Jodi McDonald

Jodi McDonald is the President & Founder of Keystone Labs Inc., (www.keystonelabs.ca) an Edmonton based Health Canada accredited testing facility with a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) establishment license.  Keystone Labs was incorporated in 2005 and in August 2015, acquired a Health Canada controlled substance license to conduct cannabis testing. Jodi has a background in clinical and microbiology sciences and her passion is bridging the gap between analytical and microbial sciences and the medical cannabis industry to help improve the quality of medicinal cannabis products being used by patients.  Her vision is to offer validated and quality testing data comparable to the pharmaceutical industry for medical cannabis patients health and safety.

​

Jodi has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Alberta.  She is a writer for HydroLife magazine on scientific topics regarding cannabis testing.  Jodi is very involved with the Alberta Women Entrepreneurs, enabling women to build successful businesses.  Also, Jodi offers her scientific expertise to several key advisory boards; NAIT Biological Sciences Laboratory and Research Program Advisory Committee, University of Alberta and Medical Laboratory Sciences Advisory Committee.

​

Bethan Rider

Beth has been the Quality Manager at BOAZ Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Calgary for over two years. Her experience is mostly in the Pharmaceutical and food safety sectors in Europe and North America. She is an active member of the ASQ (American Society for Quality) and holds the Certified Quality Auditor designation. Beth has a B.Sc. in Chemistry, specializing in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Forensics from the University of Bradford, United Kingdom.   

​

Priyanka Mehra

Director of Quality Assurance and QAP

Throughout her career, Priyanka has led Quality teams in brewery, farming, and seafood industries. Before joining Indiva, she led an east coast Licensed Producer’s QA and Regulatory team through their product development and full licensing process. She holds Master’s Degrees in both Food Technology and Food Science.

​

Ashley Chiu

Ashley is EY's Global Cannabinoid Subject Matter Resource who leads strategic assessments and development of strategic roadmaps for companies exploring entry into the global cannabinoid industry. Ashley leads commercial and operational due diligence projects for investments, debt financing, valuations, and sale lease backs in the cannabis industry for deals ranging from $100M – $2.4B. She leads benchmarking activities to assess gross margin, EBITDA, market share, cost, profitability, as well as analysis of major innovations, intellectual property, capital equipment, technologies, commercial viability, and operational efficiency for buy-side due diligence projects. Ashley also has experience with leading multiple projects analyzing market size, market segments, value chain, regulation, and innovation in the global cannabis, hemp and health and wellness sectors to identify high-growth opportunitis and develop qualified lists of potential investments and acquisition targets. 

​

Patrick Steffes

Patrick Steffes is a professional chemist with 25+ years of experience in the analytical instrumentation business, including service, sales, and management.

Pat was consulted in labs from Hassi Messaoud, Algeria to Quito, Ecuador.  He has provided start to finish solutions for labs across North America, including lab design, commissioning of analytical equipment, method development and method validation.  Pat provides expertise in the GMP regulatory environment, including qualification design and review.  

Pat continues to provide solutions for cannabis analysis across North America. He is the President of Fonebone Services Inc.  www.Fonebone.ca    

​

Justine Hicknell

Justine Hicknell is currently working as the Director of Quality and Regulatory Compliance (QAP) for Vivo Cannabis at their Canna Farms site in Hope, BC. She graduated from St Lawrence College with an Advanced Diploma for a Biotechnology Technologist in Kingston Ontario.  Justine has over ten years of quality assurance experience in both cannabis and food safety industries. Justine was a Level 3 Safe Quality Food Practitioner with GMP/GPP and HACCP certifications. She also helped design and implement many prerequisite programs for overall production and processing conditions including standard operating procedures and product planning. Justine is currently developing, implementing and managing procedures and protocols at Canna Farms to ensure our practices and products are of the highest quality.

​

Dr. Brigitte Simons

Dr. Brigitte Simons is a quality professional in support of leading-edge cannabis product development,
laboratory services, and data management tools for the development of safe cannabis accessed globally.
Bridging expertise within chemistry, pharma drug development, and environmental testing – Brigitte has a
professional track record for laboratory quality control business development, analytical service
contracting excellence for the Canadian federal agencies, and global sales experience in high value trade
of laboratory services. Dr. Simons has working experience within the Canadian Food Inspection, Health
Canada, Agriculture Canada, and Environment Canada. She worked in Drug Toxicology and Analysis
Division at Health Canada in a laboratory setting to inform regulatory policy development for new drugs.
She completed post-doctoral fellowship at the Clinical Sciences Hospital of the National Heart, Blood &
Lung Institute within the famous NIH campus in Maryland, USA. Continuing in lab specialities, Brigitte
then joined SCIEX, a global instrumentation vendor for hardware and software for mass spectrometry.
With over 16 years experience with operating mass spectrometers, Brigitte managed Canadian federal
and provincial government sales for full laboratory services, covering clinical, forensics to product health
and environmental safety.   Prior to working abroad, Brigitte received her Ph.D. in Chemical Biology at the
University of Ottawa and a Kellogg-Schulich M.B.A. in operational business strategy.  Brigitte heads
quality and compliance management at BC Craft Supply Lab Services and other affiliated QA contracts
with licensed producers.

