In 2020, in-person conferences and gatherings came to a halt. This year, we are looking forward to the biggest, most anticipated event of the year: MJBizCon! With 35,000 attendees, 1,300 exhibitors, and 130 speakers from around the world gathering to learn the latest about the cannabis industry, it’s the place to be! Join us for this webinar as we discuss shared learnings from this event, featuring two dynamic speakers fresh off the Las Vegas stage. We will dive into the evolution of the cannabis industry as a whole, focusing on what has changed over the course of the pandemic era.
Austin Stevenson, CIO at Vertosa and Lisa Buffo, Founder & CEO of the Cannabis Marketing Association will provide context as both event speakers and industry veterans. Adriana Hemans, VP of Demand at ISA, will also join the discussion. As moderator, David Paleschuck, author of “Branding Bud: The Commercialization of Cannabis”, will lead the group through a lively and engaging conversation. Austin and Lisa will share a recap of their speaking engagements from MJBizCon and explore the themes and buzz from the event.
Moderator:
David Paleschuck
Author of Branding Bud: The Commercialization of Cannabis
With over twenty years of global brand building and consumer marketing experience at American Express, MasterCard, PepsiCo and Microsoft – and over seven years in the legal cannabis industry as VP, Licensing & Brand Partnerships at Dope Magazine; Chief Brand Officer at Evergreen Herbal and The Matters Group – Paleschuck has played a part in creating many of today’s well-known cannabis brands. His writings on cannabis trends, branding and packaging have been featured in The Cannabis Industry Journal, New Cannabis Ventures, Dope Magazine, High Times and PROHBTD.
His work has been noted and quoted in Forbes, Kiplingers, The Brookings Institution as well as interviewed with Wharton School of Business Entrepreneur Radio; CannabisRadio; among others. His recently released book, “Branding Bud: The Commercialization of Cannabis” launched in limited release at the Cannabis World Congress in NYC in June 2019. The book was recently featured in Forbes magazine and is currently at the top of Amazon’s bestsellers’ list as number one in the branding and logo design category.
Speakers:
Austin Stevenson
Chief Innovation Officer, Vertosa
Austin plays an integral role in the business development of Vertosa, facilitating partnerships with leading brands to produce top quality cannabinoid-infused beverages, topicals, edibles and more.
Visit here to see Austin’s speaker page and session from MJBizCon, The CPG Effect: Developing Cannabis Products of the Future.
Lisa Buffo
Founder & CEO, Cannabis Marketing Association
Lisa Buffo is a marketer and entrepreneur with a passion for launching companies with experience in both the cannabis and technology industries. Lisa is the Founder & CEO of the Cannabis Marketing Association, a trade association focused on education and best practices for industry marketers with the vision of rebranding cannabis at the national level.
Visit here to see Lisa’s speaker page and session from MJBizCon, Amp Your Brand: Winning Marketing Strategies for Your Business
Adriana Hemans
VP of Demand – ISA
Adriana Hemans leads ISA’s cannabis research division. Under her direction, ISA emerged as an early leader in cannabis consumer research.
Their cannabis-focused product offering includes the CANNApinion Poll, a bi-monthly survey of 1,000 US cannabis consumers developed as a low-barrier-to-entry product for emerging brands.
In 2021, ISA launched the first cannabis consumer research panel, The Green Time. ISA is the first insights firm to conduct an in-home usage test with cannabis products containing THC and the first to conduct cannabis consumer research using their proprietary insight community platform, icanmakeitbetter.