Why PHILTER?

Dr. Willie J. McKinney has held several roles with Altria and JUUL. In 1998 Dr. McKinney joined the Altria family of companies and held a number of academic and research roles before joining the Executive Leadership Team as Vice President of Regulatory Sciences. His time at Altria was followed by serving as Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs for JUUL labs in San Francisco.

Dr. McKinney served on FDA’s Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC). Board Certified as a Toxicologist by the American Board of Toxicology in 2004, Dr. McKinney holds a Ph.D., in Environmental Toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and M.S., in Biology, from North Carolina Central University, and a B.S., in Biology from Xavier University in New Orleans.

Dr. Michael S. Werley spent over two decades at Philip Morris/Altria, most recently serving in the capacity of Principal Scientist. He has authored numerous research studies on tobacco, nicotine, toxicity, inhalation, exposure, and harm reduction.  Dr. Werley earned a Ph.D., in Pharmacology/Toxicology from Temple University School of Pharmacy and a Master of Science (MS) from Temple University School of Medicine.

Jeff founded Bravos Capital in early 2018 in order to focus on partnering with family offices and high net worth individuals to pursue private investment opportunities. Jeff has over 14 years of direct investment experience, including growth equity as well as venture capital. In his current role, he leads the evaluation of investment opportunities, structures transactions and works with management teams to develop and execute operational and growth strategies.

He has extensive responsibilities for day-to-day portfolio company management, including crafting long-term strategy, analyzing threats & opportunities, identifying operating improvements, cash flow management, and other general management roles. He is a current or former board member of seven different companies in a variety of industries but has particularly deep experience in business services, technology services and consumer products.

Jeff received his M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he was a Venture Fellow, and his B.A., cum laude, in Economics and Italian from Middlebury College.

Josh has excelled at scaling global brands from coffee to cannabis to health and wellness. He founded Human Improvement after he served as President of dosist, a world leader in dose-control technology. Prior to that, he was the managing director of Canada for the Amplifon Group, a world leader in wellness technology treating hearing loss. Before that, Josh was vice president of retail at Saje Natural Wellness, a Vancouver-based contemporary wellness retailer. At Starbucks, he oversaw retail development in the Canadian market. Josh graduated with honors from Wilfrid Laurier University with a Bachelor of Business Administration and is a Certified Management Accountant (CPA, CMA).

(25+ years in politics and advocacy, https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-mulanix-9925812/ )

After 25 years of working inside politics in both the public and private sectors, Mitch Mulanix has the experience and track record to influence a movement. He has advised top officials at the federal, state and local levels, and got his political start on Capitol Hill as Chief of Staff to a member of Congress in 1988. After leaving public service, he partnered with legendary political consultant George Gorton, a member of the American Political Hall of Fame. Together, they established Gorton & Mulanix, a California-based government relations firm that as provided winning political strategies for Fortune 500 clients such as Sprint Wireless, Koch Industries and Lucent Technologies. He has also headed significantly successful political campaigns for several initiatives including the San Diego Padres and California Workers Comp Reform. He worked exclusively for Arnold Schwarzenegger for five years guiding his transition from actor to political activist prior to running Arnold’s first campaign for Governor. “Philter is a driving force behind a social movement to create more socially acceptable vaping practices – potentially leading to new legislation and laws around vaping.”

Jenny Diggles is an entrepreneurial leader that is passionate about building businesses on the edge of emerging industries. Over the past 20 years, her career has spanned apparel, tech startups, digital agencies and most recently the cannabis industry.

Jenny’s curiosities have led her to raise over $20M for startups, build and exit a digital agency to Deloitte Digital, and she was selected by Apple to participate in their first ever TV show about app creators. Her career started with developing consumer insights and data modeling for a clothing company with $500M in revenue, but without proper data to validate decisions on products, pricing or volumes. These efforts led to the development of a research team, better inventory management and reduced guesswork when it came to deciding what products to manufacture.