Ivy Zmuda

Ivy is the Vice-President of Regulatory Affairs for Tantalus Labs as well as an independent journalist, software developer and writer. She is an expert in regulatory affairs and information security, as well as a Twitch streamer and video game enthusiast.

She operates an open data platform aggregating Health Canada licensing data at http://data.ivy.codes , and produces written content at https://ivy.codes .

Barry Davidson

Barry Davidson is the CEO of Davidson Advisory Group Inc. and is a leader in the global cannabis industry. He also serves as a Senior Advisor to CannaNavigators & Hyde Advisory and is an internationally recognized security and CPTED consultant with more than 30 years experience in strategic & crisis management. Barry has worked with private enterprise, not-for-profit organizations and government and is called upon regularly to advise on sensitive/volatile issues.

Davidson Global Advisory Group Inc. is a full service security and strategic consulting practice. Over the past 3 years Davidson Global has provided security and regulatory services to dozens of commercial and retail cannabis operations as well as governments across Canada and abroad. Our work has included business strategy, operational security and regulatory compliance issues as well as directly supporting more than 150 Canadian cannabis retail license applications and design.

www.davidsonglobal.ca  

Barry Davidson

Davidson Global Advisory Group

Strategic Business Advisory - Security & Risk Consulting - Global Connector

Marlene Line

Marlene Line is the Director of Business Development Lab and Analytics at Kanata Earth Genetics Inc. (KEG). KEG is collaborating with the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) to provide cannabis testing services to the Canadian market. Previous to working in the cannabis industry, Marlene worked in the Pharmaceutical Industry for 14+ years with a focus on Respirology and Oncology. Marlene received her Bachelor of Science (Hons) from the University of Waterloo prior to  earning her Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in Aberdeen, Scotland.

​

Ryan Roch

Ryan Roch is the owner and operator of Lake City Cannabis in Chestermere Alberta along with his wife Chelsea Roch. Ryans' passions for cannabis like many others began recreational many years ago but quickly transitioned to supporting him medically. Ryan has 10+ years in corporate leadership, product development, and customer service. In late 2017 after reaching what felt like a personal roadblock in his career he decided to look to start his own business and decided to combine his passion for cannabis and new legalization with his entrepreneurial spirit.

Ryan has become what some would call a social media influencer on twitter in the cannabis space but overall has a massive passion for this industry. He believes strongly in the customer experience and that by focusing on customer value everything else will always fall in place. His retail strategy, customer service, and product knowledge have elevated Lake City Cannabis to be a leading store in Alberta. Lake City Cannabis is on the edge of growing as well with a second location scheduled for later this year.

Stephanie Ostrander

With humility, humour and lots of energy, Stephanie has accomplished a lot in the six years she has worked/ volunteered/ advocated in the cannabis industry.

She was the cofounder of the Women Grow Edmonton chapter, a successful cannabis business networking group that is still going strong today as Green Spark. She was the reluctant Chair of the Alberta Cannabis Stakeholder Group that was instrumental in helping to bringing about the current privatized retail model of Alberta. After discovering she is actually quite tech challenged, she sold Cannabiz Social, a social media company serving the
cannabis industry that she blindly founded. Stef has been the Account Manager for Keystone Labs since 2018 and loves the many hats she wears at the company. This includes community engagement and the opportunity to launch events such as C45 Quality, Growing Summit, 420 Networking in the Okanagan, Cannabis Facility Success Seminars and chairs the C45 Event committee. She happily lives in Nelson BC and supports micro cultivators in her role as
Advisor to the BC Craft Farmer’s Coop. Stef loves riding her bike while dodging logging trucks on Hwy 3A, spending time with her husband Rocky and dog Juno on their little StarCraft fishing boat, traveling and providing unwanted advise and perspectives to her two grown kids.

