MJBizMag November-December 2021 - 90

IndustryPlayers | New Hires & Promotions
By Omar Sacirbey
Flowhub Picks Former Uber General Manager as New COO
T
he power of personal
contact can't be
undervalued. Just ask
Leandre Johns, a former
general manager at Uber
who recently joined Flowhub
as chief operations officer.
Johns said a major reason he
took a newly created post at
the Denver-based cannabis
retail software company
was because he was able
to meet face to face with
Flowhub founder and CEO
Kyle Sherman several times
before accepting the job offer.
Sherman had moved to
Dallas, Johns' hometown, a
few months before a recruiter
called him about Flowhub's
new COO post. Johns, who
spent six years at Uber before
briefly joining Metropolis,
another transportationlogistics
company, and then
moving into investing and
consulting, was curious about
the opportunity to work in a
new and emerging industry. But he also wanted to vet
the company.
" That gave me an opportunity to really sit down
and get to know (Sherman) and for him to download
to me a lot more about Flowhub-where they're
currently at, what the trajectory of the organization
is, what opportunities are
there for other growth in
the industry, and how I
might step in and really be
effective, " Johns said. " That
really was different, just
having that access to the
CEO. That definitely helped
build that relationship
between us and get a sense
of trust between us. "
One difference between
working for Uber and Flowhub
is that Uber had far fewer
competitors than Flowhub,
Johns said, and it's also
challenging to learn the
universe of companies that
Flowhub works with.
" What I'm trying to get
my head around is all the
players in the industry, how
they connect, how we can
help each other and who are
those that we're really going
to be more competitive with, "
he said.
One of Johns' goals for his
new job is fostering internal leadership.
" I consider myself a leader, " he said. " I want to be
able to distill some of those leadership principles
down to folks who are going to be leaders. ... I want
to make sure that we've built that kind of culture to
bring up leaders. "
CFO Trades One Brand
in California for Another
Glass House Brands, a vertically
integrated cannabis company based
in California, announced that Mark
Vendetti has been appointed chief
financial officer. Vendetti replaced
Derrek Higgins, whose last day with the
company was Sept. 30.
Before joining Glass House Group,
Vendetti was the chief financial
officer for Canndescent, a producer
of California cannabis, from 2019
to 2021. Vendetti also has worked
for well-known consumer companies
such as Abercrombie & Fitch,
Mattel, Procter & Gamble and XM
Satellite Radio. He has 30-plus
years of finance and accounting
experience, with a focus on strategy
development, M&A and due diligence,
cash flow and liquidity management,
dashboard implementation and
analytics, organizational design and
90 MJBizMagazine | November-December 2021
development as well as compliance
and internal controls.
Texas Cannabis Firm Expanding
Texas Original Compassionate
Cultivation (TOCC) has a new chief
financial officer, Steven Yoo, and a
new director of product management,
Meghan Clough.
Yoo previously served as vice
president of corporate development at
Tilray and as a principal at Subversive
Leandre Johns
MJBizMag November-December 2021

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