MJBizMag March 2021 - 70

IndustryPlayers | New Hires & Promotions
By Omar Sacirbey
A look at some recent
hiring moves in the
marijuana industry
Cosmetics Exec
Gives P&B a New Look
V
eteran beauty
executive Evelyn
Wang is the new
CEO of Papa & Barkley,
a leading cannabis
wellness-products
company in California
that is best known for its
topical goods.
Wang joins Papa &
Barkley from Los Angelesbased
Milani Cosmetics, where she was the chief
marketing officer. She also has held senior roles
at well-known beauty brands such as L'Oréal,
Neutrogena Cosmetics and Estée Lauder.
The executive already had an interest in
wellness and plant-based medicines when a friend
introduced her to a recruiter seeking to fill the
Papa & Barkley post.
" From a business-potential aspect, the question
I asked myself was, 'Does this brand have the
potential to scale? " Wang told Marijuana Business
Magazine. " While we are already a top brand in
the California dispensary channel, I see a very
clear runway to scale the brand even further within
California, definitely on e-commerce nationally and
then ultimately globally. "
This is where Wang's experience comes in.
" That ability to amplify the compelling aspects of a
brand story is a skill set that I bring to the table. It's
about understanding how you structure a company
to ensure that the resources and investments
required for driving it forward with consumers are in
place. And also, understanding distribution strategy
and helping to strengthen operational processes, "
she said. " I think these are all things that transfer
really well from the beauty world and the consumer
packaged goods world (to cannabis). "
What does Wang hope to be able to say in a year
or two? " I would like to see Papa & Barkley in every
American medicine cabinet. "
The outgoing CEO, P&B founder Adam Grossman,
becomes executive chair of the board.
Zeeshan Hyder has also joined the company as
chief financial officer after four years in that role with
MedMen Enterprises.
Former Obama Cabinet Official
Joins Marijuana Trade Group
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services under
former President Barack Obama, will serve as
an honorary co-chair of the National Cannabis
Roundtable (NCR). Sebelius, a Democrat and former
governor of Kansas, is the second high-ranking
politician to align with Washington DC-based NCR.
Republican John Boehner, a former speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives, joined the group in
2019 as an honorary co-chair.
 Erstwhile Trump Appointee
Joins Hemp Group
Russell Coleman, who served
as U.S. attorney for the Western
District of Kentucky from 2017
until Jan. 20, has rejoined the
U.S. Hemp Roundtable to lead
cooperation efforts with law enforcement and ensure
members abide by the group's ethics policy.
Coleman held the same role at the Hemp
Roundtable before his appointment as a federal
prosecutor. He formerly worked for U.S. Sen. Mitch
McConnell, who is from Kentucky and is credited for
steering hemp legalization in 2018.
Consumer-Focused COO Joins
Maryland Marijuana Business
Culta, a leading cannabis brand in
Maryland, welcomed Allison Siegel
as its new chief operating officer.
Before Culta, Siegel was president
at Next Day Blinds, a direct-toconsumer
business in Maryland
with more than 400 employees. She also spent 10
years as an IT and marketing executive at Total Wine
& More, a national alcohol retailer headquartered in
North Bethesda, Maryland.
Siegel acted as chief revenue officer at Next Day
Blinds before becoming president. Before that, she
built Total Wine's IT applications, a loyalty program
and a consumer-insights group.
Veteran COO Joins California Supply-Chain Firm
Radiant Farm, a Santa Rosa, California-based
cannabis supply-chain management company with
manufacturing and distribution operations, hired
Newton Paskin as its chief operating officer. Paskin
is also president and CEO of Explorer Technologies,
70 Marijuana Business Magazine | March 2021
Evelyn Wang
MJBizMag March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of MJBizMag March 2021
