Michael Wekerle
Michele Romanow
Tech titan Michele Romanow is a serial entrepreneur who started six companies before her 35th birthday. A “Dragon” on CBC’s hit show Dragons’ Den, Romanow is the co-founder and executive chair of Clearco, the world’s largest e-commerce investor. It has invested over $5 billion into 10,000 entrepreneurs in 13 countries. Prior to this, she co-founded SnapSaves, acquired by American tech giant Groupon, and Buytopia.ca, acquired by Emerge.
Romanow joined Dragons’ Den in 2015, becoming their youngest judge to date. That same year, she co-founded Clearco which earned unicorn status by 2021, making it one of only 23 fintech unicorns in the world to be founded or co-founded by a woman as of 2022. A prolific investor, she was named one of Fortune’s “40 under 40”, a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, one of Canada’s “100 Most Powerful in Canada” by WXN, and Canada’s “Angel Investor of the Year”.
Romanow has created digital solutions for many of the world’s leading brands, including P&G, Netflix, Starbucks, and Cirque du Soleil. Her work has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, TechCrunch, and the Globe and Mail. In 2021, Romanow was honoured with RBC’s Women of Influence Innovation Award.
Romanow is a director for Vail Resorts, BBTV, and Queen’s School of Business. Previously, she was a director for Freshii, Whistler Blackcomb, SHAD International, and League of Innovators. Romanow also co-founded the Canadian Entrepreneurship Initiative non-profit with Sir Richard Branson and is the host of The Audible Original podcast, The Revisionaries.
Jorge Cervantes
Jorge Cervantes’ public career spans 39 years. His books and DVDs (50 total) are published under his given name, George F. Van Patten and pseudonym, Jorge Cervantes, in Dutch, English, French, Italian, Japanese, German, Russian, and Spanish.
Self-publisher, Cervantes’ (Indoor) Marijuana Horticulture book was christened “the Grow Bible” in 2000 by indoor, greenhouse and outdoor growers. His knowledge and hands-on experience inspired millions of growers worldwide to apply simple, effective techniques to grow more and better cannabis.
Countless growers opened their gardens, greenhouses and grow room doors to help Jorge share their know-how with you.
Underground guerilla years (1983-2010) Cervantes wore a disguise to conceal his identity so that he could teach the world to grow. Operation Green Merchant (1989) set up by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and local law enforcement sent more than half of Jorge’s friends to prison during the infamous “War on Drugs”. Cervantes came “out of the closet” in a 2010 interview on National Public Radio (USA).
Hundreds of articles by Cervantes are chronicled in 12 languages – Dutch, Cheech, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. His regular columns in High Times (USA) and Soft Secrets (Europe and Latin America) keep millions growing.
YouTube videos receive millions of hits. Check out more than 250 grow videos with cultivation information you can use immediately.
Travel – Cervantes trekked to five continents traveling extensively in North America, Latin America, Western Europe, and Australia to research and publish cannabis cultivation techniques.
Bilingual (English/Spanish) Cervantes lives in Spain where he continues to teach the world to grow more and better cannabis.
Velvet Kavanagh
You deserve a cannabis business that doesn’t make you feel overworked and overwhelmed. One that runs smoothly, is profitable, and shows the pride and passion of you and your team. The business you dreamed of when you got started.
It’s not easy though is it? It’s really hard!
I’m here to help you. With over 20 years experience building niche businesses in emerging sectors I will help you increase your profits, reduce your stress, and build the business you dreamed of. Your legacy.
Let’s talk about where you are at and where you want to get to. Reach me at grow@phenologic.ca.
Visit my Youtube channel for cannabis business help.
Spensir Sangara
| Spensir is an award-winning multi-passionate entrepreneur with a commitment to setting high standards in the direct to consumer space. These values have led him to build a profitable and iconic retail blueprint that was recently recognized as the Best Independent Cannabis Retail Brand in Canada for back-to-back years (Adcann, 2022 & 2021). As the founder of THC Canada and Co-Founder of Dank Mart (exotic snacks and drinks), Spensir works hard to create profitable cultural hot spots that exceed expectations. |
Kimberly Hooks
Kimberly is the Chairperson of the recently established Frenchy Cannoli Foundation. The Foundation will continue Frenchy’s legacy of open-source hash-making education and promote projects to support the small regenerative farmers of the Emerald Triangle. Kimberly is also leading the distribution of Frenchy’s documentary film “Frenchy Dreams of Hashish” and will publish his book on the history of cannabis concentrates currently being edited. The second iteration of his scientific investigation with High North Labs in Canada on aging hashish is under development. The Foundation is also in the process of organizing the inaugural Frenchy Fest for summer 2023 in Humboldt to celebrate Frenchy’s life and empower the community he loved.
