Engager

Alternative Wellness Lifestyle Brand & Product Accelerator Lab
We build new plant medicine and wellness brands, products and businesses, and grow existing ones.

We are a global team of battle-tested entrepreneurs, makers and marketers accelerating growth of brands in the alternative health and wellness category.  

We spot emerging trends, identify new growth opportunities, bring new solutions to market, and modernize the way that alternative wellness businesses engage with consumers via entertainment, experiential marketing, lifestyle marketing and emerging technologies.

The team has deep expertise in taking brands from pre-seed or seed stage to series B and beyond.  Deep experience with lifestyle marketing in music, gaming, podcasting, film, TV, cannabis, beverage and technology. 

Team has collectively accomplished the following:

$1BN + in Revenues Generated
60+ Brands Built
$100 million+ Funds Raised

Engager Global is a brand innovation and venture-building studio that helps alternative wellness companies accelerate growth and innovation. We employ a team of entrepreneurs, creators, and marketers to work alongside clients in spotting emerging trends, identifying new growth opportunities, and bringing new solutions to market. Our approach optimizes the agility of startups by facilitating rapid innovation and leveraging influencers of all levels to grow brand equity as well as revenues on a global basis.

Optimized For the Following Business Categories:

- Nootropics
- Adaptogens
- Functional Mushrooms
- Kratom
- Kanna
- Psychedelics
- Cannabis
- Alternative Wellness Therapies
- Alternative Wellness Retreats
- Biohacking products and services

Founder and Chief Revenue Officer

PLANT Entrepreneurial Institute

- Building a global online education platform specializing in courses for cannabis, psychedelic, and plant medicine businesses.
- Leading a team of experienced operators to create and deliver high-quality courses taught by industry professionals with real-world experience.
- Successfully launched the flagship course, the Cannabis Brand Accelerator, as part of the Cannapreneur Pocket MBA program, catering to the growing demand in the cannabis industry.
- In collaboration with Grupo Education in Puebla, Mexico, to ensure smooth functioning and growth of the platform.

Founder

Heavy Brands

- Owning and operating the Heavy Grass brand: cannabis flower products in California.
- Contribute to the development of innovative cannabis products, including small-batch, top-shelf cannabis and extract-infused prerolls, that cater to the rebellious and counterculture-loving metal community.

Board Member/Co-Founder

Bee-Nails, LLC

Board Of Advisors

Engager Brands

Engager Brands builds, owns and operates a portfolio of authentic cannabis brands targeting underserved demographics. We create, market and license our brands starting in California and then taking them throughout the world.

Chief Executive Officer and Founder

PROHBTD Media

PRØHBTD Media was a global consumer goods and marketing company with a mission to lead cannabis from the black market to the supermarket. As PRØHBTD we built the largest catalog of broadcast quality cannabis video content, the largest cannabis multi-platform network and leading cannabis agency with 60+ brand projects. 

Our portfolio included lifestyle and wellness brands across hemp, CBD and THC including flagship icon PRØHBTD, Hempathy, Ceeby Dee’s, Hot Nife, The Patch Co., and Heavy Grass. We also counted exclusive partnerships in our arsenal including Global Licensing Expo, Advertising Week, Beanstalk Licensing Agency, and Postmedia.

www.prohbtdmedia.com

Chief Business Officer, COO and Founder

Soteria Intelligence

Soteria Intelligence is a social media threat assessment company that provides monitoring and consulting services to individuals and organizations around the world.

Advisor

Engager Digital

Engager Digital helps content providers grow and retain their audiences.  They also provide business development, sales strategy and digital marketing services.  A primary focus is on growing the overall businesses of media companies.  Engager also serves as a new business incubator.  

Client services include:

* Online video, influencer marketing and shopper engagement programs.
* Digital media strategy/business development 
* Online/mobile/social solutions for brands, agencies, and digital businesses.
* Application and site development strategy


Clients & Partners (Past and Present): Audible, St Martins Press, Simon & Schuster, Oyster, Mediakix, Prodege, Cakeworks, Juntobox Films, Creative Money Works, Scratch Music Group, Songbird, Lodgenet, I VOTE, Platinum Edge, Screenpush, Stauffer.

Creative Money Works

Creative Money Works' mission is to help meet the needs of low income children, work to create a better financial future for them and conduct research to improve financial literacy content for children.

