Team
BGP is led by an experienced team of professionals with expertise across a number of key disciplines, including cannabis, finance and mergers & acquisitions.
Ruth Epstein
Founder, CEO, Chairwoman
Ms. Epstein is the President and Chief Financial Officer of Tuscan Holdings Corp. (“Tuscan Holdings”), a NASDAQ listed $276 million SPAC that in November 2020 announced its intent to combine with Microvast Inc. (“Microvast”), a market leading provider of next-generation battery technologies for commercial and specialty use electric vehicles. Through her efforts on Tuscan Holdings, which was originally focused on the cannabis industry, Ms. Epstein has identified a number of potentially attractive qualifying transactions for the Corporation, as well as developed a detailed understanding of the issues involved in SPAC transactions. Ms. Epstein is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (“Goldman Sachs”) investment banker and has a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University. Since 2017, she has been investing in and advising companies in the rapidly growing U.S. cannabis industry. Ms. Epstein founded a consulting firm, BGP Advisors, LLC (“BGP Advisors”), in 2017, to serve the emerging cannabis industry by providing financial and strategic advisory services. She recently served as interim COO/CFO of Treez, Inc. (“Treez”), which provides point-of-sale software to dispensaries. She was a pre-IPO investor in MedMen, and has invested in a number of cannabis companies, including CannaCraft, Treez, WLDKAT, among others. She currently serves on the board of Tuscan Holdings and WLDKAT.
Don Jennings
Co-Founder, President, CFO, Corporate Sectretary, Director
Mr. Jennings has over 30 years’ experience working for Fortune 500 companies and technology start-ups, including Oracle
Corporation (“Oracle”), SAP SE (“SAP”) and Adaptive Insights, Inc. (“Adaptive”), helping their customers optimize business operations, go-to-market strategies and revenue management. Mr. Jennings is a partner in BGP Advisors and has been focused exclusively on the cannabis industry for the past three years, including acting as advisor to and investor in Tuscan Holdings. He recently served as Head of Sales for Treez and has made various investments in the cannabis sector.
Brian Kabot
Independent Director
Mr. Kabot has extensive experience in evaluating opportunities in the cannabis industry, and currently serves as Chief Investment Officer of Stable Road Capital LLC (“Stable Road Capital”), a single family office focused on cannabis investing. Mr. Kabot serves as the Chairman of the Board of Treehouse Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc. (“Treehouse REIT”), a director of Old Pal LLC (“Old Pal”) and Grenco Science, Inc. (“Grenco Science”), and an advisor to Innovation Shares Cannabis ETF (THCX). He has led investments in numerous cannabis companies, including MedMen, Harvest Enterprises, Inc. (“Harvest”), Old Pal, Plus Products Inc. (“Plus Products”), WLDKAT, Eaze Technologies, Inc. (“Eaze ”), PAX Labs, Inc. (“PAX”) and others. In addition, Mr. Kabot currently serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Stable Road Acquisition Corp. (“Stable Road Acquisition”), a $172.5 million NASDAQ-listed SPAC that was launched in November 2019 targeting non-plant touching cannabis businesses. This SPAC announced its merger with Momentus Inc. (“Momentus”) in October 2020 and is expected to close in early 2021.
Eric Ott
Independent Director
Mr. Ott has over 25 years’ experience in facilitating M&A. He is currently a partner at KO Acquisitions, Inc. (“KO Acquisitions”), a boutique M&A Advisory firm serving the cannabis industry. He has focused exclusively on the emerging legal cannabis space since 2017 and has worked with a number of prominent cannabis companies. Mr. Ott previously was a partner at Bowman Hanson Inc. (“Bowman Hanson”), an M&A Advisory firm, and at Rainmaker Capital, LLC (“Rainmaker Capital”).
Lisa Sergi Trager
Independent Director
Ms Trager is a senior advisor, investor and regulatory expert in the fast growing cannabis space. She recently served as President and Interim Chief Executive Officer of PAX, where she was promoted from General Counsel. Ms. Trager previously served as a director of and General Counsel for MedMen, where she helped take the company public on the Canadian Securities Exchange and negotiated M&A agreements on behalf of MedMen. Prior to entering the cannabis space, she was a partner at Deloitte LLP (“Deloitte”), and holds a Juris Doctor from University of California, Los Angeles.
Scott Riley
Independent Director
Mr. Scott Since 2009, Mr. Riley has been responsible for all macro trading, venture capital and private equity investing in Drake Private Investments LLC (“Drake Private Investments”) and Drake Private Ventures LLC (“Drake Private Ventures”), which form the family office of Drake Management LLC’s (“Drake Management”) founder and chief information officer. In this role, Mr. Riley has sourced investments in over 25 companies with notable transactions including Clover Health Investments, Corp. (“Clover Health”), Momentus Space Inc. (“Momentus”), Volta Industries Inc. (“Volta”), DriveWealth Holdings, Inc. (“DriveWealth”), Mythical, Inc. (“Mythical Games”) and Eden Health, Inc. (“Eden Health”). Mr. Riley currently sits on the board of directors of Thing Daemon, Inc. (“fancy.com”) and NoiseAware Inc. (“NoiseAware”). Mr. Riley is a former director of Castle Resources, Inc. (“Castle Resources”), a copper exploration company publicly listed in Canada before its privatization. Mr. Riley is also is a former director of Gulf Energy Limited (“Gulf Energy”), an oil and gas exploration company in Australia. From 2003-2009, Mr. Riley was a Portfolio Manager at Drake Management, specializing in foreign exchange, trading across approximately $13 billion in hedge fund, mutual fund and managed investor accounts. Mr. Riley holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a major in Finance and a minor in Psychology from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Mr. Riley currently sits on the board of the Georgetown Alumni Club of Puerto Rico.
Stefan Selig
Strategic Advisor
Stefan Selig is founder of BridgePark Advisors LLC, a strategic advisory firm. Prior to that, Mr. Selig served as the Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade for the U.S. Department of Commerce from 2014 to 2016. Mr. Selig previously was with Bank of America Merrill Lynch (“BAML”) from 1999 to 2014, ultimately serving as Executive Vice Chairman of Global Corporate and Investment Banking. At BAML, Mr. Selig built and maintained critical relationships at the CEO and board level with important clients of the bank. He previously served as Vice Chairman of Global Investment Banking and Global Head of Mergers & Acquisitions with responsibility for Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications and Global Financial Sponsors Groups; Chairman, Fairness Opinion Review Committee, and Member of Risk and Reputation and New York Market Committees. Prior to joining BAML, Mr. Selig held various senior investment banking positions, including Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions for UBS Securities LLC. He began his investment banking career in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at The First Boston Corporation in 1984, and subsequently was an original member of Wasserstein Perella & Co. Mr. Selig currently serves as the Chairman of Rotor Acquisition Corp. and on the board of directors of Simon Property Group, Inc., Entercom Communications Corp., Tuscan Holdings and Safehold Inc., where he is the lead independent director and serves on each of the audit, compensation and nominating, and governance committees.