Elevate Your Grind

Born and raised in Hamilton Heights, NYC, Vladimir Bautista is a formidable advocate and leader in the cannabis space. He is the co-founder and managing member of Happy Munkey LLC, an internationally-known NYC lifestyle company that is synonymous with cannabis culture. Vlad is widely recognized for his deep relationships with the international cannabis elite and his successful experience in music,...

Rachel Gillette is among the first attorneys in the nation to dedicate her practice to the cannabis industry. Since 2010, Ms. Gillette has helped licensed cannabis and hemp businesses with licensing, permitting and regulatory compliance, business law and transactions, contract drafting and review, tax litigation, corporate formation, and other tax matters, including audit representation. She works...

Emily has reviewed thousands of companies in the cannabis industry and has worked with countless founders in many capacities. She had helped to shape founders' pitch preparations, their go-to-market strategies/ product launches, and advised on day-to-day business operations. Emily has held board seats for multiple portfolio companies and participates as an adviser to multiple teams. Extremely acti...

Before getting into the cannabis industry, Oswaldo built a successful career in television, digital media, branding, and advertising, working with companies like Sony Pictures, HBO, and YouTube. His work has been praised by The New York Times, The Washington Post,  and CNN. He’s also been honored with multiple awards in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. These have ranged from celebrati...

Jared Mirsky and his branding agency, Wick & Mortar, have been in 15 magazines since 2009 -- Entrepreneur, Forbes, Huff Post, CNN, Geekwire, The Dieline, HighTimes and MJ Venture. They are the Dope Industry Award Winners for “Best Cannabis Design Firm,” two years in a row.

Nina serves as Chief Commercial Officer for Akerna, a global regulatory compliance technology company in the cannabis space. Akerna’s companies and investments also include MJ Freeway, Ample Organics, Last Call Analytics, Leaf Data Systems®, solo sciences, and ZolTrain. With more than 20 years of technology industry experience, she has spearheaded strategic innovation initiatives for global Fortun...

Dave began his entrepreneurial career in 2004 by inventing the first all-glass gravity bong, the Gravitron, an instant success that has become a cult classic. Since the Gravitron, Dave has designed or led the Grav design team to bring over 500 unique top-line products to the cannabis market. In 2020, Grav launched pre-filled Glass Joints in California in collaboration with Eel River Organics, the...

Roger Brown co-founded ACS in 2008. ACS Laboratory, an ISO 17025, AHCA and CLIA accredited facility is the largest cannabis and CBD/Hemp testing laboratory in the southeastern USA. Utilizing their vast experience in high complexity laboratory tests they developed proprietary testing methods for cannabis, hemp and all derivatives. Mr. Brown is a serial entrepreneur. Prior to founding ACS, Mr. Brown...

We've posted snippets of our coversation before, but wanted to bring back one of the great cannabis voices over the last decade and then some - David Tran.  David began his cannabis entrepreneurial journey by co-founding a Seattle medical marijuana dispensary Conscious Care Cooperative, where he conceived the idea of Dope Magazine, a Cannabis lifestyle brand. He served as the CEO and took the role...

Craig and Marc Wasserman are the founders of California's award-winning marijuana business and criminal defense law group The WassLaw Firm, a.k.a. Pot Brothers at Law. For over 30 years, they have represented countless marijuana business clients from dispensaries, patient cooperatives, marijuana delivery services, cultivation, marijuana manufacturing, and criminal defense for marijuana-related cri...

Durée Ross launched her own PR agency, Durée & Company, at the age of 24, and has since been setting the bar for excellence in PR, serving the corporate, agency and nonprofit arenas for local, national and international clients. An award-winning entrepreneur, she has been nationally recognized for her ability to develop winning strategies and successfully deliver creative campaigns for clients.  D...

Jake Bullock, Co-Founder of CANN has always been canna-curious, and eager to explore the potential for cannabis to replace society’s troubling dependence on alcohol and prescription drugs. Jake’s curiosity got the best of him, as he started Cann , the first truly low-dose and 'sessionable' cannabis-infused beverage. In his garage in Palo Alto, CA, he experimented with different dosage levels and f...

