Global Go Team

Global Team

Phil Valvardi has spent most of his career leading innovative businesses within the highly regulated financial services industry and more recently in the highly regulated cannabis industry.  Most recently, Phil was the CEO of Highroad Consulting Group, a leading cannabis consulting firm.  Prior to that, Phil served as CFO at GlobeOne, a financial technology company developing a mobile financial platform.  Phil also served as CEO of Maverick Network Solutions and presided over its acquisition by Fiserv.  Phil was also President of the MAC Network, one of the largest debit networks in the U.S., which was sold to Concord EFS/First Data for approximately $900 million.  Early in his career he held executive positions in the payments and financial divisions of CoreStates Financial Corp., now part of Wells Fargo Bank.

Phil sits on the board of Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University. Phil earned his BA at Saint Joseph’s University, and his MBA at Drexel University.

Philip A. Valvardi
Managing Partner

Simone focuses on cannabis licensing and compliance and has extensive experience in understanding and deciphering complex cannabis regulations. Prior to entering the cannabis industry, Simone worked in Washington, D.C. as an intern for Congressman Raul Ruiz, M.D. (CA-36). During her time on the Hill, she worked on legislation, and researched policy on renewable energy, healthcare, and tribal relations.

Simone Sandoval
Partner / Director of Licensing & Compliance

Ryan Fingerhut, a former practicing attorney, has devoted himself full time to the cannabis industry since 2014.  Ryan focuses on cannabis consulting, licensing and compliance – including the transfer of licenses and the ownership change process.  Ryan boasts a 99% track record in license applications, with over 60 state and local cannabis licenses won in multiple states.  Ryan participated directly in the management of several cannabis businesses before entering the cannabis consulting business and is an expert in cannabis license valuation and risk issues.

Ryan Fingerhut is a licensed attorney in the State of Washington and a Graduate of the Florida State University College of Law with a certificate in International Trade Law. He has also earned a B.S. in Criminology and a cum laude B.A. in Writing with a minor in business from Florida State University.

Ryan Fingerhut
Partner / Director of Client Relations

Ivy brings cannabis cultivation and law expertise to her work with clients at Global Go. She began working for a cannabis collective in 2014, where she learned how to cultivate from Cultivation Operations Managers that had over 40 combined years of growing. She fell in love with cultivation and became grow operations manager and compliance manager at a Coachella Valley microbusiness before joining Global Go. Prior to that, Ivy graduated from California State University, Monterey Bay with a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities and Communications with a double concentration in Writing and Rhetoric and Pre-law. She graduated with Distinction for creating a group that met once a week to tackle the problem of rising campus sexual assault. She went on to get her Master’s degree at Monterey College of Law and is a certified mediator through the Monterey County Community Justice Center.

Ivy Bader
Licensing & Compliance Manager

Richard delivers security and technology solutions to clients. For over 15 years, he has designed and managed network topographies of all sizes, including multi-server VM environments with locally hosted Exchange and scalable cloud based solutions. Richard has overseen the design and buildout of multiple cannabis facilities. This included everything from network engineering/management, security design/management for security camera, burglar & fire alarm, and access control systems to configuring automated hydration and lighting systems, along with green house shading automation and temperature control. Richard has hands on experience with track-and-trace software/server management. Richard is familiar with technology needs in a variety of industries; from cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, and retail facilities to hotels, country clubs, car dealerships, and healthcare providers.

Richard Cromwell
Director of Technology & Security

Steve has more than 9 years of in-depth cannabis industry knowledge and experience. He created the industry's first automated SaaS applications for cannabis compliance inspection monitoring and reporting. The Global Go Cloud supports governments, financial institutions and licensed cannabis operators.

