Kate Rolston
Founder,
Chief Executive Officer
Eric Bischoff
IT Advisor
Reade Tilley
Editoral Director
Kyle T. Kietrys
Co-Founder, President
Kate Rolston is CEO and Founder of M3 Life Sciences. A Senior Marketing Executive with an extraordinary track record of building brands and generating millions of dollars for very early stage companies. She also produces award-winning Health and Wellness TV, documentaries and video content. After running two prestigious media brands, “Every Woman” and “Every Baby” for the largest nursing association in the world (AWHONN.org) Kate became an early adopter of the digital media world, launching “Real Savvy Moms”, which won the respect of experts, critics, and Fortune 500 brands. Her 33-time award-winning PBS TV series then blossomed into a Webby-winning digital platform with a community, newsletters, webcasts, ‘Ask an Expert’, health tools, and a library of high-quality video content. She sold Real Savvy Moms to Disney in 2010. Following her tenure at Disney, Kate continued helped countless entrepreneurs launch their digital, film or health and wellness businesses.
Rolston has a unique blend of abilities that enable her to envision and roll out new products and communications campaigns then manage them through to fruition. She is a 'cannabis convert' having seen first-hand through her family and friends, the wonderful healing benefits of Cannabinoids. She is loving her role of bringing together all the various talent, skills and connections to make M3 Life a success. “I have seen the healing powers of this amazing female plant for my friends and family, so I feel honored to be partnering with amazing women to bring this new awareness and education to the people, so everyone can benefit.”
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Kyle Kietrys is the president of M3 Life and the CEO / Founder of M3 Biodynamics. His vision is to improve the world by elevating the standards of cannabis cultivation and extraction and to produce the highest possible quality of medicinals and supplements to empower humanity.
Kyle received his economics degree from Columbia University and also attended graduate school at Rutgers University, NJ, in the early 90’s, where he studied Environmental Geography - people’s use of the environment around them. He knew he was too far ahead of his time by the visceral reaction of the Geography Department Chair upon review of Kietrys' paper - "How Hemp could save the World."
After working in advocacy for an environmental non-profit, Kyle became an entrepreneur, opened a progressive health-food store and taught himself everything about the industry. He has been at the forefront of the alternative/integrative health field for more than 20 years when he began treating the gut as the source of chronic disease and had amazing results. For the past six years, Kyle has been empowering his clients by teaching them how to dramatically improve their health through the use of medical cannabis oil (MCO). He has been a passionate advocate and practitioner of alternative health solutions - including medical Cannabis - for more than 25 years.
Having done a tremendous amount of research on both Sustainability and Medical Cannabis, Kietrys has an incredible understanding of Cannabis impact on the environment, society and our well-being. He understands the endocannabinoid system and has seen wonderful results first-hand with his clients. He is well aware of the biggest issues facing the industry, so he knows what M3 needs to address, and where the industry needs to be in the near future so that we are already standing tall when big corporations enter. "It is imperative that everything is done to make this business and the industry itself a success, and by becoming a leader in the industry who sets the right example and helps our allies, we will advance the industry while helping the millions of people who need therapeutic, superior-quality cannabis products."
Riyaana Hartley is Director of Marketing. A marketing executive, filmmaker, and wellness event producer currently based in Los Angeles, California. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Riyaana received her B.A in Advertising from the University of Florida and established herself bringing pioneering companies like Red Bull, Lululemon, and Wanderlust to market while helping to reinvent older, traditional brands like Wells Fargo and Honda. Riyaana currently serves on projects around the world, drawing from her diverse background managing clients and campaigns for ad agencies, event marketing for global brands, business development and community relations for startups and established retailers, programming wellness retreats for hospitality properties and producing and directing feature films. Empathic, intuitive and driven to creatively problem solve, Riyaana’s energy and expertise put her at home anywhere from boardrooms to yoga shalas to underground event activations. When not consulting for LOHAS brands, Riyaana is busy as co-founder of both Love Entertainment, an award-winning production company focused on female-driven content, and, Fly Buttrfly, a non-profit on a mission to help women become fully expressed, realize their greatest potential and paying it forward. Riyaana is an active member of Women In Film, certified Prana Flow Vinyasa and Standup Paddleboard Yoga teacher, an environmental advocate, social justice champion and ultimately here to serve the greatest and highest good for our one global family and precious mother Earth.
Reade Tilley is M3's Editorial Director. Reade is a content and ideation specialist based in Southern California. For nearly 20 years he’s helped individuals and companies tell their stories and shape communications with their audiences in print and online, across a wide array of marketing materials, interactive experiences, feature stories events. Clients have included golf legend Arnold Palmer, Jaguar, Cessna, the PGA Tour, KitchenAid and many others in the lifestyle and wellness space. Originally from Florida, Reade earned his Bachelor’s of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, along with a BA in Asian Studies. He worked as a writer and photographer in China, South Korea and in Europe, and lived in New York City for many years where he worked in custom publishing and media. Prior to that, he covered the commercial and military space programs and state politics for a newspaper in California, for which he also wrote about Santa Barbara County’s wine community—a subject he continues to enjoy.
Eric Bischoff - IT Advisor. Eric has been CITO (Chief Information Technology Officer) for the Quick Group of Companies for 32 years. There he developed the IT infrastructure to help Quick Group become a leader in global, time-critical transportation and logistics solutions. His IT infrastructure makes this same-day urgent delivery company for organs and body parts, a global leader.
