Erika Dyck is a Professor and a Canada Research Chair in the History of Health & Social Justice. Her interdisciplinary research brings social sciences and humanities perspectives to scientific and medical subjects. Her work has been published in medical, legal, economic, literary, philosophical, anthropological and historical venues. She is the author of several books, including: Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD from Clinic to Campus (Johns Hopkins, 2008; University of Manitoba Press, 2011); Facing Eugenics: Reproduction, Sterilization and the Politics of Choice (University of Toronto, 2013), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s award for Canadian non-fiction; Managing Madness: the Weyburn Mental Hospital and the Transformation of Psychiatric Care in Canada (University of Manitoba Press, 2017), which won the Canadian Historical Association Prize for best book in Prairie History; and with Maureen Lux, Challenging Choices: Canada’s Population control in the 1970s (McGill-Queens University Press, 2020). She is also the co-editor of Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond (2018); and A Culture’s Catalyst: Historical Encounters with the Native American Church in Canada and Peyote (2016). Erika is the co-editor of the Canadian Bulletin for Medical History/Bulletin canadien d’histoire de la medicine and the co-editor of a book series on the global history of alcohol and drugs, called Intoxicating Histories. Erika is also a Board Member of Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plants, and Associate Director of Chacruna Canada.
Mr. Utkhede has 22 years of experience in pharmaceutical formulation and process development and has extensive experience developing robust and commercially scalable manufacturing processes. He has worked extensively developing various pharmaceutical dosage forms — topicals (dermal and ocular), orals (capsules and liquid), parenterals (aseptic and terminally sterilized) — and drug/device combination products with extensive experience in the area of lyophilization, liposome and emulsion technology. Utkhede is also well versed in GMP/FDA regulation.
Mr. Utkhede is the COO of Vantage Hemp Co., with 22 years’ experience in pharmaceutical formulation and development. A specialist in lyophilization, liposome and emulsion technology, he has worked extensively in the production of pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoid treatments – including oils, topicals and isolates. Utkhede’s background in the healthcare industry, designing robust and commercially scalable manufacturing processes, has been pivotal to Vantage Hemp securing GMP and EU compliance as the company expands worldwide.
Daniel got his start in the Cannabis industry early 2018 working at Terrascend Canada. Beginning as a Grow Technician and working his way up to Cultivation Coordinator; Daniel worked hard setting up Terrascend’s ERP system for cultivation, and helping acquire both Sales and GMP licenses.
More recently, in addition to consulting under his “Habitual Hobbyist” brand, he teaches Cannabis Cultivation at the Academy of Applied Pharmaceutical Studies for their Cannabis programs.
Prior to joining the industry in 2018, Daniel was living in Israel where he served in the army and afterwards started a business with a friend. Both his military experience and his time as an entrepreneur challenged and trained Daniel to have a keen eye for optimizing operations and processes.
Brian Coutts
Chatham, Ontario, Canada
Business Development Manager “Food & Pharma”
A & L Canada Laboratories
Brian is the Business Development Manager and is responsible for “Food & Pharma” segments of A & L Canada Labs which includes cannabis, hemp, and food processing. After graduating from the University of Guelph Ridgetown Campus in Agricultural Business & Crop Production, Brian worked in the agricultural space for 25+ years and brings with him knowledge from advising growers on proper agronomy.
He managed one of the leading agricultural retail companies with locations spread across Ontario and was responsible fertilizers, crop protection, seed, agronomy, precision agriculture and professional application services.
Brian was one of 30 people in the inaugural class of Certified Crop Advisors in Canada 25 years ago which is a voluntary professional enhancement certification program advising growers on agronomic practices that meet the program’s ethical and environmentally sustainable standards. He sits on the board today supporting science and sustainability for future professionals advising growers on agronomy. He has been involved with many committees supporting agriculture including past chair of the Ontario Agri Business Association, the Great Lakes Watershed, and 4 R Nutrient Stewardship strategy in Ontario.
Brian works with licenced producers, food processing companies, micro, medical and personal growers across Canada to service their needs for analytical testing and agronomic information using the latest technologies for cannabis and hemp.
As a judge on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, MANJIT MINHAS shares business lessons with equal parts force and finesse. An entrepreneur herself, Minhas runs the 10th largest brewery in the world—worth a whopping 187 million dollars. Her unprecedented success in a male-dominated field demolished stereotypes, surprised competitors, and cleared a path for entrepreneurs of every age and gender. In talks, she distills the hands-on lessons of her success, showing audiences how they can embrace change, defy expectations, and incentivize disruption.