Board of Advisors

Dather

Dather is a social media platform for event sponsors and organizers. Dather is now part of broader offering called Event Hub which offers white labeled end-to-end digital services and technology solutions for events.  The suite of solutions raise awareness pre event, engages audiences during the event, and provides a post event activation platform along with analytics.  

Dather also represents other cutting edge digital media services and technologies including a turnkey paid media solution that provides access to a highly engaged and targeted audience of 7.5M+ users on web and mobile.

Clients include: Samsung/AT&T Glee Live Tour, Jagermeister Music Tour, Remy Cointreau, John Lennon Educational Tour, Juntobox Films, Rihanna

Kieve is the co-founder of Dather and serves as the lead on all business development, sales, operations, product development and fundraising efforts.  He is also a Founder in the Founder Institute.

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Do you want to unlock untapped revenue for your alernative wellness business or brand?
Are you generating over $1 million annually?
Do you want to 5-10x that over the next 3-5 years?
 
I run Engager, a growth accelerator program for alternative wellness businesses.  We partner with companies to scale their businesses exponentially and cost effectively.

Engager is optimized to help the following business categories: 

Nootropics
Adaptogens
Functional Mushrooms
Kratom
Kanna
Psychedelics
Cannabis
Alternative Wellness Therapies
Alternative Wellness Retreats
Biohacking products and services

After a collective 70+ years of building brands and businesses, our team at Engager is ready to leverage everything we've learned about scaling a company, its sales, and its funding.

We have collectively generated over $1 billion in revenues across cannabis, beverages, music, media, tech, and fashion.   We have built over 60 brands.

We can grow your current brand or partner with you to build you a new one.

Interested in learning more?

DM me or set up a Discovery Call via the link in my headline.

Kieve Huffman

Carve Communications, Inc.

My focus is on driving strategic initiatives that expand market share, enhance brand visibility, and foster sustainable, profitable growth for the agency. In partnership with the executive leadership, I work at the intersection of strategy, relationship building, and operational execution to deliver impactful results in competitive markets such as B2B and B2C Technology, EduTech, Consumer Electronics, AI, Toys and more. 

My responsibilities include: 
- Building and maintaining strong relationships with organizations and key decision makers to identify and secure new opportunities.
- Developing and implementing targeted sales and marketing strategies that drive business growth and agency recognition.
- Oversee proposal efforts and manage winning strategies, utilizing both traditional and alternative project delivery methods.
- Collaborate closely with agency leadership to align efforts and achieve overarching growth objectives.

Senior Manager, Partnership Development

FOAF: Fraction of a Fractional CXOs

As a fraction-of-a-fractional (FOAF) executive, I provide you with flexible talent on demand to bridge leadership gaps, accelerate growth, and clear the obstacles preventing you from achieving your goals. 

Specifically, FOAFers fill a gap that’s more effective than freelancers and more efficient than traditional fractional CXOs.

Fractional Marketer

The Bluntness Inc. 

The Bluntness Media (http://thebluntness.com) delivers vital, trustworthy news and analysis in the most efficient, illuminating and shareable ways possible. Through a mix of original and insightful coverage of cannabis industry leaders, trends, innovations, business and politics we’re helping readers navigate the rapidly evolving cannabis and psychedelic landscape via expertise, candor and brevity (aka Bluntness!).

- Spearheaded all branding & marketing efforts including website design, brand guidelines, logo design, PR, digital, advertising, messaging, media kit and collateral development.
- Lead a skilled team of journalists, editors, and content creators, fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment.
- Craft and executed an engaging content strategy, resulting in a consistent increase in organic traffic, DA and SEO rankings.
- Foster a loyal readership by creating & curating high-quality, relevant content that resonated with target audiences, resulting in an average of 500k UVMs.
- Drive the strategic expansion of the media platform, driving 14,000% growth in the email subscriber base within 2 years.
- Develop and implement traditional, digital and programmatic monetization strategies, including partnerships, sponsored content, advertising and events.
- Stay abreast of industry trends, competitor strategies/keywords, and emerging technologies, adapting our approach to maintain a competitive edge.
- Cultivate and maintain relationships with stakeholders and decision-makers in cannabis cultivation, distribution, wholesale, retail. 
- Produced several large scale, compliant consumption events from start-to-finish, including budgeting, venue selection, sponsorship deck preparation & outreach, event promotion/marketing/social media, vendor management, talent management and event management/production and more.