Steve Owens
Consultant

Paul Rosen is among a handful of the seminal pioneers of the global legalized cannabis industry, and one of its most active entrepreneurs, advisors, and investors. Paul Rosen was a co-founder of PharmaCan Capital Corp (NASDAQ: CRON; TSX: CRON), and served as its first CEO and President for four years. Under Paul’s leadership, PharmaCan / Cronos Group acquired ownership interests in a number of the initial cannabis licenses awarded in Canada, and was the 3rd cannabis company to go public in Canada.

Paul sat on the Board and chaired the audit committee of iAnthus Capital Holdings (CSE:IAN), a multi state operator of cannabis assets in the United States. Paul is co-founder and CEO of Pantry (@pantryfoodco), a cannabis focused start up in the functional food market, and the Managing Director of BreakWater Venture Capital. He has invested and/or advised over 150 companies in the global cannabis industry including Avicanna Inc. (TSE:AVCN), Tokyo Smoke (NYSE: CGC), CB2 Insights (CSE.CBII), 1933 Industries (CSE:TGIF) and Lift & Co. (TSX.V:LIFT).

Paul has enjoyed a distinguished speaking and media career. He has appeared on/in Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, Fox Business, BBC Business, Nasdaq TV, Yahoo Finance, The Economist, The Street, Barrons, National Public Radio and Cheddar TV. Paul is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. He received a B.A. in Economics from Western University in 1985 and an LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1988.

Paul Rosen
Founder

A true pioneer of the U.S. cannabis industry, Greta Carter was instrumental in the birth of the U.S. recreational cannabis industry.  Greta began her cannabis career as a prominent activist for intelligent cannabis regulation in Washington, the first state to legalize recreational cannabis.  Greta founded the Coalition for Cannabis Standards and Ethics, Washington’s oldest cannabis trade organization, and the industry authority that the State of Washington turned to for feedback and advice when drafting its recreational cannabis use regulations.  She was also personally instrumental in the drafting of the City of Seattle’s medical cannabis ordinance, and in the drafting of Washington’s outdoor cultivation regulations.

When it comes to building business empires in the cannabis industry, there are few hands in the world more experienced than those of Greta Carter.  Greta also directly built and managed multiple groundbreaking cannabis businesses, including as the founder of Highroad Consulting Group.  Under Greta’s leadership, her teams have won dozens of state cannabis licenses.

Prior to entering the cannabis industry, Greta founded and ran a multi-million-dollar real estate business in Florida.  She began her professional management career in the highly regulated world of banking, ultimately serving as Vice President of Citibank.

Greta Carter
Advisor

A renowned figure in the global cannabis industry, Steve has spent more than four decades on the front lines of the cannabis reform movement. Steve sold the first gram of legal cannabis to an adult in California, marking the end of prohibition and the birth of legalized cannabis in the U.S. His most notable business achievements include co-founding Harborside – one of the first six dispensaries licensed in the United States – now a publicly-traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange; Steep Hill Laboratory, the first cannabis analytics company; and Arcview Group, the first dedicated cannabis investment network.

Steve DeAngelo
Consultant

Andrew DeAngelo is a visionary leader with a proven track record of enacting systemic social change and developing best practices for the cannabis industry. During his 13-year tenure at Harborside, Andrew has pioneered legal cannabis business processes and provided groundbreaking political engagement and thought leadership to the cannabis community. Andrew led the design and development of gold-standard cannabis retail by innovating many “firsts” for the industry. These include: introducing CBD medicines to heal severely epileptic children as documented in Discovery Channel’s Weed Wars, implementing the first lab-testing program in cannabis dispensing, implementing child-resistant packaging for edibles, standardizing inventory tracking, initiating senior outreach, and successfully working to prevent the federal government from seizing Harborside in forfeiture actions against the company in 2012. Andrew is also a founding Board of Directors member of the California Cannabis Industry Association (CCIA), the premier cannabis industry trade association in California, where he served from 2013 to 2020 building the organization from zero to 500 member companies.