Dragon’s Den celebrity judge Manjit Minhas has been able to do what few ever thought possible—break into the notoriously competitive and male-dominated beer and spirits industry. Minhas Breweries, Distilleries and Winery, which Minhas co-founded with her brother Ravinder, is now the 10th largest brewery in the world, producing over 90 brands of beer, spirits, liquor, and wine. She is now the sole owner, President, and CEO of the company, which has served over 1 billion pints of beer to date. With sharp strategy and keen understanding of the market, Minhas has been able to break down traditional barriers and turn her small business into an empire. Originally trained as an engineer, Minhas is now a specialist in brand development, marketing, sales, and retail negotiations.
Minhas purchased the second oldest brewery in the United States and renamed it The Minhas Craft Brewery, officially making her the youngest brewery owner in the world. She also opened The Minhas Micro Brewery, which make world-class craft beers and specialty beers, such as a gluten-free options for people with Celiac disease. With her background in engineering, Minhas strives to minimize the environmental impact of her company, producing beer using the least amount of cleaning and water treatment chemicals, gas, electricity, and water.
Minhas is the author of the book Brewing Up a Damn Good Story and has received many awards, including Canada’s Women Executive Network’s Top 100 Women Entrepreneurs, Profit’s Top Growth Entrepreneur, and Chatelaine’s Top Entrepreneur Woman of The Year. She’s been profiled in Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, and The National, and was recently named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, a distinction honoring outstanding Canadian leaders.
Passionate about all things cannabis. Kieley co-founded a micro cultivation and processor in 2018 and founded the Alberta Cannabis Micro Licence Association (ACMLA) in 2019. Kieley spent the early part of 2019 lobbying the County of Parkland to increase Cannabis production from 1 land zone to 8. Kieley’s career background is 7 years in occupational health, safety, security, and environment in industrial construction and facilities operation. Those skills have been foundational in navigating the highly regulated Canadian Cannabis industry. In 2021, the company was acquired, just 9 short months after licencing. In 2022, they achieved dried flower, Extracts, Topicals and Edibles sales licence and built distribution from coast to coast in Canada; including AB, ON, NB, PEI, BC and SK. As Founder and Past President of the ACMLA, Kieley lead lobby efforts to reduce insurance requirements for Micro licence holders and AGLC changed their policy in favor of Micro’s.
Currently, Kieley is focused on cannabis Mergers and Acquisitions with Hyde Advisory. Helping cannabis operators domestically and abroad, build strategic partnerships, raise capital or divest their business. Kieley brings a unique skill set to this aspect of the space with full operational expertise and knowledge of transferring licences to new parties and investors.
Anat Baron is a force of nature whose forte is building brands, leading teams, and growing companies. She has led major organizations through periods of internal upheaval, intense competition, and market disruption. Her real-world experience and deep understanding of technology allow her to share proven strategies for engaging consumers, nurturing innovation, and generating sustainable growth for businesses, non profits, and associations. Anat provides an exceptional blend of business acumen, creative vision, and storytelling.
Currently the CEO of Stashwall, Inc., an early-stage, game changing technology startup, Anat Baron is best known as the wunderkind behind Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Within three years, she grew Mike’s into a $200 million juggernaut—establishing a new product category in the ultra-competitive beer industry. She did this despite her allergy to alcohol. Baron’s eclectic and highly successful career has included working with well-known hotel brands including Four Seasons, Holiday Inn and Radisson and as a Hollywood executive and producer. After leaving Mike’s, she combined her entertainment and business know-how to write, produce, and direct Beer Wars, an award-winning documentary film that tells the David and Goliath story of the US beer industry and predicted the exponential growth of craft beer.
As a solution-oriented keynote speaker who offers fresh perspectives on the big ideas and important questions shaping our future, Anat inspires your audience to think bigger and take action. She builds each of her dynamic and informative talks by investing time with key members of your organization and understanding your audience and the most important issues they face. The result is an insightful and engaging presentation that sparks conversation, creates meaningful change, and has lasting impact. Her compelling, no-nonsense, audience centric approach makes her the perfect speaker for today’s increasingly fast changing world.
Bruce has a passion for entrepreneurship and making a positive difference in the world. He brings a wealth of experience in building strong technology-driven companies, developing world-class teams, and positioning his companies in sectors driven by waves of public policy change. Mr. Linton is Founder and served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canopy Growth Corporation (Nasdaq: CGC/TMX: WEED). As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canopy Growth Corporation, Mr. Linton led the Company through 31 acquisitions, and over 16 rounds of financing, $6 billion of capital raises, including a $5 billion investment by Constellation Brands, the largest beer import company in the United States.
