27 Nov November 27, 2023 – Very Strategy Rich Horwath and Legal Psychedelics Benjamin Lightburn
Rich Horwath – Founder of Strategy Skills and Author of
As a good entrepreneur when it comes to setting strategy, don’t lock
yourself in an office, don’t put yourself on an island, bring in and
collaborate with your counterparts on what they are seeing and what
everyone thinks is going to be the best decision. As the entrepreneur,
you make the final decision but you really want to get the input and
buy in from the people that work with you.
Rich Horwath
Rich Horwath is the founder and CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute where he serves leadership teams as a strategy workshop facilitator, strategic executive coach, and keynote speaker. His mission is to help executive teams think, plan, and act strategically to set direction, create advantage, and achieve their goals. Rich is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today national bestselling author of eight books, and his work has been featured in publications including Fast Company, Forbes, and the Harvard Business Review. He has been described by Chief Executive Magazine as “the world’s foremost expert on strategic thinking.” As a former chief strategy officer and professor of strategy at the graduate level, he is able to bring a practical, real-world approach based in strong foundational principles to help executives develop their strategic capabilities. Rich has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX TV to share his perspectives on current business strategy issues. In addition to his work facilitating strategy workshops for leadership teams and providing executive coaching services and strategic counsel, he is a highly sought-after keynote speaker for groups ranging from 10 to 10,000. Rich has helped more than a quarter million leaders around the world develop their strategic capabilities in pursuit of his vision to teach the world to be strategic. Rich served as a professor of management at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, where he was consistently ranked a top strategy professor by students. He earned an MBA with Distinction from the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University and has completed postgraduate courses in strategy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. He resides in Barrington, Illinois.
Benjamin Lightburn – CEO and Co-Founder of Filament Health
We are trying to have experiences that are sanctioned by medical
bodies, that are approved by the FDA.
Benjamin Lightburn
Benjamin Lightburn is a successful entrepreneur who is currently leading the development of the first-ever safe, botanical pharmaceutical psychedelic drugs to help better treat millions of people suffering from mental health issues globally, particularly, patients battling substance use disorders. His business, Filament Health, recently became the first psychedelic drug discovery and development company to receive FDA approval to conduct a natural psychedelic clinical trial, which they’re presently performing in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco. Their trial is the first to directly administer psilocin and psilocybin extracted from mushrooms as opposed to lab-created synthetic substances. One of the only psychedelic drug developers currently generating revenue, Filament’s development platform enables it to license its intellectual property, as well as out-license its lead drug candidate, PEX010, to commercial partners. The company’s drug candidates are also currently being studied in 15 clinical trials in North America and Europe via the company’s network of academic and research institutions. Ben recently led Filament Health through a business combination agreement – the forthcoming merger is scheduled for Q4 of this year and will yield a new company valuation of USD $210M as well as a Nasdaq uplisting. The company anticipates that this will accelerate its drug development program, which includes planned Phase II trials of its botanical psilocybin for Methamphetamine Use Disorder and Opioid Use Disorder. Before founding Filament, Benjamin was the CEO of Mazza Innovation, which focused on the commercialization of a phytochemical extraction technology called the PhytoClean Method™. Under his leadership, Mazza raised $10M+ in angel and venture capital and $2M+ in non-dilutive financing from local and international investors, recorded three successive years of triple-digit revenue growth (with two years of +$1M growth), grew from 8 to 28 employees, and formed partnerships with leading multinationals such as BASF and Givaudan before being sold to Sensient Technologies for $26M in 2018. In 2021, Benjamin was named one of Business in Vancouver’s Forty Under 40.