Andrew DeAngelo
Consultant

Tom Zuber is a Founder of Global Go, and a Founder and the Managing Partner of Zuber Lawler, which represents clients around the globe in languages covering 90% of the world’s population. At Zuber Lawler, Tom is the relationship partner for some 10 Fortune 500 clients of the firm, as well as funds and government entities.  He has advised some of the most iconic companies in the world on their intellectual property disputes, deals and global portfolios.  He has also represented leading cannabis companies for over 12 years. He is at the cutting edge of cannabis patent and trademark law.  As examples among many, he has managed teams that have applied innovative strategies to obtain meaningful federal trademark protection for cannabis brands in the U.S., and the 2nd-ever-issued U.S. plant patent for a cannabis strain.

Tom’s experience representing both Fortune clients and cannabis clients allows him a unique perspective from which to advise large non-cannabis companies as to the launch of cannabis and hemp products and services.  His international experience aids Global Go clients in growing their value across sovereign borders throughout the world.  Few if any attorneys or consultants in the world are as well positioned to counsel cannabis companies on building the value of their cannabis-related brands and technologies.

Tom earned a J.D. degree Columbia Law School, a masters in public policy degree from Harvard University, and a biomedical engineering degree from Rutgers University, where he graduated with highest honors.

Tom Zuber
Founder

Josh Lawler is a Broker of Record for Global Go Realty California and an attorney and Partner of Zuber Lawler & Del Duca.  At Zuber Lawler, Josh handles M&A, finance and corporate matters for private equity groups, and public and private companies, both domestically and internationally.  He has also represented leading cannabis companies for over 12 years.  Josh has extensive experience with complex financing and M&A deals in the cannabis space.  He personally closed half a billion dollars in cannabis deals in 2019 (as well as many deals outside of the cannabis industry).  He also counsels clients on post-acquisition and post-merger integration.

Josh is also a licensed real estate broker in the State of California and is experienced in all areas of the process of acquiring and/or selling real property and other company assets..

Josh is a cum laude graduate of Northwestern University School of Law and earned his B.S. and B.A. from Duke University.

Josh Lawler
Founder

Ryan Brown is an experienced cannabis executive having served as CEO for Colorado’s largest vertically integrated cannabis company, Native Roots, and as CEO for Groundworks Industries, one of the largest vertically integrated companies in Oregon. During this time, Ryan has operated 50 dispensaries, 200,000 SF of indoor cultivation, 50,000 SF of extraction and cannabis product manufacturing facilities across some of the most competitive markets in the country, including Colorado, Oregon, California, and Canada. For both Groundworks Industries and Native Roots, Ryan was brought on to help a promising company become profitable, mature its business strategy, and cement itself as a leader in its respective market.

Previously, Ryan worked for nearly 10 years at the management and technology consulting firms RevGen Partners and Hitachi Consulting (now Hitachi Vantara). During this time, Ryan honed his skills as a business strategy, business process, and organizational design leader for Mid and Large Cap companies in a very diverse set of industries.

Raised in Golden, CO, Ryan graduated from the University of Denver with an MBA and a BA in Philosophy and Digital Media.

Ryan Brown
Consultant

About LP Profiles Round-34.png

Felipe Samaniego
Global Go, Ecuador

Sibusiso Xaba has extensive experience with financial matters across Africa.  He specializes in capital markets, deal structuring, syndication, venture capital fundraising, hedging solutions and portfolio management.  Sibusiso has worked with African governments, sovereign wealth funds, central banks, pension funds, insurers and asset managers.  He has closed transactions worth over $5 billion.  He is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Prior to Global Go Africa, Sibusiso worked as a banker at Goldman Sachs and Investec in London for over 8 years.

Sibusiso holds a Business Science Degree from the University of Cape Town.  He is an Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Fellow.

Sibusiso Xaba
CEO, Global Go Africa

Gerardo Agraz is a strategic business consultant and investor. He has led several ventures across sectors and stages, with a passion for companies reinventing huge industries like healthcare, T&T technologies, biotechnology and education. Agraz has more than 15 years of business development and government affairs experience in Mexico, making him an ideal advisor to business owners in a highly regulated industry like cannabis.

