Kay became a published journalist, writer and researcher when she was 11-years-old; since then, her work has been featured by Guardian, Huffington Post, The Tab, Cannabis Industry Journal, Variety, and more. In 2015, Kay graduated from Plymouth University with BA Honors in Geography, and moved to California as a social science specialist. Most of Kay’s work is held under NDA for her academic, business, nonprofit, and political clients.

Originally from Wales, she watched her hometown succumb to unmitigated social decline. Now faced with trends forecasting the devolution of California into an open-air prison camp, Kay isn’t going to sit idly by and let the propaganda overtake the data. She’s here to set the record straight because Los Angeles and other metropolitan cities can still be saved.

If you smoke cannabis, wear clothes, read magazines, or watch music videos, you’ve likely seen Kay featured by leading brands, artists, and creative directors who align with her disruptive approach to solving humanitarian crises… oh, and she gets along with everyone if they let her.

Eva Bilick is an actress, writer and producer living in Los Angeles. Her audiodrama, A Place Called Fairneck, debuted at #14 on Apple Podcast's comedy fiction chart in April, 2020, and was featured on Broadway World, This Week in Podcasts, and The Scott McGlynn Show.

Eva’s comedy web series, Weird in Bed, screened at film festivals throughout the West Coast in 2019 and can be watched on WhoHaHa. She is currently writing her first feature film script, and catching up on every season of The Great British Bake Off.

JJ Ramberg is the founder of Goodpods -- the app where you can follow your friends and influencers (including Malcolm Gladwell, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Kardashian, Toure and others..) to see what podcasts they are listening to.  

JJ is a serial entrepreneur who has also co-founded the mission-driven coupon site Goodshop which has donated more than $13 million to causes and SearchKibble which donates food to shelter pets for every search.  For 13 years, JJ hosted Your Business for NBC News, which focused on telling the stories of entrepreneurs and CEOs to find out what works and what doesn't when you're trying to grow a successful business.  She is the author of two books -- It's Your Business, and the children's book The Startup Club.  

JJ has been honored for her work by organizations including Inc Magazine's Female Founders 100, the American Women's Business Associaton, Self Magazine, and the Association of Women Entrepreneurs and often speaks for organizations ranging from the Vanity Fair Founders Fair to the US Chamber of Commerce. 

JJ received her MBA from Stanford Business School and her BA from Duke University.  

Shaylyn Romney Garrett is writer and changemaker pursuing connection, community, and healing in a fragmented world. She is the co-author with Robert D. Putnam of The Upswing: How America Came Together A Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. Her work also includes the uniquely revealing portraits of religious communities across the United States in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, which won the Woodrow Wilson Award for best political science book of 2010-2011. She is a founding contributor to the Aspen Institute’s initiative, Weave: The Social Fabric Project, and writes about her personal journey back to community on her blog, Project Reconnect.

Shaylyn has also had a successful career as a social entrepreneur. With her husband, James, she co-founded Think Unlimited, a nonprofit venture working to catalyze social innovation in the Middle East. She speaks Arabic and lived in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for six years, during which time she created an original Arabic language curriculum on creativity and critical thinking, and partnered with Queen Rania Al-Abdullah to bring it to Jordanian public schools.

Shaylyn’s nonprofit work has been featured by the New York Times, FastCompany, Harvard Business Review, and Arab Investor. In 2011 she was honored with the Draper Richards Kaplan Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship, and was a finalist in the global Echoing Green Competition. She was twice awarded a membership to the Clinton Global Initiative, and has been a speaker at TEDx.

Shaylyn holds a BA in Government from Harvard University, and is a returned Peace Corps volunteer. She is also a permaculturalist who loves to get her hands in the dirt, and thinks a lot about healthy soils as a model for thriving human communities. She lives in the beautiful red rock desert of Southern Utah with her husband, her daughter Sophie, her son Aeon, and her loyal dog Dewey.

Connect w/ Shaylyn:

Website | Book

Codie Sanchez is a reformed journalist, turned institutional investor to now a Managing Director and Partner at Entourage Effect Capital, a private equity firm focused specifically on investing in the legalized cannabis industry. Since its inception in the summer of 2014, EEC has deployed $100+ million into over 65 companies out of its two dedicated funds and co-investments.

Throughout her career, she has worked at the intersection of marketing and money, finding contrarian ways to invest. She’s always balanced her profession with non-profit service to empower women, veterans and Latinos.

She joined Vanguard ETFs in 2008 ($870B) to build out their ETF business, quite the time, then moved to Goldman Sachs Alternatives group. Following, she became an SVP at SSGA ($580B) in institutional investing tasked with a $3 billion region, finally coming to First Trust ($63B) to build the LatAm investment business from the ground up. Codie has led global teams in all asset classes, negotiating JV's, product creation and market entry across the Americas.

She is a board member at The Arcview Group, Magma Partners Venture Fund, Texans for Veterans and a member of the free markets think tank, AEI's Enterprise Club. She also sits on the policy board of the Marijuana Policy Project. She invests in women led startups through Plum Alley, WAVE and The Vinetta Project and cannabis companies through Cresco Capital Partners. She received her degree in PR & Journalism from ASU's Honors School, MBA from Georgetown University and PHD from Fundacao Gestulio Vargas. She was awarded the JFK Award for Print Journalism and the Howard Buffett Grant.