Ron Sam
Chief Ron Sam has 11 years experience as elected leader of Songhees Nation and serves as the chair of the Songhees Development Corporation. Ron brings expertise in government and community relations, negotiation and conflict resolution and strategy development.
Ted Smith
Ted Smith, founder and executive director of the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club (VCBC), has been a medical cannabis advocate in British Columbia for almost three decades. Ted founded the country’s oldest compassion club in downtown Victoria, BC in 1996 and has been operating the VCBC out of the same retail location on Johnon St since 2001. Ted has played a significant role in the battle to secure patient’s access to medical cannabis and paving the pathway to federal legalization of cannabis across Canada.
Ted moved to Victoria in 1995 to start the International Hempology 101 Society and he has been at the forefront of cannabis activism and patient advocacy ever since. Ted has an extensive bibliography of publications including his textbook, “Hempology 101: The History and Uses of Cannabis Sativa.” Ted was the editor and publisher of the Cannabis Digest newspaper, Canada’s most widely circulated publication on cannabis issues for 10 years. Ted has also been a significant cultural icon, highlighted by playing a fun role in the movie “Kid Cannabis” (2014). Between coordinating or participating in thousands of rallies, meetings, press conferences and other cannabis activism events over the years, Ted Smith’s breadth and depth of knowledge on cannabis activism and the needs of patients is unparalleled.
Ted founded the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club in January 1996, and it is the oldest medical cannabis dispensary in Canada with over 8,500 members. In 2009, Ted’s employee Owen Smith (no relation) was arrested for baking cookies for patients at the VCBC. Ted was a central component to the defence team and helped manage the case all the way to a unanimous victory at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015. The successful supreme court decision in 2015 made cannabis edibles and concentrates legal for patients. Over the years, the VCBC and its facilities have been raided 8 times due to our non-compliance with federal and provincial cannabis regulations that neglect the needs of patients. The VCBC has undergone three raids by the Community Safety Unit, have endured threats against our landlord, and we are now being fined close to $6.5M. He and the staff have beaten every criminal charge in court using various constitutional arguments.
Today Ted is leading our small non-profit society into the future. He is focused on getting Health Canada to grant the VCBC a temporary exemption from the Cannabis Act. Our goal is to seek an exemption in order to provide the high-dosage edibles patients rely on, something the club has provided long before legalization. In the future, it is Ted’s goal to create integrated palliative care facilities with cannabis and other plant medicines grown and processed on-site for cancer patients.
Simon Smit
Simon Smit is a Dutch cannabis breeder, 105-time cup winner from Amsterdam, co-founder of Cerebral Seeds, and the creator of Serious Seeds, founded in 1994.
Smit studied biology at ‘Free University’ in Amsterdam, where he began his cannabis career as a certified professional falconer, working in Holland for a few years as a high school biology teacher before taking on the role of manager for Sensi Seeds in Amsterdam around 1992. His transition from the waitlist for licensing to grower took place when Alan Dronkers asked Simon to manage Sensi Seeds, and since then, he’s grown into a renowned expert cultivator.
In 1994 Simon Smit won his first 2 cannabis cups, while his work inspired the second wave of breeders and seed companies to take root in Amsterdam. His company, Serious Seeds, was inducted into the High Times Hall of Fame in 2007, and in 2020, this skilled grower was chosen as one of the 420 icons of the top 100 cannabis influencers of all time.
Marcus “BubbleMan” Richardson
Marcus Richardson has been an entrepreneur interested in medicinal cannabis extraction and hemp cultivation since 1993. He is renowned for his cannabis macro photography pieces, which have been purchased by National Geographic and others. He helped pioneer hemp growing in Manitoba for the first time in 73 years and was one of the first growers for the BC compassion club in Vancouver back in 1998.
Marcus is the owner of Freshheadies, Ltd., which popularized the water extraction method with its groundbreaking eight-bag water extraction kits. His products and writing have been featured in countless magazines, and he continues to educate the public about the use and extraction of cannabinoids for medicinal needs today with his popular Weekly Live Stream on YouTube, “Hash Church”. Marcus’ next goal is a research and development company based in Kingston, Jamaica. It will analyze and study the cannabinoid profiles of cultivars bred by Master Breeders and processed by Marcus and his team. He has also recently signed a deal in California to have his Bubbleman Branded Hash and Rosins sold throughout the state. Additionally, the Bubbleman brand has expanded into Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Arizona, Washington, and Colorado.
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