Gerardo holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the Universidad Iberoamericana and an MBA from the IPADE.  He also holds several Executive Business Programs certifications in Innovation to Business Strategy and Capital Venture from Stanford University and Wharton University, respectively. In 2018, Gerardo launched FAR foundation, a non-profit organization that provides support, services and education to individuals, families and caregivers affected by Alzheimer’s and other mental diseases.

Gerardo Agraz
Global Go, Mexico

Mario Pinzon, along with his sister Laura Pinzon, helps run SIACOMEX, a family-owned leading logistics company of some 25 years based in Bogotá, Colombia. Their clientele includes Fortune companies like Chevron, H&M and Louis Vuitton. Mario founded the SIACOMEX Cannabis Division in 2019, and occupies the position of Chief Strategic Officer, seeking to advance cannabis logistics and its ancillary international opportunities across the Colombia border. The clientele of SIACOMEX Cannabis Division includes most of the major Colombian companies in the legalized cannabis industry. SIACOMEX is the first company in Colombia to trade legal cannabis across borders. In doing so, SIACOMEX helped the Colombian cannabis industry craft the supply chain for the exportation of legalized cannabis from Colombia.

Mario Pinzon
Global Go Colombia

Andrew Petronanos has been a founder, manager and engineer in the industries of hospitality, technology start-ups, international engineering and finance companies. Having completed his degree in Marine Engineering from Carnegie Polytechnic in Scotland, he then worked in the Oil & Gas industry serving clients such as Shell, BP, Chevron, Technip and the Ministry of Defence.

In 2019, after working in Wealth Management and Commodity Trading, he founded FINELEAF., a consulting company serving the European cannabis market. Andrew focuses on pooling his work experiences across different industries and countries to help others achieve their goals in the growing cannabis market.

Andrew believes success in life is achieved with and by people, so his primary focus is always on building long-term relationships with the people you need to grow your business.

Andrew Petronanos
Global Go, Switzerland

Andria is a lawyer admitted to the Cyprus Bar Association, as well as the Law Society of England & Wales in the United Kingdom. She currently serves as Managing Partner in the Cyprus office of Athos Group, a multi-disciplinary family office headquartered in Switzerland, with key locations throughout Europe, specializing in wealth management and multi-jurisdictional asset protection. Andria is well-versed in providing hemp and medicinal cannabis advisory and consultancy services. She brings to her consultancy practice a wealth of experience and knowledge gained while serving institutional and private clients in regard to a variety of subject matter, including: corporate and commercial law; tax planning and wealth management structures; and management and corporate trust services for all types of cross-border corporate vehicles, structured finance vehicles, and corporate holding structures.

Andria serves as Founder and the first-elected President of the Cyprus Cannabis Association, a collective of businesses and individuals working to build a responsible, top quality and transparent legal cannabis industry in Cyprus.

Andria Andreou
CEO, Global Go Cyprus

Anuj Desai is host of Europe’s leading cannabis industry podcast The Cannabis Conversation, having interviewed 100+ global thought leaders, including Professor Raphael Mechoulam (“Godfather of cannabis research”), Dr. Ethan Russo (leading cannabis scientist), and activist Steve DeAngelo (“Father of the legal cannabis industry”).

 

Anuj is an experienced commercial lawyer, having worked in a variety of senior roles in the U.K. media industry over fifteen years, and founder of Canverse, a legal and commercial consultancy for the cannabis industry.

 

Anuj acts as a lawyer and board adviser to several cannabis start ups and SMEs in the U.K., United States, and Canada, assisting them on a variety of corporate and commercial matters. He has developed, and continues to expand, an extensive network of investors, entrepreneurs, and key opinion leaders in the cannabis, CBD, and cannabinoid and hemp sectors, both domestically and internationally.

Anuj Desai
Global Go, U.K.