Why CBD Will Pave the Way for Growth with Lisa Raggiri, co-founder and U.S. CMO of Healist Advanced Naturals. Lisa describes herself as an entrepreneur through and through. Healist Advanced Naturals is the second company that she co-founded. ToneRow.com was the first. Lisa has been a startup employee, co-founder, board member, investor, executive, consultant, mentor and advisor for over 15 years. Over the years she spent a great deal of time deeply rooted in companies focused on scaling or launching ethical and sustainable brands, particularly for sectors like beauty and plant-based foods.

Pantry Food Co with CEO and Founder, Scott Jennings. Today's guest has expertise in high finance at two of the largest investment banks in the world. He previously served as a Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management and also worked at Barclays Capital serving ultra-high net worth clients as well as working in Private Wealth Management. Pantry was conceived in partnership with the creative services agency Green Street, which is 50% owned by Gary Vaynerchuk, Pantry currently sells a handful of all-natural products across California dispensaries.

High performance indoor cannabis cultivation facilities with Brad Nattrass, Chairman/CEO/Co-Founder at Urban-Gro Inc. Our guest today has more than 25 years of experience in the agricultural sector. He is a co-founder of a leading systems integrator and agriculture technologies company delivering best-in-class systems, solutions, and services to the global commercial cannabis cultivator market. Urban-gro, Inc. is a leading engineering design services company that integrates complex equipment systems into igh performance indoor cannabis cultivation facilities around the world.

The Benefits of Full-Spectrum Hemp with Barbara Goodstein, founder of B GREAT. Their goal at B GREAT is to provide customers with superior quality hemp-based products that they can use with confidence. They are transparent and use only well-tested natural ingredients to enhance body balance from morning to night. B GREAT products work with your body’s endocannabinoid system safely and naturally to rebalance your health and sense of wellbeing. B GREAT's proprietary formulas were developed by a team of scientists, medical practitioners, and ex-pharmaceutical visionaries. Unlike other CBD products, all of their ingredients are natural, grown in the USA, produced in FDA-registered facilities, and are all third-party lab tested. Barbara started B GREAT because she had heard that CBD has wonderful therapeutic benefits, but like many people, she didn’t know which products to choose from. Barbara had never heard of most of the products on the market and she didn’t know what standards they held. She wanted a product that used the highest quality ingredients. Barbara didn’t want to find out that she was taking a synthetic CBD, or that her CBD had been sourced from another country. She learned that many companies use CBD isolate instead of “full-spectrum” hemp and that without full-spectrum hemp, she wouldn’t be getting the benefits of all the nutrients in the plant.

Sound policy solutions in cannabis with Tami Wahl, Strategic Policy Advisor in Washington, D.C. with Market Access Today. With over twenty years of legal and legislative experience, Tami Wahl is proud to represent forward-thinking clients from a diverse business landscape. Innovators from Hemp, Wearable Tech, Fashion Tech, Banking, FinTech, Cannabis, and other industries have made Tami Wahl the voice for their cause in Washington, D.C. Ms. Wahl also works with industry stakeholders, trade groups, Congressional members, and federal agencies on both sides of the aisle to drive sound policy solutions and ultimately, create a balanced pathway to market for innovative products.

Treaty Oak Distilling with Director of Science and Sustainability, Jamie Biel. Treaty Oak is anchored in the roots of tradition and yet each inspired by unique cultural impulses. They embrace the scientific method, even as they collect artistic perspectives to blend with the distilling process. As a group, they're driven to tinker and test. They are pushed to re-think the creative process the way disruptive musicians, chefs, and painters do. Treaty Oak experiment with ingredients and how they’re sourced, with distilling techniques, with ways of finishing—always informed by hard-won knowledge. They are all collected at Treaty Oak because their founder believes in the creative yield of eclectic experiences. They're here because of the question “what if …?” The people of Treaty Oak believe in everything that got them here. But more importantly, they believe all of that is enough to help them create the next great spirit. Treaty Oak Distillery is named after the famous 500-year old tree in Austin, under which Stephen F. Austin signed agreements defining the borders of Texas. Their gins are called Waterloo, after the original name of Austin. They moved to Dripping Springs, a place with a rich history of gatherings and shared perspectives. The wide variety and numerous sizes of stills they have running have given them a depth of knowledge of distillation that allows them consistency and quality. That search for consistency has led Treaty Oak to the column still. They have incrementally scaled up from a 5-gallon pot still to a continuous column.

How Cannabis will affect the beverage industry with Steve Luttman from Tortoise & Volt Marketing and Ventures. Steve Luttman started his career at Unilever, working in Europe, the United States, and Brazil on various brands including Lipton Iced Tea, Ben & Jerry’s, Bertolli, and Ragu Pasta Sauce. In 2003, he joined Diageo & Moët Hennessy’s Schieffelin & Somerset as Senior VP Marketing. In 2005, he created and launched Leblon Cachaça, the leading superpremium Cachaça in the United States. Leblon is now found in over 40 countries and was acquired by Bacardi Ltd in 2015. Steve is now the Managing Director of Tortoise & Volt Marketing & Ventures, a boutique creative marketing and innovation agency based in New York City.

Young America Capital is a FINRA/SEC-registered broker-dealer founded in 2010 by Peter Formanek, a CPA, and successful entrepreneur. The firm grew out of Family Office Advisor, a CPA and Wealth Advisory business founded by Peter in 2000, which provides accounting services and Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Real Estate Advisory services to large Family Offices and Alternative Investment Funds. Peter’s vision for Young America Capital is to build upon his early success as an advisory firm by bringing Wall Street investment banking pedigree and services to early-stage and middle-market firms. He began this journey over the last ten years by attracting top-notch industry and market specialists to the firm. Growing from an initial foundation of three people to more than thirty strong today, the firm offers a broad spectrum of investment banking services and deep industry expertise. Within the last three years, the firm has accelerated its development by adding specialized industry practices including Healthcare & Life Sciences headed by Dr. Bruce Forest and Maritime & Infrastructure led by Henry Juan and Consumer & Retail led by Todd Slater. Peter, the CEO of Young America Capital, was founded in 2009. He is a CPA with 30+ years of experience advising fund managers, family offices, and companies. He previously worked as CFO and Deal-Flow Originations Analyst at Southern Cross Group ($2B+ AUM PE Fund), as a Financial Analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, and Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, and is the owner of an HNW focused CPA firm and multi-family office.

Banking solutions for the cannabis industry with Chief Revenue Officer of Hypur, Tyler Beuerlein. Hypur was founded on the belief that legitimate businesses should have access to basic banking services – like a bank account and proper electronic payments. Unfortunately, businesses in many industries struggle to maintain basic banking services because financial institutions simply don’t have the tools to serve them. Traditional banking and payment systems weren’t designed for emerging, highly-regulated and cash-intensive businesses.

KushCo, Founded in 2010, has now sold more than 1 billion units and regularly services more than 6,000 legally operated medical and adult-use growers, processors, and producers across North America, South America, and Europe. They maintain facilities in the five largest U.S. cannabis markets and they have a local sales presence in every major cannabis market across the US and Canada. KushCo strives to be the industry leader for responsible and compliant products and services in the cannabis and CBD industries. While KushCo services all facets of the cannabis industry, it has no direct involvement with the cannabis plant or any products that contain THC.