Quick is a privately owned, non-conforming, mission-critical, rush transportation and logistics company, delivering critical organs that save people's lives. Eric’s unique skill-set includes: the understanding of corporate strategy, business' needs and competitive advantages, having a vision for the future, strategic planning and leadership, balancing technology, resources, and budgets, identifying, hiring, motivating and retaining key experts relationship building, culture transformation, project management, execution & implementation of useful technologies & solutions, internet and internal marketing, documentation, training and security risk management.
Eric’s technical expertise and vision for the future will be invaluable in helping M3 remain compliant in an industry with dynamically changing regulations, high-security needs, internal communications and maintaining a competitive advantage.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbischoff/
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Walter J. Marcinowski: A Proven General Manager. Walter has spent 30+ years in highly regulated industries: beverage alcohol, tabacco, Gaming, etc. Results-oriented self-starter with a proven track-record of profitably growing businesses and brands, building strong cohesive teams, successfully opening and building international markets, launching new products and increasing shareholder value. Walter spent the last two years consulting groups entering the Cannabis sector as to all matters regarding branding from ideation to formulation to packaging and distribution within the confines of the state by state and federal legal system and writes articles on the various elements affecting the industry.
His 17 years of agency side relationships with Schieffelin & Somerset helped grow clients Moet & Chandon/Dom Perignon from 9% to 49% of US market with $200MM in sales and $50MM in profits. He oversaw the promotions and advertising for House of Ruffino with five-fold growth up until the sale to Constellation brands for $400MM. Created and launched Voss Bottled Water of Norway from ideation in ‘98 to US sales of $70MM in 2007 and IPO. At Pernod Ricard, he oversaw incorporation of brands from Seagram’s and Allied Domecq. With no advertising campaigns due to the merger, promotions resulted in 9% organic growth for Pernod Ricard USA.
Also launched Havana Club and Seagram’s Vodka now one of the top 5 selling vodkas on earth.
Walter acted as Dir of New Business Development for Frierson, Mee and Partners, starting with 6 person design shop and built it to a full service agency with $50 Million in billings and 60 employees. Programs included Chef’s Theater with multi-tiered brand/retailer/entertainer cross promotions. Tony award winning ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ and Emmy Award winning mini-series “Evita” are included in his production credits. He created & managed the most successful multi-media and on-line promotion in the History of Miller Brewing and Milwaukee’s Best Light Beer and the World Series of Poker. Negotiated and promoted such events as America’s Cup Yacht Races, World Series of Poker, Belmont Champagne Stakes, Created Scots Fest.
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Linda Gruson, VP Operations. Seasoned beauty industry professional with diversified domestic and international experience in Marketing Strategy, Product Development and Operations. Originally from Scotland, Linda has worked in Operations, Product Development, and Marketing for Global beauty brands (Avon UK, Germany and US, where she was awarded the Chairman’s Achievement Award for helping integrate European Marketing into the Global Marketing Group, and domestically she worked at Shiseido Group, QVC, Fusion Brands America (FBA) which became Clean Beauty Collective, (a line of first to market clean perfumes, with Clean Reserve and Clean Avant Garden lines.) At FBA Inc, Linda helped the company create value by saving several million dollars in product value analysis, re-sourcing product manufacturing and filling operations, as well as value analyzing the packaging. This led to a private purchase of FBA for a reported $85MM. As an expert in product development, packaging, sourcing and purchasing, Gruson guides the process through sourcing, development, testing, production, quality assurance and inventory management. All while building an extensive network of R&D laboratories, Manufacturers, Filling & Assembly businesses, component manufacturers, and brokers. Working to JIT and preserving cash flow, she negotiated excellent terms with all key suppliers while maintaining domestic inventory, allowing for speed to market and product opportunity. She is the founder of Backend Beauty, a company she created to help indie brands realize their ideas and get them to market. She is a co-founder of Patika Pets, a veterinarian formulated wellness pet care line and Bread Bag Co, a sustainable bag company.
In her private life, Linda is mother to two children and three German Shepherds.
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Julian Gonzales: VP Digital. Ecommerce and Web Development Specialist. A graduate of Florida International University with a B.S in Marketing, Julian began as a marketing consultant, sharpening his skills working with companies such as Tiger Direct, Shoprite, and many more. Once he had specialized in enterprise-level SEO, Julian switched his focus to entrepreneurship building several successful ecommerce sites. He is currently the Chief Marketing Officer of Ace Marks www.Acemarks.com where he revitalized the company sales by establishing Ace Marks as one of the top direct to consumer menswear brands, by adopting his unique strategy of keeping them on top of the first page of google search results, which was challenging given the huge category competition. The company is enjoying enormous growth and his strategies have taken it from $100,000 a year in sales to over $4,000,000.
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Jason E. Searns, Esq. General Counsel. Former Counsel to the Hoban Law Group, the largest canna-business law firm in the world, Mr. Searns also serves as General Counsel for Grok, a cannabis growth consulting firm offering legal and financial compliancy to help companies expand and succeed. He earned his Bachelors’ degree magna cum laude in Political Science from Case Western Reserve University, his Masters’ degree in Politics from England’s Lancaster University, and his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Toledo College of Law. Jason is a former prosecutor and has a wealth of experience as corporate General and Special Counsel, having served in those capacities for such prestigious firms as Sokolove, Law, Jacoby, & Meyers, as well as nationally-recognized organizations such as the Legal Center for People with Disabilities and We the People, USA, where, as General Counsel and Executive Director, he oversaw the expansion of its legal self-help business from a single storefront to 178 offices, creating the foundation for Legal Zoom. He was the national winner of the National Appellate Advocacy Competition, sponsored by the American Bar Association, the first American in twenty-five years to win the European Debating Championship, and is the author of one of the first books in the nation on the Americans With Disabilities Act, published by West Publishing.
Riyaana Hartley
Marketing Director