Rather than our standard Thursday episode of Elevate Your Grind, we decided to reair last week's investment panel hosted by our Broward chapter.  2020 was supposed to be a turbulent time for the Cannabis Industry……and that was before the pandemic hit. Now that Cannabis has been deemed “Essential” has that changed the outlook for this year? Join our panel of expert Investors as they discuss how bei...

Yesenia Garcia is a longtime resident of South Florida, she graduated from FIU and went on to lead an in-house creative and marketing agency of one of South Florida’s leading gaming and entertainment establishments. Yesenia joined Curaleaf last year in May in search of a career and personal challenge in an emerging industry that also happened to have a positive impact on people’s lives. “It was im...

In our latest episode, we sit down with Arby Barroso, Co-Founder of Green Roads. An injury at 23 years old led him on a rocky journey that would ultimately result in one of the countries largest and most trusted CBD brands. Arby suffered a hip injuring playing football which led to an opiate addiction that would end up with jail time. Soon after Arby met Dr. Laura Fuentes, a compounding pharmacist...

Bob Hoban was one of the first in the legal field to pivot into the cannabis industry, starting his full-service cannabis practice in 2008. Since then, Hoban Law Group has expanded into seventeen states and ten nations abroad, with over fifty attorneys who specialize in all aspects of the commercial practice surrounding the cannabis industry. In today's episode of Elevate Your Grind, we talk with...

Valda Coryat started her position as CMO of Trulieve in December 2019, just a few months before the COVID-19 outbreak forced them to shift into an unprecedented state of operations. In this episode of Elevate Your Grind, we talk about Valda's transition from Mangos to Cannabis, starting with a company during a time of uncertainty, and her thoughts on where the industry is going. 

Chloe is the Director of Corporate Growth at Trulieve managing organic growth opportunities for Trulieve, and a focus on new market penetration through competitive license opportunities. She has over five years of operational, licensing and policy experience in the cannabis industry. Before Trulieve, she served as Managing Director of a Los Angeles-based vertically-integrated cannabis company and...

Jeff Finnerty got into the Cannabis industry by witnessing the powerful possibilities of the plant and the people creating access to it. His sister had Fibromyalgia, and he saw for years how it made her unable to hold a job, enjoy time with family and friends, all due to pain and suffering from her illness. Once she turned to Cannabis for pain management, it immediately changed her life, and he wa...

Rosie Mattio started her solo PR-firm in 2004, then called RMPR. Since moving to Seattle in 2014 and recognizing the opportunity in the cannabis space, she has grown to become one of the industry's key players. She was recently included on Marijuana Ventures 40 Under 40 list, and we're super excited to have had her on Elevate Your Grind. 

Have you met Cynthia Brewer, Vice President of Kaycha Labs ? Cynthia started her Cannabis career in 2016 as a patient advocate and Medical Cannabis program supporter. She has been a part of Kaycha Labs LLC since its inception in Summer 2017, initially starting as Director of Operations and Sales with a focus on connecting and building relationships with Florida’s licensed MMTCs and helping to proc...

Bryan Passman is the co-founder and CEO of Hunter + Esquire, a full-service, cannabis-specific executive recruitment and consulting agency. Bryan's professional background before launching H+E was in retained executive search for 18 years in MedTech/Pharma (15 yrs) and Food and Adult Beverage CPG (3 yrs). His deep knowledge of those highly regulated and nuanced industries has helped H+E significan...

Charles Warner is the CEO of Innovative Properties Worldwide, a veteran-owned media company out of Denver, where he is responsible for overseeing the company’s many areas of specialization, including custom publishing, sponsorship sales, onsite activation, audience development, ad sales training, and branded content. Prior to IPW, Charles oversaw a Florida media company that produced over 300 high...

Dana Chaves is one of the unsung heroes when it comes to moving the cannabis industry forward. Dana is the former chairwoman of NCIA’s Banking Access Committee and Director of Specialty Banking at First Federal Bank of Florida. Banking and cannabis have always had a tricky relationship, but it's been especially difficult for cannabusiness owners during the past few months. We had on Dana Chaves, D...