With a deep commitment to sustainable food and agriculture, natural health and the environment, Steven Hoffman has dedicated his career to natural, organic and eco-friendly products, socially responsible business, and building mission-based brands. Steve serves as Founder and Managing Director of Compass Natural, a Boulder, CO-based full-service public relations, marketing, brand communications, and strategic business development agency specializing in the $300-billion LOHAS – or Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability – market. He is former Education Director for Natural Products Expo East and West, the world’s largest natural and organic products trade expositions. Steve also served as Editorial Director of New Hope Network’s highly respected natural products trade publishing division, including the Natural Foods Merchandiser magazine, and he is a current contributor to New Hope Network’s IdeaXchange. Hoffman also served as National Marketing Director and Rocky Mountain Regional Sales Manager for Arrowhead Mills, now a leading division of the Hain-Celestial Group. Currently, he serves as Editor of Let’s Talk Hemp, a weekly business newsletter and news website. As Managing Director of The Organic Center, a nationally recognized nonprofit organization, Hoffman helped advance scientific research and education behind the benefits of organic food and farming. Steve also served as Chair of Naturally Boulder, an economic development initiative supporting natural products entrepreneurship in Colorado. As an Agricultural Extension Agent in the mid-1980s for Pennsylvania State University, he served as a Director of Philadelphia’s Urban Gardening Program, where he helped establish more than 125 food gardens in low-income Latino neighborhoods in the city over a three-year period. Hoffman is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, having served in agriculture and education in Honduras and Costa Rica in Central America. Steve received a M.S. in Agriculture and Entomology from Pennsylvania State University. In addition to English, Hoffman speaks fluent Spanish.

Floyd Landis is a former pro cyclist who now heads the CBD brand Floyd’s of Leadville. Landis has grown the brand from a single dispensary location in Colorado to a distribution footprint that now includes thousands of locations.

There are few individuals who have been more influential in the development of the U.S. hemp industry than the U.S. Hemp Roundtable’s General Counsel, Jonathan Miller. Upon helping found the Roundtable (and its sister organization, the U.S. Hemp Authority), Jonathan has served as the industry’s leading advocate for Hemp and CBD legislation on the ground in Congress and in dozens of state legislatures. A recovering politician (the Democrat was elected twice as Kentucky’s State Treasurer), Jonathan has worked across the aisle with leading hemp champions such as U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on critical legislation, including the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills. Now he spends his time working with Congress, the White House, the USDA, FDA and DEA to promote policies that advance the industry. In acknowledgment of his accomplishments, the National Law Journal named Jonathan to its inaugural class of “Trailblazers” among government relations professionals and Politico labeled him a “Power Player” on hemp issues on Capitol Hill. Jonathan serves as Member in Charge of Frost Brown Todd’s Washington, D.C. office, and leads the national law firm’s broad and diverse hemp practice. Jonathan supports pro-Israel organizations and serves as President of the Robert S. Miller Family Foundation for Justice and Equity. Jonathan graduated with high honors from both Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He is a poker aficionado who made the final table in a 2012 World Series of Poker tournament.

Sibyl Swift, Ph.D., is the Vice President for Scientific & Regulatory Affairs for cbdMD and the co-chair of cbdMD Therapeutics. She was also recently appointed as a Member of the Board of Directors for cbdMD. As VP for cbdMD, she directs the company’s research partnerships, clinical trials, advises on regulatory matters, guides new product development and R&D, and provides guidance on good manufacturing practices. Prior to joining cbdMD, Dr. Swift was the Senior Vice President for Scientific & Regulatory Affairs at the Natural Products Association (NPA). In that role, Dr. Swift was responsible for the development and implementation of the association’s education, regulatory, and compliance programs and effort, such as the Supplement Safety and Compliance Initiative (SSCI), the NPA Natural Standard, and others. She represented the association on Codex Alimentarius (an international standards organization) and provided guidance on claims reviews, substantiation, and regulatory policy. Before joining NPA, Dr. Swift was the Associate Director for Research and Strategy within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Dietary Supplement Programs. As Associate Director, Dr. Swift directed the office’s research portfolio and was responsible for ensuring alignment between its science, research, compliance, enforcement, and policy initiatives. Dr. Swift was also the co-chair of the Botanical Safety Consortium, a collaboration between scientists from government agencies, academia and industry. Dr. Swift earned her Ph.D. in nutrition and M.S. in exercise physiology at Texas A&M University. She is currently a member of the American Society for Nutrition, the ComPLI committee with the Natural Products Association, and the Science and Regulatory Affairs Committee for the Council for Federal Cannabis Regulation.

Hank Schultz is the Senior Correspondent for NutraIngredients-USA and FoodNavigator-USA. He has experience in the dietary supplements and food business and also in the daily newspaper industry, where he was an editor with the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. /p