Ivan Ross Vrana

Ivan Ross Vrana

Ivan Ross joined Diplomat Consulting in 2022 as its Managing Partner. He is widely recognized as a health care industry expert and his experience in this sector dates back to his time with Health Canada when he helped develop several Government of Canada positions regarding healthcare policies and services. Since that time he has worked at H+K Strategies where he supported clients in health care as it pertains to investor relations, communications, regulatory review, strategic partnerships, and government affairs work at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. In 2019, he Ivan Ross joined Eve & Co. and led the company’s EU-GMP certification, government relations, and business development efforts. He holds a Masters in Public Administration from Carleton University and a BA in History from the University of Ottawa.

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The Honourable Darrell Dexter

The Honourable Darrell Dexter

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Melanie Yelton

Melanie Yelton

Dr. Yelton leads the horticultural lighting industry forward in discovering new ways to optimize crop production and elicit desirable plant characteristics through the use of LEDs. Dr. Yelton offers her experience bringing horticultural best-practices to large-scale commercial cannabis production, both for indoor and greenhouse applications.  Melanie is one of the industry’s leading experts in using light spectrum to achieve precision in terpene and cannabinoid production and has used these advanced spectral strategies to improve consistency of new cannabis products.

Prior to joining LumiGrow, Melanie served as a research scientist and lecturer at Stanford University. Melanie completed her postdoctoral training at Stanford as  National Institutes of Health Fellow studying plant receptors and signaling. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of California, Davis, where her work focused on plant pathogens. She holds an M.S. in the biochemistry of photosynthesis from the University of South Carolina, Columbia and a B.S. in biology from Virginia Tech. The recipient of numerous academic awards and accolades, Melanie holds a patent for her work involving filamentous fungus. Earlier in her career, she served as Director of Sequencing at the Stanford DNA Sequence and Technology Center, a division of the Human Genome Project.

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Corey Herscu

Corey Herscu

For the past seven years, Corey Herscu has been a laser-focused branding strategist, thought-leader, and publicist.

After graduating the public relations program at The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University, Corey began his career working with emerging technology in Canada.

In July 2017, Corey started his firm, RNMKR. As a full-service agency, RNMKR’s clients have been featured in Rolling Stone Magazine, Business Insider, Playboy, Mashable, Cheddar, Uncrate, and many other mainstream outlets regionally and internationally.

RNMKR has created narratives, relationships, and branding opportunities with such brands as Zenabis, TruTrace Technologies (BLOCKStrain), Tinley Beverage Co., O’Cannabiz, Max Zavet & Robes Cannabis, BRNT, Emblem Cannabis, The Supreme Cannabis Company, Weedbox, Origin House (CannaRoyalty), and more.

More recently, since establishing himself as a thought-leader in the cannabis industry, Corey has become a growth consultant for early stage cannabis start-ups, helping define their place in the industry and raise go-to market capital.

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Jennifer McKenzie

Jennifer McKenzie

Jennifer McKenzie is a partner with Bereskin & Parr LLP, leader of the Regulatory, Advertising & Marketing and co-leader of the Cannabis practice groups.

Jennifer has extensive experience with regulatory, advertising and marketing law. Jennifer reviews advertising and claim substantiation for clients in a wide-range of industry sectors from prepackaged consumer goods to regulated products such as drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, food and alcoholic beverages. Jennifer has represented clients in competitive trade disputes before Ad Standards and the Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board, and provides advice to clients on federal and provincial privacy legislation for the private sector, including Canada’s anti-spam law, and the drafting of consumer facing privacy policies and terms of use. Jennifer helps clients in relation to promotion and contest design. Jennifer also has extensive experience in trademark prosecution and enforcement.

Jennifer is a frequent speaker on marketing and advertising law and intellectual property, and has written extensively in these areas. She is recognized as a leader in her profession in both advertising and intellectual property law and has been ranked in a number of legal directories.

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Micheline Gravelle

Micheline Gravelle

Micheline Gravelle is Managing Partner with Bereskin & Parr LLP and Chair of the Executive Committee. She is also the leader of the Life Sciences and the co-leader of the Cannabis practice groups.

Micheline’s practice focuses on assessing new technologies, preparing and prosecuting patent applications worldwide, and conducting due diligence analyses and providing strategic advice on patent portfolios. Micheline stays at the forefront of the life sciences industry, and regularly contributes to various publications, and is a frequent speaker on the issues that affect IP in the industry.

Micheline is recognized as a top-tier professional in both national and international industry publications. In 2019, Micheline was recognized among MIP’s Top 250 Women in IP.

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James Eaves

James Eaves

James Eaves, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management at Laval University. His research focuses on improving the economics of indoor farming. He published the first peer-reviewed study comparing the cost of building vertical versus building a greenhouse. James was the Head of R&D at Greenseal Cannabis company, a company that grows flower using 6 tiers. Currently, he is the Director of Indoor Agriculture at VoltServer, which allows companies to safely deliver high-voltage power to driverless LEDs using only communication cable. The company has over 1000 large installations, including a 9 acres indoor leafy-green farm and perhaps the tallest cannabis vertical farms in the world.

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Rory Jonathan

Rory Jonathan

Rory Johnathan entered the commercial cannabis industry at the age of 16, working his way up through the booming British Columbia Cannabis Industry.After working with some of the top growers and breeders in Canada, Rory took an opportunity to export British Columbia large scale growing know-how abroad, setting up and running a network of warehouses in Central Europe.

Rory currently heads up the Grower Support department at Advanced Nutrients, a team of expert growers backed by Advanced Nutrients’ staff of PhD’s.The Grower Support Team provides full service support to Cannabis growers across the globe, from the smallest hobbyist to the largest grows on the planet, helping growers with plant problems, grow room design and literally every other facet of Cannabis growing.

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Kevin Carlin

Kevin Carlin

Operates the Pacific Northwest territory for Advanced Nutrients. Specializing in client relations and commercial cultivation. Kevin has been with Advanced Nutrients for 6 years. His home town is Portland, Oregon.

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Amanda Ross

Amanda Ross

Amanda Ross is an associate with Cooper, Sandler, Shime & Bergman LLP. Ms. Ross’s primary area of practice is criminal law at both the trial and appellate levels. She represents clients on variety of matters before the criminal courts, including fraud and other white-collar crime, murder, aggravated and sex assault, weapons offenses, drug offences, and driving offenses. She has experience at every level of court in Ontario, including at the Ontario Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada. Ms. Ross also represents clients facing regulatory and professional disciplinary proceedings and teaches trial advocacy at the University of Toronto.

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