Archives: Speakers

Jonathan Sherman is a partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP and the Co-Chair of the Cannabis Law Group. Jonathan is routinely retained to act on behalf of a wide variety of cannabis industry participants, including: licensed and pre-licensed cultivators, processors and retailers in Canada, the US and other international jurisdictions; pharmaceutical, beverage and consumer goods companies seeking opportunities in the emerging global cannabis sector; and other ancillary businesses.

With corporate clients ranging from start-ups to multibillion-dollar businesses, Jonathan’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions (public and private acquisitions, business combinations, joint ventures, go-public transactions and strategic collaborations) and corporate finance transactions (public offerings, venture capital, private equity offerings and debt financing transactions). Jonathan has also been involved in other domestic, cross-border transactions for cannabis industry participants, including: various private equity investments for emerging companies; reverse takeover transactions; joint ventures; and acquisitions and investments in companies both in Canada and abroad (the US, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Greece, Czech Republic, Colombia, Jamaica, Brazil, Chile, Australia and Lesotho).

Whether strategically guiding clients through M&A, or helping emerging start-ups secure investments, Jonathan has been a trusted advisor on many of the largest transactions completed to-date in the nascent cannabis industry. He advised Canopy Growth on: their listing as the first-ever cannabis company on the New York Stock Exchange; over $1 billion of M&A transactions; the $600 million offering of senior convertible unsecured notes – the largest convertible debt financing to-date completed by a company listed on a Canadian stock exchange; the joint venture, licensing and development of the largest cannabis production facility in the world; and various supply and processing arrangements involving (among others): MediPharm Labs, 48North, Radicle Cannabis, James E. Wagner Cultivation, Neptune Technologies & Bioresources, and Centric Health.

Adam works with MediPharm Labs as Head of Strategic Accounts (Asia Pacific). Prior to joining MediPharm Labs, Adam spent almost a decade building various B2B businesses within education, investment, and medicinal cannabis, with progressive roles including business development, strategy, product development and project management. He has consulted private and listed cannabis producers and ancillary businesses since 2015, as one of the early entrants and experts in the burgeoning Australian cannabis industry. Adam founded and currently sits on the board of The Medical Cannabis Council, Australia’s largest not-for-profit industry body. He is a frequent public speaker and publishes a widely read industry newsletter. Adam earned a Bachelor of Entrepreneurship from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Adam has appeared in several major news outlets including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, Startup Smart, SBS, SkyNews, MJBizDaily, and other major publications

Clare Duffy is a chartered engineer with over 25 years’ experience in the electricity industry. As a member of the senior leadership team in ESBN Networks, Clare has specific responsibility for (i) planning electricity distribution network asset investments and distribution customer connections to provide safe access to and maintain the security of supply of the national electricity distribution network; (ii) and is accountable for Electrification of Heat and Transport initiatives, key to ESB Networks strategic role in transitioning Ireland to a lower carbon energy system; (iii) and is accountable for Innovation in ESB Networks. Previous roles have included ESB UK General Manager; Operations Manager for ESB International (ESBI); Manager, Strategic Consultancy Group, ESBI; ESBI project management roles on power infrastructure developments in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and a power system protection engineer with ALSTOM in the USA and UK. In addition, Clare is a Non-Executive Director of Elexon (responsible for £1.7b of electricity balancing market settlement transactions through its role as administrator of the GB Electricity Wholesale Market Balancing and Settlement Code). She has post-graduate qualifications in Accounting, Finance, Marketing and Management.

Hai Ho is a high-impact entrepreneur, Board member of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and head of Triip, an unrivalled sustainable travel tech company incorporated in Singapore. He has 13 years of experience in high-growth firms building a range of tech products like payment gateway products, social networks, wearable hardware, community app, ebook apps to name a few.

Hai’s experience in startup creation and understanding in the global travel industry led him to create Triip, the #1 blockchain travel ecosystem for sustainable travel, while aiming to shake up the USD 7 trillion travel market industry! Triip technology solution is addressing the biggest problem in the current travel economy, dominated by inefficient & giant middlemen, while providing incentive-driven and decentralized system. This breakthrough solution enables never-before possible exchanges of personalized data!