About
Founder & Principal, Hennesy Strategy
I got my start in cannabis in 2013, driving product around Boulder as a courier for Mountain High Distribution. Thirteen years later I was a co-author on the clinical trial that measured whether fast-acting edibles actually do what the label says. Just about everything I do now sits somewhere on the line between those two jobs.
Background
I joined Wana Brands as a sales rep in 2014 and stayed twelve years, finishing as VP of Innovation. Somewhere in the middle of that I realized I was making claims about cannabinoid pharmacology that I couldn’t fully defend, so I went back to school. The University of Maryland School of Pharmacy had just launched the country’s first M.S. in Cannabis Science and Therapeutics and I was in the first cohort: first-pass metabolism, CB1 and CB2 signaling, formulation science, the actual mechanics underneath the marketing.
That turned out to be the whole thing. I’m useful to clients because I’ve sat on both sides of the table: I’ve built the commercial case and I’ve read the pharmacokinetic curve, and I know how badly those two worlds usually talk to each other.
The Practice
I founded Hennesy Strategy to do that translation work independently. I advise companies, brands, and select mission-driven organizations on innovation, product and portfolio strategy, commercialization, market assessment, and evidence-based decision-making. Recent and current clients include Azuca and Edun.
Most engagements start from one of two places. Either a client has something scientifically interesting and no clear route to a shelf, or they have a commercial opportunity and no idea whether the evidence actually supports the claim they want to make. Those are the same problem wearing different clothes, and both are solvable.
What I’m genuinely good at is ambiguity: the early, messy part where the category doesn’t exist yet, the regulation is unsettled, and the data is thin. I like that part!
Track Record
At Wana I led the development and commercialization of Wana Quick and Wana Optimals. Quick used molecular encapsulation to change onset time, and I’m glad we didn’t stop at the marketing claim. Dr. Bradley Conner’s team at Colorado State ran the pharmacokinetics, and we published in April 2026: Tmax at 30 minutes, roughly half an hour ahead of a standard edible, with no meaningful difference in Cmax, elimination rate, or total exposure.
Onset changed. Intensity didn’t. That’s the honest version of the claim, and I think the category is better off making it. Thank you to Brad, Hollis Karoly, Charlie Villanueva, and the whole team for doing that work properly. Read the study.
I’m also a co-author on a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of CBN with and without CBD for sleep, published in Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology in 2023 with Marcel Bonn-Miller, Matthew Feldner, and Teah-Marie Bynion. CBN is one of the most heavily marketed sleep ingredients in this industry and one of the least evidenced. That’s a gap worth closing.
None of it was mine alone. Nancy Whiteman built a company at Wana where R&D got to ask real questions, and most of what I know I learned from the people working next to me there.
Approach
I’d rather have the honest claim than the bigger one. The fast-acting data is a good example. We could have said “faster and stronger.” The study said faster, full stop. Faster is still a real benefit, and it’s one that survives scrutiny.
I commit to a point of view. You’re not hiring me to lay out five options and let you pick. I’ll tell you what I think and why, and I’ll show you the mechanism underneath it so you can push back on the reasoning rather than on my confidence.
Credit goes where it belongs. The best outcomes I’ve been part of came from handing work to the person best positioned to run with it: a research partner, an internal team, a co-author. I’d rather the thing get built well than get built by me.
I’ll say when something isn’t working. Including when the honest answer is that I’m not the right person for the job.
Policy
I serve on the board of the Institute of Cannabis Research and on the board of Colorado LEADS. I’ve sat on Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division rulemaking work group for cultivation, manufacturing and testing standards, and I’ve been on the state’s Marijuana Education Oversight Committee since 2019. I’m also on the advisory board for CannMed 2026, where I moderate the One-Plant Policy Panel.
One Plant is the argument I keep coming back to. Hemp and marijuana are the same plant. Splitting them into two legal worlds created loopholes, consumer confusion, and a regulatory mess nobody designed on purpose. I think we should regulate cannabis as one plant, based on use, with federal guardrails and strong state leadership. I talked through the whole argument with Jordan Wellington on Weed Wonks if you want the long version.
Off the Clock
I’m a Certified Rescue Diver and an Eagle Scout, and I spend as much time outside as Colorado and a flexible calendar allow: mountain biking, hiking, skiing, and snowboarding, here and anywhere else I can get to. I’ve been doing this stuff my whole life and it’s shaped how I work more than it probably should: curiosity, a decent tolerance for discomfort, and real respect for systems that are more complicated than they look.
Credentials
The door is open for consulting engagements, speaking, and research collaboration.
Tell me what you’re working on and what’s in the way. I’ll tell you honestly whether I’m the right person for it, and if I’m not, I’ll usually know who is.
Let me know how I can help!
