If you’re known by the company you keep, then the NCIA is moving with the right crowd. Mike Lee, executive VP & CFO of Canopy Growth Corporation, will be a keynote speaker at the organization’s 6th Annual Cannabis Business Summit & Expo, to be held July 22-24 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. In the cannabis world, they don’t come bigger or better than Canopy Growth. The Ontario-based CGC was the first cannabis company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the industry’s first ‘unicorn’. It is now valued at over $13 billion.
NCIA’s Cannabis Business Summit & Expo is about more than name dropping, though. A turnout of over 7,500 is expected, as executives, investors and other actors in the cannabis space gather to learn, be informed and network at what has become the marijuana industry’s premier event.
Other influential speakers include Dr. Jeff Chen, Lori Ajax and Brian Farmer. Chen is founder and executive director of the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative, one of the first university programs in the world dedicated to cannabis. He currently leads a team of 40 interdisciplinary faculty drawn from 15 departments and eight schools at UCLA. Lori Ajax is chief of California’s Bureau of Cannabis Control, which is responsible for licensing retailers, distributors, testing laboratories, microbusinesses and temporary cannabis events. Farmer is director of certification services at the Cannabis Conservancy. During his workshop, ‘Best Practices for Starting an Indoor Grow Facility’, on Monday, July 22 from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., expect him to share the knowledge garnered from 30 years’ experience as a commercial organic grower.
Farmer’s study session will be the first of five workshops. The others are the ‘Hemp Biz Conference’; ‘Cannabis Business 101: The Fundamentals for Starting a Successful Business’; ‘Managing for Success: Striking a Balance Between Doing and Managing’; and a seminar put on by the International Cannabis Bar Association (INCBA), which will focus on California’s regulatory environment.
NCIA Cannabis Business Summit & Expo will have just as much demo as discussion. Over 120,000 sq. ft of exhibition space has been set aside for the expo aspect of the event, with more than 400 companies expected to make a showing.
Conference organizer the National Cannabis Industry Association is the only organization representing state-sanctioned cannabis-related businesses at the federal level. Its mission is to protect legal cannabis businesses, defend state laws and advance federal policy reforms. With nearly 2,000 member-businesses and tens of thousands of cannabis professionals, the NCIA is also the largest cannabis trade association in the U.S.
MMJDaily will be there, covering the event with a photo report. Prepare your best smile for our reporter!
For more information, visit the event’s website at CannabisBusinessSummit.com