Bruce serves as the founding Executive Chairman of Gage Growth Corp. (CSE: GAGE); which announced on Sept 1, 2021, an agreement to be acquired by TerrAscend Corp (CSE: TER), (OTCQX: TRSSF), a leading North cannabis multi-state operator. He is a founding Board of Director member of Mind Medicine Inc. (NEO: MMED), and Chairman of the Governance and Compensation Committee; the psychedelic-inspired medicine biotech company. Co‐Founder and Chair of the Board, Co-Chairman and former Chief Executive Officer of Martello Technologies Group Inc. (TSXV: MTLO). He is also currently the Chairman of the Advisory Board for Red Light Holland Corp., (CSE: TRIP), Creso Pharma (ASX: CPH), and Above Foods. Is Co-Founder and Non-Executive Chairman of Óskare Capital, and an active investor with Slang Worldwide Inc. (CSE: SLNG) and with OG DNA Genetics Inc. Bruce also sits on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Olympic Foundation and is an active member of The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, Campaign Executive Committee. Bruce was also Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Collective Growth Corporation; a special purpose acquisition company which went public on NASDAQ on May 1, 2020, and completed its business combination transaction with Innoviz Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: INVZ) in April 2021.
Arjan, owner and founder of the Green House Coffeeshops, Green House Seed Company, Strain Hunters, Green House Feeding, Green House Kitchen, GH Medical and several other cannabis businesses, has been acclaimed The King of Cannabis for his amazing record of cannabis prizes won throughout his career. He is the only breeder in the world credited with winning over 40 high times cannabis cups. He has always been committed to create the best genetics in the world, and to ensure that the growers choose the best genetics, based upon their location, logistics and personal knowledge.
Arjan’s vision for the future has always been to achieve cannabis normalisation around the world, and to promote positive cannabis culture to the mainstream media. To achieve this he realised he had to offer something unique. Most coffeeshops in those days were dark, stuffy, sold only imported Hash and Thai or Jamaican weed. In 1985 Arjan had started growing exotic strains gifted to him from friends and “strain hunted” from trips to places like Thailand, Nepal and other countries in South East Asia. The growers supplying the shops at that time were only interested in high yields and short flowering times, Arjan on the other hand started to experiment with his favourite haze strains. After many years of trying to convince other coffeeshops to sell his marijuana, Arjan later decided to start his own coffeeshop, The Green House, which he founded on the Tolstraat in 1992.
In 1993, one year after opening his first coffeeshop in Amsterdam, Arjan introduced the Green House in the 6th High Times Cannabis Cup and he immediately won first prize for the overall cannabis cup. The year after that, in 1994, Arjan won almost every single cup there was to win at the high times cannabis cup. Arjan’s achievements didn’t go un-noticed and in 1995, High Times put him on the front cover of their magazine. This led to a great migration of smokers from all over the world to come visit the Green House to sample the worlds best cannabis created by Arjan. The first celebrities started showing up at the Green House and asked if they could pose on photographs with him, the King of Cannabis. Arjan then started hanging their pictures on the wall, and before he knew it, there was a celebrity at the Green House on a very regular basis. Today he counts more than 100 A-List celebrities that have visited the Green House.
The vision to normalize cannabis use and spread cannabis culture around world, could be realized by using the celebrities to spread Arjan’s message for cannabis legalization around the world. Arjan would ask celebreties like Woody Harrelson and many others to speak out against criminalizing cannabis when they returned back home. This vision of normalization has now become a reality, cannabis is becoming more and more accepted all around the world for recreational and medicinal use. In the United States alone, more than 19 states have now legalized cannabis for medicinal use and 2 states have recently legalized cannabis for recreational use. Additionally Uruguay has completely legalized cannabis, and the majority of the European countries have decriminalized cannabis for personal use. In countries like Spain, hundreds of legal cannabis social clubs have opened up all over the country. Amsterdam was once at the center of the fight for legalization, and is now one of the many places in world where cannabis use is becoming acceptable in society.
Since opening the first Green House Coffeeshop, Arjan has established an empire of cannabis businesses, with 4 cannabis coffeeshops, 2 Clubs, the worlds most successful cannabis seed bank, an award winning cannabis film/documentary company, an award winning nutrients company, a foundation, a medical company, and several other cannabis businesses. He is considered one of the most important figures in the cannabis industry. Arjan continues to be at the forefront of the fight for cannabis legalisation around the world!
Dr. Brigitte Simons is a quality and regulatory compliance professional with over 20 years experience in pharmaceutical development and analytical clinical testing arenas. Presently, Brigitte is the President and CEO of Safari Flower Co, a craft-at-scale licence cultivator and processor in Niagara, Ontario. She applies this direct business knowledge and quality assurance experience as acting director of Canada’s National C-45 Quality Association. The C-45 Quality Association is a not-4-profit organization that lobbies for QAPs interests for the betterment of setting quality and regulatory standards for the cannabis industry. Brigitte received her Ph.D. in Chemical Biology at the University of Ottawa and a Kellogg-Schulich Executive M.B.A. in operational business strategy.
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