​

Health Canada

France Beaudet with Dana Bruce &

Andrew Waye

France Beaudet was recently appointed as the acting Associate Director of the Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management Division within the Controlled Substances and Cannabis Branch.  She manages a team involved with assessing compliance and managing risk with non-compliance situations.  France and her team developed the first Canadian requirements document for pesticide testing for cannabis production, managed the publication of voluntary recalls of cannabis products and recommended the suspension and revocation of several Cannabis licenses. France has a masters degree in Earth Sciences. She has occupied a number of positions within Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada where she developed strategies to address regulatory inconsistencies, managed the coordination of program evaluation in the context of gaining efficiencies with consultations with the Canadian public and indigenous communities, published Regulatory Amendments for the mining sector and a Framework to address air emissions from the petroleum industry.

Av Singh

Av Singh, PhD, PAg
Cannabis Cultivation Advisor

Av Singh is one of the leading authorities on regenerative organic cannabis production. After completing his post-doc at the University of Minnesota on pasture-based livestock production, Singh worked at the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada and served as the Organic and Small-Scale Farming Specialist in Nova Scotia, for over 15 years, and recently held the Just Us! Chair in Small Farm Sustainability.

Dr. Singh has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers, chapters, and extension articles and has been an invited speaker to over 500 workshops, conferences, symposia as well as guest-lecturing at over 30 universities in Canada, the US, the UK, and India. Av has had the privilege of visiting
over 2000 farms across five continents which has shaped his extension of holistic, system-based design solutions.
Emphasizing a union of traditional knowledge with science, Av works with growers to cultivate an appreciation of
plant: soil interrelationships.
 

Currently, Av and his colleague Randy Flemming serve as Cultivation Advisors within the cannabis industry
cannabis.com. Av is also the Commercial Science Specialist at Greenstar Plant Products www.gaiagreen.com, the Chief
Agricultural Scientist at BetraLif; the Chief Science Officer with Green Gorilla ; the Chief
Soil Scientist at CaliCann (Colombia) and formerly served as the Chief Agronomist with the American Cannabis Company,
helping to develop the High Times Magazine’s STASH Award-winning super soil.

Av has recently been appointed to the Cannabis Quality Assurance (CQA) Standards Committee and is a member of
the International Cannabinoid Research Society, and was identified as one of the Top 50 Heroes shaping the Canadian Cannabis sector by High! Canada Magazine and a Cannabis Hero by Cannabis Amnesty. Av serves on several Scientific Advisory Boards - SolarGram; ArcticPharm; 7 Farms Down; Tailor Made Extracts, Advanced
Extraction Systems, and AgXactly. Av is a frequent speaker and advisory board member at MJBizCon, LIFT,
O’Cannabiz, and the Grow Up Conferences.

Lastly, Av is also serving as the Vice-President of the Canadian Organic Growers and is proud to be a member of Slow Food Canada, Food Secure Canada and the National Farmers’ Union. Av is also a faculty member at Earth University (https://www.navdanya.org/site/) in India where he delivers courses on agroecology and organic farming.

​

Andrew Freedman

Andrew Freedman is the first real " Cannabis Sommelier & quot; his focus on pairing cannabis, beer, cocktail, wine and gastronomy are completely unique and original.
 

Andrew worked in the cannabis trade for over a decade. Noticing that there was a lack of
scientific language for describing cannabis he became very interested in blind tasting wine.
His expertise in growing and extracting cannabis led to a passion for viticulture and oenology.
 He soon found himself living on a vineyard working as a cellar hand at an estate winery. While honing his palate he became a WSET 3 and one of few Canadian Wine Scholars.

Andrews passion for cannabis and wine led him to begin teaching what he had learned and
created " The Cannabis Sommelier" YouTube channel.

Andrew currently teaches seminars about cannabis and wine pairing, cannabis cocktails and
cannabis dining. Andrew is one of the first people in the world certified by the American Culinary Federation in Cannabis Cuisine & Edibles. Andrew also hosts and presents cannabis
dining events across North America.

Andrew has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, LA Weekly, Hightimes, The Globe & Mail and many more.

​

Hubert Marceau

Hubert Marceau is a chemist and co-founder at Laboratoire PhytoChemia, a Quebec based laboratory founded in 2013. The laboratory specializes in natural products analyzes and received its first Cannabis licence in 2014. Since then, it has been working with customers from all sides of the industry and helping them understand the concepts behind quality control. Hubert and his team's multidisciplinary approach and specialization allow them to help the industry in multiple aspects. In particular, the laboratory expanded its expertise from the flavour and fragrance industry into unique and detailed terpenes screening for cannabis and also implements novel statistical approaches to process validation. The laboratory offers its services to individuals, microgrowers and licenced producers.

Hubert Marceau, Chimiste, B. Sc.