In 2014 Jenny entered the cannabis space after personally discovering the medical power of cannabis. After learning how undercapitalized cannabis businesses were, Jenny built cannabis funds and invested into ancillary businesses. In 2018, she joined Cura Cannabis and helped guide the company through international development of their CBD products, new product launches and an acquisition by Cura Leaf, a publicly traded company.

Jenny holds an MBA from the University of Washington and lives in Aspen, Colorado with her husband Benjamin and two dogs.

David is a culture maven who builds community through immersive events and transformational experiences. David is a Founder of Trailblazers, a leadership gathering for the cannabis and hemp industry. He has founded and produced six notable communities lending his expertise in branding, programming, curation and communication strategies across sustainability, social innovation and entrepreneurship. This includes: EQ Planet Home, Summit, Trailblazers, Blockchain Unbound, Roundglass and his latest passion project, Open Circles.

In addition, David has spent eight years as Lead Curator and Partner at Summit, a preeminent leadership conference for top-tier entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers. In this role, David was responsible for seeking out the top business innovators and movement builders to shape company culture.

In 2013, Summit purchased Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah to house its community of leaders and build a residential real estate development.

Mark Sandson is a strategic advisor to early-stage technology companies. He performs in an advisory role regarding clients’ strategic planning, fund raising, and exit planning events, and has helped clients achieve successful fund raising campaigns and exits. He previously acted as a sell-side M&A intermediary. He has had executive and director roles in successful privately-held companies and established public firms. He has directed consulting, operations, and marketing in a wide range of information technology applications, including internet-based systems, enterprise and scientific software development, aerospace and defense, infrastructure management, and outsourcing, and has advised firms in life sciences, consumer products, payment systems, mobile marketing, automotive safety, water conservation, and others.

He has been an officer of four privately held businesses, each of which had successful exit events and a vice president of two NASDAQ-listed firms. He has served as member of the board of fifteen firms and president, CEO, and chairman of his own business. He has been a director, and Interim CEO and Interim Chairman of a publicly traded firm. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank. He is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and has done graduate work at George Washington University.

Mr. Gaeir has been a serial and successful entrepreneur for over 20 years both as a partner and founder within health care and advertising industries.  Mr. Gaeir has a solid track record of developing businesses from concept to liquidity which he has achieved four times, garnering in excess of $140M. 

In 1998, Aaron was a Founding Member of Transit America Outdoor Advertising company based in Las Vegas that sold to the largest outdoor asset owner in North America, Lamar Outdoor, with over $4 billion in annual sales. 

In 1999, Aaron was a Founding Member of Taxi Tops, the largest taxi advertising company in North America that then sold to Clear Channel Media with annual sales of $7 billion in both Radio and Out of Home.

In 2003, Aaron founded Elite Media Partners in the managed healthcare space before selling to Great West Health, a division of Cigna, in 2008.

In 2008, Aaron founded Grandesign Media, a service company in the outdoor advertising space that became the second largest independent buyer of outdoor media in the U.S. and was the largest grossing, privately-held advertising agency in San Diego.  Aaron achieved liquidity in 2019 to Talon Outdoor, the largest individual-owned OOH media company in the world.

Today Aaron is the founder and CEO of GDX Studios: a full-service experiential agency with a current client portfolio that includes Paramount, TBS, Disney, AB and Amazon. 

Aaron’s ability to create clear-cut competitive advantages, proof of concept and scale has enabled him to build a successful model in helping companies achieve liquidity.  Moreover, his ability in recognizing and cultivating PLU’s (People Like Us) with his “bucket” training process (personal, professional and financial) is his true passion and greatest strength. “Each morning when my feet hit the floor, I set an intention to always pursue my passion to cultivate and motivate those that are the most talented professionals in the Out of Home industry today. As the owner and CEO of GDX, I focus on enhancing company culture and driving business development.”

Aaron lives in San Diego with his wife Kim and their four children living the quintessential Southern California life.