Codie Sanchez is a reformed journalist, turned institutional investor to now a Managing Director and Partner at Entourage Effect Capital, a private equity firm focused specifically on investing in the legalized cannabis industry. Since its inception in the summer of 2014, EEC has deployed $100+ million into over 65 companies out of its two dedicated funds and co-investments.

Throughout her career, she has worked at the intersection of marketing and money, finding contrarian ways to invest. She’s always balanced her profession with non-profit service to empower women, veterans and Latinos.

She joined Vanguard ETFs in 2008 ($870B) to build out their ETF business, quite the time, then moved to Goldman Sachs Alternatives group. Following, she became an SVP at SSGA ($580B) in institutional investing tasked with a $3 billion region, finally coming to First Trust ($63B) to build the LatAm investment business from the ground up. Codie has led global teams in all asset classes, negotiating JV's, product creation and market entry across the Americas.

She is a board member at The Arcview Group, Magma Partners Venture Fund, Texans for Veterans and a member of the free markets think tank, AEI's Enterprise Club. She also sits on the policy board of the Marijuana Policy Project. She invests in women led startups through Plum Alley, WAVE and The Vinetta Project and cannabis companies through Cresco Capital Partners. She received her degree in PR & Journalism from ASU's Honors School, MBA from Georgetown University and PHD from Fundacao Gestulio Vargas. She was awarded the JFK Award for Print Journalism and the Howard Buffett Grant.

Laura Cathcart Robbins is a freelance writer, podcast host and storyteller, living in Studio City, California with her son, Justin and her boyfriend, Scott Slaughter. She has been active for many years as a speaker and school trustee, and is credited for creating The Buckley School’s nationally recognized committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Laura's recent articles in the Huffington Post on the subjects of race, recovery and divorce have garnered her world-wide acclaim. She is a 2018 LA Moth StorySlam winner and host of the popular podcast, The Only One In The Room, which is available on all podcast platforms. Laura currently sits on the advisory board for the San Diego Writer’s Festival and is also a founding member of Moving Forewords, the first national memoirist collective of its kind.

ELEANOR BENNETT:

Eleanor is an independent podcast producer and radio journalist. She was captivated by the medium while working the 6AM shift at her college radio station. From there, she moved to New York, where she covered issues of climate justice and women’s empowerment for SiriusXM Radio.

She recently finished a project, interviewing hundreds of eclectic and colorful New Yorkers for an interactive audio-visual installation at the Brooklyn Museum by the photographer and street artist, JR. The exhibition, The Chronicles of New York City, is a giant mural of over one thousand New Yorkers that is accompanied by Eleanor’s audio recordings of each person’s story. Making these kinds of personal connections with a diversity of people and creating empathic spaces for them to tell their stories fuels her work.

Eleanor is delighted to be back home in the Rocky Mountains producing Gen Z Tea, a new podcast – by teens for teens – from Aspen Public Radio. Each episode, local teens talk with Instagram influencers, social justice activists, mental health app creators, and even politicians on the campaign trail to get the “hottest tea” on how their generation is using social media to change the world.

Her latest endeavor is Questions I’ve Never Asked, a mother-daughter podcast about the taboo conversations we rarely have with our parents, grandparents and elders. The story begins with her mother’s unorthodox childhood growing up on a vast cattle station alongside the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal community in the remote Australian outback. As a young woman, Eleanor is determined to develop a new canon of work from the perspective of women from all walks of life.

JANIE JOSELAND BENNET:

With no exaggeration, Janie has lived a unique life. The daughter of an Australian film star and a rugged, pioneering cattleman, she was raised in Australia’s remote outback as the sister to three older brothers. Growing up, her primary playmates were the children of the Pitjantjatjara tribe, who lived on the vast-land with her family and whose ancient language she spoke fluently. She was destined for an unorthodox journey!

Janie won an Australian equestrian championship (beating a field of men decades older), trained international polo ponies, and eventually traded in her little egg-yellow car to buy a round-the-world airline ticket. As a just-arrived 20 year-old in New York City, she landed a job with Fashion Week icon Fern Mallis. Later, in Aspen, she worked with acclaimed National Geographic photographers and launched Photographers Aspen, their international photo agency. Along the way, she was a contributing force behind the Oscar-winning film, Born Into Brothels, among other global photo projects.

She has lived and raised her daughter here in Aspen alongside her husband, former Aspen mayor John Bennett. (And if you know Janie really, really well, she might give you a nip of her homemade gin or even someday take you mushrooming in the wild. ....But don't count on it!)

With 25 years as a successful tech entrepreneur, with multiple IPOs and exits along the way, Byron Reese is uniquely suited to comment on the transformative effect of technology on the workplace and on society at large. He writes books that explore the wonders of the world of tomorrow and delights audiences around the world with his vivid and energetic presentations on the future of work and life.