Founder and Publisher

The Flower Hour

The Flower Hour is pioneering a new and compliant way to normalize and educate people about the plant through thoughtfully-curated experiences. 

Guests and members of The Flower Hour enjoy a robust and growing calendar of events and an opportunity to connect with legal/licensed cultivators and brands in familiar settings such as restaurants, bars and other private venues. 

The Flower Hour community consists of a variety of backgrounds creating a balanced mix of consumers, creatives, professionals, operators, cultivators, processors, brands, media, influencers and tastemakers.

Fractional CMO/Partner

Wise Collective, Inc.

- Developed and managed P&L, budgets, business development, strategy, marketing, C-level client relationships and strategic direction of fully integrated marketing communications agency achieving consistent +24% YoY revenue growth.
- Recruited and led multi-disciplinary in-house staff from the ground up across offices in NY, SF and LA.
- Crafted, executed and managed innovative B2B, B2C and B2B2C marketing and communications strategies that were instrumental in driving consistent revenue growth, market share, and enhancing valuations for a number of startups and billion-dollar brands, including but not limited to: MedMen, Stiiizy, FIA Formula E, Valtech, VideoAmp, GiftCards.com, Kiip, Quartile, and numerous others spanning various industries.
- Led marketing and communications campaigns for dozens of emerging tech ventures, driving these brands from inception to acquisition, resulting in over $5 billion in VC investment and M&A outcomes via tech giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Oracle as the acquirers.
- Managed all aspects of the marketing funnel, including brand awareness, demand generation, product marketing, and partnerships across various industries such as technology, media, entertainment, and CPG.
- And that's just the half of it.

President

Techstars Connection

Techstars Connection, in partnership with AB InBev, is based in NYC. Techstars Connection fosters innovation and new enterprise through the creation of products, services and experiences that help connect people to people, to product, and to place. Entrepreneurs will work directly with mentors from Techstars, AB InBev, and ZX Ventures, AB InBev’s global incubator and venture capital team. For more information visit: http://www.techstars.com/programs/connection-program/

Mentor

BrightSpot Media

Vice President, Corporate Communications

Rubenstein Public Relations, Inc.

Vice President

Trylon Communications

Account Director

Award-winning agency founder, problem-solver, entrepreneur and creative professional with experience building, leading, and growing an agency; driving successful client outcomes across a range of established, growth and regulated industries via effective leadership, team building, creative marketing communications strategies & savvy allocation of resources across the entire marketing mix. 

My key attributes include: 

Owner mindset: As a 17+ year agency owner/operator, I've owned decisions end-to-end and can simplify complex problem spaces into single variant decisions for client executives. 

Battle tested: I possess more than 25+ years of client-facing experience and expertise in marketing communications; 17+ years of experience in building, leading, and growing an integrated marketing communications agency. 

Walk the Talk: I'm willing and able to support critical work. I'm always open and willing to collaborate with the doers and move the needle on projects by contributing ideas, strategy, copy, support, etc.

Executes on a vision: I've built plans, processes and teams; defining, iterating and executing on the marketing strategy; as well as agency growth strategies. I've developed brand vision, GTM and associated campaigns across different channels. 

Builder: I'm a serial brand builder able to create (most of) the infrastructure needed to execute on marketing goals. I don’t wait around for other people to bring these ideas to life - I get it done.

Mentor: I mentor new and existing talent and help team members reach their full potential.  Team members trust my judgement and clients value my expertise and counsel. I've mentored staff to grow professionally and succeed.

Bias for action: I recognize perfect is the enemy of good and strike a balance between necessary progress and caution. I'm comfortable disagreeing and committing. 

Finger on the pulse: As an agency leader, I'm inherently aware of trends and what works well. I'm also willing to shift strategy based on new information, data and an end-to-end understanding of business.

GTM intuition: Thanks to my diverse agency experience and expertise in traditional and regulated industries, I have a unique understanding of the market, customers and product, and have been able to score a high batting average in GTM & PR efforts.

As an experienced agency leader, I've built and grown successful teams while navigating the ever-evolving landscape of PR and marketing. I thrive on the challenge of inspiring others and leading by example, consistently pushing the boundaries of what's possible.

taplio

The Battle

Kieve Huffman

Harrison Wise

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