Cannabis Movers & Shakers: Canopy Growth, Flower One & Green Check Verified

Canopy Growth’s BioSteel Sports Names President

Canopy Growth Corp.’s CGC BioSteel Sports Nutrition Inc. has tapped Bruce Jacobson to serve as its president.

Together with co-founders John Celenza and Michael Cammalleri, Jacobson will be responsible for accelerating the growth of BioSteel into a top-4 sports hydration company.

Jacobson joins BioSteel with a wealth of experience from the beverage industry. He is an experienced brand builder and business strategist who has led organizations to best-in-class growth and market dominance.

“With deep experience building brands, driving profitability, developing distribution strategies, and leading cross-functional teams, we are confident that Bruce will complement and enhance the capabilities of the current leadership team and further advance BioSteel’s standing in the market,” David Klein, CEO of Canopy Growth said.

Jacobson previously served on the advisory board and as a chief operating officer of an alcohol seltzer company. Prior to that, he spent 17 years at Constellation Brands STZ.

Flower One Names New COO

Flower One Holdings Inc. FONE FLOOF appointed Tim Shoemake as its COO, effective June 28.

Shoemake has over 25 years of experience in global agriculture, and food and beverage manufacturing for some of the largest brands and retailers in the world.

His agriculture experience includes complex supply chains and large-scale juice production for industry heavyweights such as Odwalla - The Coca-Cola Company KO, Naked Juice - PepsiCo Inc. PEP, and Evolution Fresh - Starbucks SBUX.

After entering cannabis, Shoemake has worked in the industry for both multistate and publicly-traded companies in California, Colorado and Nevada.

“Tim’s expertise in large-scale, highly competitive perishable goods manufacturing makes him a valuable asset, and we look forward to working closely with him to assure we deliver the quality and consistency needed to be successful,” Kellen O’Keefe, the company’s president and CEO, said.

Green Check Verified Shakes Up Leadership Team

Green Check Verified, a fintech provider of compliant cannabis banking solutions and services, has added several key roles including the hiring of Paul Chesek as chief growth officer.

Chesek will be responsible for driving new business strategies and growth initiatives while helping to expand the company’s visibility within the cannabis banking landscape across all states and territories.

He joins GCV following three decades of experience in various business development roles across the software and business consulting industries. Most recently, Chesek served as the AVP of Mid-Market and managed service for Traction on Demand, a Salesforce company.

“It is always our goal to bring in skillful professionals that can help us build upon our unprecedented growth in the last few years, and we look forward to adding to our already robust team of technology and subject matter experts,” Kevin Hart, CEO of Green Check Verified said.

GCV has added several key members to its team as the company expands to support more financial institutions and cannabis-related businesses (CRBs). The new hires include product designer Jody Ferry, who brings more than 15 years of experience designing software products in a diverse set of industries, QA Engineer Arif Hussain, who brings extensive knowledge in software development and automation testing for front-end and back-end services, and Relationship Manager Christina Bradley, who joins the team with past experience in retail management, business development and cannabis management.

Benzinga photo. Source: Image from Shutterstock