Halo Collective Inc. announced the appointment of Katie Field, Chief Executive Officer of Halo, to Chairman of the board of directors of the Company (the “Board”), effective immediately. Current Chairman Ryan Kunkel has resigned from the Board to focus on other professional endeavors. To the knowledge of the Company, Ms. Field is the second woman to serve as Chairman and CEO of a publicly traded cannabis company, the first being Kim Rivers of Trulieve (CSE:TRUL).
Cassidy McCord, Director, said, “It was an obvious decision to appoint Katie as Chairman of the Board. Her demonstrated accomplishments and female perspective are exactly what Halo requires at this critical time. With Katie at the helm, we are confident that Halo has the right leader to be the premier west coast-focused cannabis company, and to leverage our competitive strengths to pursue other emerging pathways to wellness. As important, with the prudent and timely actions she has taken to focus the strategy on the core business while eliminating significant cost, Katie has put the Company firmly on track to reaccelerate revenue and to return to profitability.”
Ms. Field will assume the Chairman role with nearly a decade of direct cannabis experience spanning all facets of the business, including strategy, retail, corporate development, business development, HR & organization, legal & regulatory, and investor relations. She has been a key member of the Halo executive team since joining the Company in April 2019, serving initially as Chief Strategy Officer, President since February 2020, and Board member since July 2021. Ms. Field first entered the cannabis industry in 2014 at Costa Farms, where she led the procurement, build-out, and sale of one of five original vertically integrated companies in Florida; subsequently operated a strategy consulting practice focused on cannabis and also worked at MariMed as EVP of Corporate Development. Her resume includes positions at The Brookings Institution and Bain & Company. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA with honors from Stanford University.
“Since becoming CEO in early July, Katie has proven that she has the right experience and capabilities to leverage the Company’s valuable assets to create tangible and sustainable shareholder value,” commented Ryan Kunkel. “She has aggressively eliminated significant annual recurring costs, preserved profitable revenue and focused on tactical strategies in California and Oregon to produce near term results. I could not leave Halo in better hands. It has been a pleasure working with her and I look forward to Halo’s success with Katie at the helm while I focus on my other pursuits, including helping Akanda with business development.”
Ms. Field commented, “I am thrilled and honored to lead the Company at this critical juncture and look forward to building Halo’s business and generating shareholder value with our more focused strategy.”
Concluded Ms. Field, “On behalf of the entire Board, I thank Ryan for his exceptional guidance and incredible commitment to Halo over the past several years. His contributions and insights have been invaluable.”
Among over 50 publicly traded cannabis companies in North America, Ms. Field is, to the knowledge of the Company, only the second female to serve in both the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman roles.
Halo is focused on the United States West Coast, where it has vertically integrated operations covering the entire value chain from seed to sale. Halo cultivates, extracts, manufactures, and distributes quality cannabis flower, pre-rolls, vape carts, edibles, and concentrates. Halo sells these products under a portfolio of brands, including Hush™, Winberry Farms™, its retail brand Budega™, and license agreements with Papa’s Herb®, DNA Genetics, and FlowerShop*. In addition, Halo has opened two dispensaries in Los Angeles under the Budega™ brand in North Hollywood and Hollywood, with plans to open one more in Hollywood in the third quarter of 2022.
In the non-THC sector, Halo is expanding into health and wellness categories, including CBD and functional supplements such as nootropic nutraceuticals and non-psychotropic mushrooms. Halo, through a series of acquisitions, has product offerings in the form of beverages (H2C Beverages), dissolvable strips (Dissolve Medical), capsules (Hushrooms™), and topical supplements (Hatshe) with proposed national distribution via a strategic agreement with SWAY Energy Corporation.
Halo has successfully acquired and integrated a variety of companies which were subsequently reorganized to create Akanda Corp., an international medical cannabis and wellness company, of which Halo currently owns 12,674,957 common shares worth approximately US$15.8 million as of August 9, 2022. Halo has also acquired a range of software development assets, including CannPOS, Cannalift, CannaFeels, and a discrete sublingual dosing technology, Accudab. Halo intends to reorganize these entities (including their intellectual property and patent applications) into a subsidiary called Halo Tek Inc. and to complete the distribution of the shares of Halo Tek Inc. to shareholders on record at a date to be determined.
For further information regarding Halo, see Halo’s disclosure documents on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.