Directeur du Développement

Laboratoire PhytoChemia Inc.

www.phytochemia.com

​

Stephane Dupervil

Stephane Dupervil is the Head of Quality and Compliance for Heritage Cannabis Holdings, a company focused on extraction and processing, currently with two licence holders in BC and Ontario. Stephane has been with the cannabis industry since 2017 and was previously working in injectables pharmaceuticals.

​

Stephane Dupervil
Head of Quality and Compliance

Heritage Cannabis Holdings Corp.

​

Emily Kirkham

Emily Kirkham, B.Sc., PChem

President, National Laboratory Services Inc.
Emily is founder and President at National Laboratory Services, a Canadian company
focusing on analytical laboratory consulting for the Medical Cannabis industry. She
specializes in method validation, quality control and training for Licensed Producers and cannabis testing laboratories.

After obtaining her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from McGill University, Emily
managed method development and analysis in environmental and government
laboratories. Recently she managed the Cannabis Division at CARO Analytical Services, a Canadian Cannabis Testing Laboratory. In 2014, Emily founded her own quality control and laboratory development business, tailoring to the budding cannabis industry in North America. As a registered Professional Chemist Emily brings over 20 years of laboratory expertise to the NLS Team.

​

Greg Rusnak

Head of Quality Assurance

Dynaleo Inc.

Hello! I come from the food industry where I was a QA manager for over 16 years and quality control for 3 years. My speciality is program development and implementation, specifically in facilities with no existing programs in place. I've implemented GFSI standards, HACCP, COR (health and safety), Kosher, and continuous improvement programs. I am now in a QAP role at Dynaleo which will be producing cannabis edibles, and I'm enjoying the challenges of implementing a GPP cannabis program. I'm excited to be a part of the cannabis industry as I have a passion for cannabis. Looking forward to meeting other QA professionals and learning from your experiences. Cheers!

​

Erin Miller

Erin Miller is the Director, QA at Anandia Labs which conducts analytical testing for Cannabis. Anandia's scope of testing services include Chemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology for Cannabis and Cannabis formulated products. Since March 2020, Anandia tests exclusively for parent company Aurora Cannabis.

Erin joined the Anandia team in 2019 and built a Quality System and QA team that is actively working toward ISO/IEC 17025 for the Vancouver and Mississauga laboratories. Her background is in analytical testing in the Geochemistry field with over 13 years working at a large commercial testing lab. Erin has a BSc in Chemistry and an MBA. She is currently the chair of the C45 Lab Subcommittee, focused on standardization with respect to method specifications, method validation and proficiency testing for Cannabis. Erin is passionate about Quality and continuous improvement and aims to bring these disciplines to the dynamic Cannabis industry.

​

Vinodha Chetty

Vinodha is the Quality Assurance Manager and A/QAP at Tantalus Labs and is responsible for managing and maintaining the Quality Management System at Tantalus. She has a Masters degree from The University of British Columbia, with over six years of experience in Cannabis, Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals, and Analytical Chemistry. She designed and implemented the Audit program at Tantalus Labs, focussed on Internal, External and Supplier Audits, playing a major part in developing strategies for Continuous Improvement. She is also responsible for analysing, interpreting and managing lab test data. She has a keen interest in digital innovation within the cannabis space and expanding that at her
organization.

​

​

Jeff Ord

Jeff Ord is Cannabis At Work’s entrepreneurially spirited VP of Accounts & Relationships. Jeff has leveraged his unique ability to forge meaningful connections and built cannabis community from coast-to-coast. With a decade of experience helping small organizations grow, Jeff is passionate about creating space & place for people to become the best versions of themselves. Jeff has been hosting The Roll Call - a series of in person and online events designed to connect cannabis colleagues through conversations about gratitude.

Jeff previously served as the Executive Director of Freestyle Skiing Ontario where he led organizational transformation to service all levels of its community while also developing Olympic champions. Jeff also holds an MSc in Environmental Science, and was a partner in Envirotechnics Consulting, based in British Columbia, where he leveraged environmental monitoring contracts to help build capacity within northern First Nations communities. In his free time Jeff is an avid skier, surfer and traveler. He is also an active member of the global Burning Man community.

Troy Henderson

Troy Henderson, LP Consultant at Virox Technologies Inc. in Oakville, ON.

Troy Henderson is a cannabis industry consultant in infection prevention and control. He specializes in streamlining and designing biosecurity programs for producers and educating on SHYIELD One-Step Disinfectant Cleaners for Cannabis Facilities (www.SHYIELD.ca). You can reach Troy at SHYIELD.

​

​