Education Series: The Emerging CBD Market: Opportunities and Challenges
To continue providing education for real world situations (“where the rubber hits the road…”) we present our ongoing Education Series. Learn from experts how to succeed with your business.
Topic: The CBD Market
When: August 16, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Where: Impact Hub Boulder (1877 Broadway, Boulder)
Description
The CBD market is exploding, but faces regulatory challenges that make it hard to navigate. Come learn from experts including entreprenuers, accelerators, and investors.
Learn from the Experts
John Simmons – Co-Founder, Weller Snacks
Ashley Grace – General Manager, Stillwater Specialty Ingredients
Micah Tapman – Managing Director and Co-Founder, Canopy
Josh Long – Legal and Regulatory Editor, Informa
Registration
Members: $25, Non-members $35 (Includes catered snacks)
Biographies
John Simmons
John is the co-founder of Weller Snacks, a recently launched line of hemp CBD-enriched coconut snacks. An entrepreneur with an eye for early trends and a passion for creating brands, John is working to establish new innovations in hemp CBD-enriched food and beverage products.
Prior to starting Weller, John founded and led Third Street Chai through its acquisition in 2013. As a pioneer in the chai industry, John understands the challenge of gaining consumer acceptance and educating the trade on new innovations. Third Street became the first national chai brand to embrace and promote sustainable supply chain standards by using Fair Trade and Certified Organic ingredients.
Over the past 22 years, John has mentored and advised startups in the Natural Product and Specialty Coffee channels on scaling their enterprise across departments and into new markets as a value-created business. John is a Boulder High and University of Colorado graduate, and a charter member of Naturally Boulder.
Ashley Grace
Ashley Grace is the general manager of Stillwater Specialty Ingredients, the business-to-business arm behind Stillwater Foods, the parent company to Stillwater Brands. An award-winning CPG industry veteran and seasoned public speaker, who has worked with numerous top food and beverage companies throughout his career, Ashley was brought on to lead the development of Stillwater Specialty Ingredients, a first of its kind company focused on introducing cannabis as an ingredient in the business-to-business manufactured foods marketplace.
Ashley is an expert in hemp CBD, both as a user who has experienced relief from nerve pain and migraines that persisted after a traumatic accident, and as an industry veteran. Ashley’s hemp experience began as the chief marketing officer and head of e-commerce for Charlotte’s Web, Colorado’s most trusted hemp extract producer. Following his time at Charlotte’s Web, Ashley co-founded H. Hemp Company where he became deeply familiar with the nuances of hemp sourcing, growing, extracting, formulating, testing, payment processing, banking, shipping, etc.
Ashley has served on the Board of Directors for cannabis industry POS data leader, BDS Analytics since 2016 and lives in Boulder with his wife Patty, son Jackson and beloved lab mix Roxy.
Micah Tapman
Tapman is Managing Director and co-founder of Canopy, a venture fund and business accelerator for companies developing ancillary products and services for the legal cannabis industry. Canopy has made over 90 investments since its founding in 2014, making it the most active investor in the cannabis industry. Micah is a Director or Advisor to numerous companies including Front Range Biosciences, BDS Analytics, PotGuide, Swivl, Deepgreen.ai, and FlapJacked.
Prior to joining Canopy, Micah was an active angel investor, serial entrepreneur and Fortune 500 refugee. Micah has an MBA from The George Washington University School of Business and served in the United States Marine Corps.
Josh Long has been a journalist since 1997, holds a J.D. from the University of Wyoming College of Law, and was admitted to practice law in Colorado in 2008. Josh is legal and regulatory editor with Informa’s Health and Nutrition Network, which includes Natural Products INSIDER and Nutrition Business Journal among other media properties. He predominantly writes about regulations and litigation affecting the dietary supplement industry—including the complex regulatory landscape surrounding cannabidiol (CBD).