Elevate Your Grind

Tom Celani has a few companies in his personal portfolio: MotorCity Harley-Davidson, Celani Family Vineyards, Luna Entertainment, and for the focus of our conversation, High Life Farms. His son's Ben and Vinnie Celani now head the grow and sales operations, respectively, for one of Michigan's oldest and largest recreational cultivators. We sit down with Ben and Vinnie to hear about the Michigan market and what its like to operate within a family business.

Daniel Abrahami is the cofounder of Headquarters (HQ), a strategic advisory collective focused on helping cannabis entrepreneurs unlock accelerated growth in California’s multibillion-dollar market. Daniel is also Managing Partner of AGM Ventures and has been advising companies and investing in cannabis operations since 2014. With a passion for the intersection of cannabis and commerce, his mission is to unlock innovation in the industry. Daniel led business development for ABC Gems, an...

Joe is the CEO and co-founder of the Cannabis investment group, Ceres Group Holdings. He is a cannabis industry investor, entrepreneur, and a former portfolio manager. After graduating from Vanderbilt University, Joe spent 4 years as a commodities arbitrage trader followed by 12 years in the private and small institutions portfolio management group at Goldman Sachs. Since its founding in late 2016, Ceres Group has completed cannabis brand, ancillary, and international deals. Joe currently...

David Dinenberg is the Founder and CEO of KIND Financial. Over the past 18 years, David has worked in several successful ventures across in Finance, Real Estate, and Entertainment. Prior to KIND, David Dinenberg spent 8 years as the COO and a Partner at Grasso Holdings, a full-service real estate development company, where he ran day-to-day operations for the 45 person organization managing an asset portfolio valued in excess of $400 million. David is an active member of the cannabis...

Mike McDonald brings over 30 years of leadership excellence, focusing on forging partnerships and building brands. Experienced in consumer products manufacturing, finance, marketing and sales, Mike guides Ammonite’s rapid development from a start-up to one of the most innovative hardware platforms in the cannabis industry. In addition to his role at Ammonite, Mike holds an advisor role at California cannabis pioneer Jetty Extracts and was formerly Jetty’s Chief Corporate Development Officer....

Robert Beasley, a native Floridian, co-founded the law firm of Litvak, Beasley Wilson & Ball in 2001. As a consultant, Robert has advised multiple parties to obtain cannabis licenses and create related financing facilities in Florida, Oregon, California, and Washington, D.C. Also, Robert has participated in the design and construction of five cannabis cultivation and processing facilities, served as Board of Manager of the leading independent cannabis physician clinic group in Florida, and...

Mr. Arellano is an accomplished executive and award-winning accelerator of lifestyle brands. He has created and produced internationally recognized campaigns for some of the world's leading brands including Nike, Red Bull and Incase. As a career marketing specialist, Sam's 20-year work history spans men's contemporary apparel, sporting goods and consumer electronics. Prior to joining CANNDESCENT Sam served as CMO for Lumos Labs – a Hong Kong based manufacturer of Bluetooth enabled bicycle...

Brooks Lustig is the CEO at Seed & Smith, a Colorado cannabis grow and marijuana dispensary providing premium-crafted wholesale cannabis concentrate, medical cannabis, and recreational cannabis. A native of Boulder, Colorado, Lustig had grew up seeing the success of legacy industries such as craft beer and herbal tea, and set his hopes on normalizing adult-use cannabis as a similar societal staple.

Mike Simpson is a seasoned entrepreneur specializing in transformational innovation across a wide variety of industries and countries. He has spent much of the last 15 years conceiving and developing next generation products for British American Tobacco in Japan, Hong Kong and in the US. Mike is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of Heat-Not-Burn technology and has spent the last 5 years researching the cannabis market.

Rebecca Allison is the VP of Brand Marketing at Parallel, a MSO home to Florida's MMTC brand Surterra Wellness. Rebeca has led the development and launch of multiple new brands, the creation of 40+ new products, expansion into new state markets, and countless other efforts that helped to expand Parallel's mission of pioneering a new paradigm of well-being.

