The State of Cannabis in the U.S.: The Role of Boards and Directors  

11:00 AM - 1215 PM (Pacific)
12:00 PM - 01:15 PM (Mountain)
01:00 PM - 02:15 PM (Central)
02:00 PM - 03:15 PM (Eastern)

Overview

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Panelists

Christopher Dang  Partner Quarles & Brady LLP

Christopher Dang advises health care businesses on regulatory and licensing matters. He helps clients on an array of issues, including corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, vendor contracting, practice compliance, HIPAA and state medical record/privacy requirements, Stark Law and Anti-Kickback compliance, and labor and employment issues. His clients include:

• Pharmacies
• Medical technology companies
• Management services organizations
• Medical practices
• Wholesalers
• Pharmacy benefits managers

Jeremy Unruh SVP, Public and Regulatory Affairs PharmaCann Inc.

Jeremy Unruh serves as the PharmaCann senior vice president of public and regulatory affairs.

Jeremy is responsible for the company’s strategic external matters, including legislative policy and public affairs; media relationships; organized labor; and coordination with state and local regulators.  He works closely with PharmaCann’s finance team to facilitate investor and banking relationships.  He manages lobbying efforts in eight statehouses and Washington, D.C., and is at the tip of the spear as PharmaCann works to optimize its operations across the company’s eight-state footprint.

Jeremy was PharmaCann’s first employee, initially serving a general counsel and chief compliance officer, and later focusing on the company’s external affairs:

• Manages interaction between the company and state regulatory agencies relating to the licensed cultivation and distribution of regulated cannabis products.
• Developed the initial legal and regulatory compliance systems for PharmaCann’s operational facilities.                 
• Helped prepare winning competitive state cannabis license applications in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Virginia.  Awarded the most licenses won in Illinois by any single group.  Earned the top score (and the first license) in the New York State medical cannabis application process.
• Developed and operationalized nearly 500,000 square feet of state-of-the-art cannabis cultivation and production space, along with nearly a score of highly-regulated dispensary facilities.
• While serving as chief compliance officer, personally managed some of the first state- sanctioned marijuana facility compliance inspections ever conducted east of the Rockies.
• Managed and negotiated company union relationships in multiple states, including New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. Responsible for negotiating labor peace agreements, bargaining unit recognition, and collective bargaining agreements.
• Led litigation efforts, including administrative challenges, constitutional claims, real estate claims, and open records matters. In two instances, achieving the awards of a ~$20 million Ohio cultivation license and a ~$8 million Ohio processing license to the company.
• Leads media efforts, operating as a primary spokesman for the company in all markets and at the national level.  Helped lead industry’s adult-use campaign efforts in New York and Illinois by overseeing public affairs activity and developing industry policy positions.
• Worked with the company's New Markets team to identify and create strategy for the penetration of new or emerging markets, including Illinois, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Massachusetts, Georgia, Missouri, West Virginia, and others.

Beginning his career as a prosecutor, Jeremy was trained in trial advocacy by the United States Department of Justice at the National College of District Attorneys in Columbia, S.C.  Before his appointment as the first-chair prosecutor in the courtroom of the Chief Judge of the Criminal Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Jeremy successfully investigated and tried drug cases, homicides, financial, and sexual abuse crimes.

Jeremy went into private practice for a national law firm that would reach the American Lawyer Top 100 during his tenure.  Jeremy’s practice focused on commercial litigation, internal compliance investigations in the financial services and healthcare sectors, and product liability defense.  He was the lead trial attorney on the national product liability trial team for a Fortune 100 industrial company for many years.  He joined the firm’s Chicago office in 2006, where he helped grow the Chicago law firm from a handful of lawyers to an office of more than 100 lawyers when he left to join the cannabis industry in 2015. 

Jeremy has a B.S. from Kansas State University.  He earned a Juris Doctor from Washburn University School of Law where he was an inaugural recipient of the Environmental Law certificate.  While serving as an assistant state’s attorney in Chicago, Jeremy attended DePaul University Kellstadt School of Business Management at night and earned his M.B.A.  Jeremy lives in Winnetka, Illinois with his beautiful wife, three delightful children, and a half-witted dog.

Leah S. Bailey  Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Blounts&Moore Holdings Illinois, LLC

Leah S. Bailey is a highly respected industry leader, mentor, and advisor with deep experience in marketing, strategy, and management. For more than 30 years, she has held executive roles in private and public companies in the CPG, beauty, and cannabis industries. 

Currently, Leah is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of  Blounts&Moore Holdings Illinois, LLC (www.blountsandmoore.com) where she leads the operationalization of their six dispensaries, two craft grows, and a transporter license. This is a social equity organization. 

Previously, she was Chief Business Development Officer for AUSA/AUDACIOUS, a publicly traded multi-state cannabis company that relaunched in early 2021. In this role, she oversaw M&A, marketing, sales and government and regulatory affairs. She led the company’s efforts to secure and develop licenses and businesses in New Jersey and New York. 

Prior to AUDACIOUS, Leah ran Bailey Management Consulting, where she advised organizations in diverse industries including CPG and cannabis. From 2018 to 2020, she was the Chief Executive Officer of Fluresh, a Michigan-based vertically integrated cannabis grower, processor, and dispensary company. During her time there, she built the company’s facilities including cultivation, manufacturing, and retail, hired the management team, received 16 state licenses, achieved significant revenue, and become EBITDA and cash flow positive. 

Until 2017, Leah was the President of Global Beauty for Helen of Troy where she led the company’s strategic integration of global businesses and oversaw a transformation of both product strategies and operations, as well as a significant improvement in financial performance. Helen of Troy brands included Hot Tools, Revlon, Bed Head, Infusium, Pert Plus, Brut and Sure. 

Earlier in her career, Leah was the President & CEO of Paris Presents, Inc. a family-owned marketer of beauty products including leading cosmetic accessory brands, Real Techniques and EcoTools. At Paris Presents, Leah led an organizational transformation that included building a new leadership team, developing a strategic planning model, and entering new, overseas markets. During Leah’s leadership, Paris Presents realized significant sales and EBITDA growth, and she led and oversaw its sale to private equity. 

A dedicated mentor and advisor, Leah has taught in the Leadership MBA program at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, and she is as a judge and mentor for the University of Chicago Booth New Venture Challenge, the #1 university accelerator program in the nation. 

Leah serves on the board of Tikun Olam USA. Tikun Olam is a global cannabis brand and is the leader in medical cannabis research and development. Leah also served on the board of Scott’s Liquid Gold from 2017 to 2022 and Frontier Co-op, which specializes in natural and organic products, from 2014 to 2019. She also served on her own boards at Fluresh and Paris Presents. Leah is a member of the Chicago Economic Club and International Women’s Forum. 

Leah holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Harvard University.

Moderator

James Kaplan Partner Quarles & Brady LLP

Jim Kaplan is a senior banking lawyer with extensive experience in financial services, regulatory matters, and bank and financial services’ mergers and acquisitions and other transactional matters. In addition, he advises clients on complex financings and workouts, compliance, data privacy and cybersecurity, financial services litigation, and shareholder and governance matters. His clients come from most of the major business segments of financial services, including: * A substantial number of the 25 largest and most diversified US banking institutions * Wealth management  * Fiduciary  * International finance   Jim is a former general counsel of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. and associate general counsel of The Northern Trust Company.  

Education:
University of Chicago Law School (J.D., 1981)
Harvard University (A.B., magna cum laude, 1977), Phi Beta Kappa

Bar Admissions:
Illinois
New York

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