Jeremy Guttveg has been a creative and digital marketer for over five years, working with a number of entrepreneurs, artists, start-ups, and established organizations. Florida native and graduate of Florida State, he is now the Marketing Director for Florida MMTC VidaCann where he oversees day-to-day operations of their marketing department. Jeremy has lead the creation and implementation of VidaCann's branding standards, digital marketing strategies, and the opening campaigns for their 13...

Charles Warner is the CEO of Innovative Properties Worldwide, a veteran-owned media company headquartered in Denver with offices around the country. At IPW, Warner is responsible for overseeing the companies many areas of specialization to include custom publishing, sponsorship sales and onsite activation, audience development, sales training, and media placement. Flagship publications include Innovation & Tech Today, Residential Tech Today, STEM Today, Sustainability Today and Cannabis &...

Since the early stages of the Internet, in the mid-1990s, Sparky Rose has grown from a cutting-edge designer into a leading branding and marketing professional with deep expertise and focus in the medical and recreational cannabis industry. A visionary and believer in championing products that help society, he was at the forefront of the cannabis industry from 2003 to 2006 as executive director of Compassionate Caregivers, an Oakland, California-based medical cannabis company. Sparky helped...

Jessica Billingsley serves as Akerna’s Chief Executive Officer. In June 2019 she became the first CEO of a cannabis ancillary company to be listed on Nasdaq. She co-founded MJ Freeway in 2010, where she served as President until April 2018, and later as the CEO until MJ Freeway was acquired by MTech to form Akerna. In 2015, she was named as one of Fortune’s Most Promising Female Entrepreneurs, in 2018, she was named one of Inc. Magazine’s 100 Female Founders, and in 2019, she was named to...

Sara Stewart is building out the first legal cannabis consumption lounges in America under her new advisory company, The Highspitality Group. Sara is an experienced hospitality professional providing exceptional customer service in establishments ranging from nightclubs to fine-dining restaurants. With unique experience managing and operating in the first cannabis consumption lounge in the US, Sara is looking at ways to bridge the gap between cannabis consumption lounges and today's...

Dr. Stuart Titus, Ph.D., is an industry innovator who has been involved in the growth of many companies in the cannabis industry, and started his relationship with Medical Marijuana Inc. by becoming its seventh investor. Titus’ is also a Wall Street veteran, where he was a bond trader for 11 years. Dr. Titus earned his undergraduate degree at Rollins College, and his Ph.D. from the Open International University. Dr. Titus has been involved in the development and investment of several...

Steven Ernest is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Sharp Capital Advisors. Steven began his career at J.P. Morgan and leverages a decade of experience in the capital markets, as well as five years in the cannabis industry to advise owner/operators and investors alike in the cannabis space. Steven began his career in cannabis by co-founding Mazakali in San Francisco. He then joined Viridian Capital Advisors to lead business development efforts in raising capital for cannabis companies. In...

Cannabis dispensary professionals are all too familiar with constantly juggling their inventory, customer engagement programs, employee success efforts, and everything in between. Two technology-focused entrepreneurs, Cree Robinson and Louis Masensi, are hoping to simplify this process with their new software company touCanna, which automates and connects all of a dispensary’s work in one place. The pair decided to launch into entrepreneurship after years working in tech, and learning that...

The Flowery is a newly opened, family-owned MMTC in the state of Florida. Currently available by delivery in Miami-Dade and Monroe County, The Flowery has begun to rack up rave reviews and praise for their flower. "We are flower focused, and when our patients experience our products, it's a handshake with our grower at our Homestead nursery. We control every stage of the process, from seed to sale...We're farmacists, not pharmacists, and when you're a patient at The Flowery, you'll...

Shadi Ramey discovered her passion for food at an early age growing up in a first-generation Persian household where the act of preparing food was always slow and always intuitive. She learned at an early age that real food takes hours to create and that the same reverence must be given to experiencing that food. Shadi is a self-taught chef combining her interest in cultures from around the world with local, organic ingredients. She began cooking professionally in 2005 and continues honing...