Careful Curators of Capital

Sumit founded MAZAKALI to counteract the negative consequences of business practices that deplete resources by making investments in sustainable cannabis. By shepherding capital in a responsible and ethical manner, MAZAKALI and its clients envision a world where cannabis investment will play a significant role Beyond Impact.

Sumit is a cannabis futurist, a global strategist, an internationally recognized speaker and the author of the MAZAKALI GreenPaper®, an authoritative voice on deep industry trends in its fifth year of publication with over 50,000 subscribers. In addition to his role at MAZAKALI, Sumit serves on several cannabis company boards and is the Vice-Chair of the Banking and Financial Services committee for the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Sumit is the former Director of Finance for the Arcview Group, and prior to entering the cannabis industry full-time in 2016 spent 20 years on Wall Street at Merrill Lynch, Raymond James, UBS and JP Morgan in roles that spanned portfolio management, investment planning, capital introduction, strategic consulting, institutional relationship management and corporate business development.

Sumit has earned an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and a BA with Honors in Economics with minors in Math and Physics from the University of Texas at Austin. Sumit holds investment banking, brokerage, M&A and investment advisory securities licenses and resides in San Francisco where he enjoys motorcycles, yoga, cannabis and the great outdoors.

Craig Piatti serves as MAZAKALI’s Chief Operating Officer and is responsible for developing and driving the firm’s infrastructure, technology, organizational and people processes. As a longtime advocate of continued education, Craig remains immersed in several initiatives that promote information transparency, accuracy and reliability for cannabis industry investors.

Craig joined MAZAKALI with the idea that cannabis will impact nearly every sector of the economy on an international scale and saw that his unique experience set was well suited to contribute positively to the development of this emerging market.

Prior to joining MAZAKALI, Craig worked at Alibaba’s cloud computing division on strategic business development and alliances across the Americas. Craig’s inquisitive mindset and passion for learning has led him down a career path involving a variety of functions across multiple industries around the world. Craig has worked with global firms including SAP, Bosch, China Telecom and Alibaba, and also founded an overseas student staffing firm where he served as CEO for six years. He has lived in Bahrain, China, Germany and Singapore, and has spent considerable time working in India, Israel, the UK and South America.

Craig holds an MBA from the University of Notre Dame – Mendoza College of Business, as well as a B.S. from Indiana University – Kelly School of Business, and a Diplom-Betriebswirt (BWL) from Reutlingen University in Germany. He also holds a FINRA 65 license.

Craig speaks English, German and Mandarin and is an avid and purposeful traveler. He currently resides in San Francisco with his wife and enjoys an active lifestyle of yoga, snowboarding, cycling and local cuisine.

Mary Beth Barron serves as Chief Marketing Officer at MAZAKALI where she leads marketing strategy, brand management, communications, advertising, public relations and digital marketing. Mary Beth also runs MAZAKALI’s Chicago office and works on a variety of partnership initiatives at the firm. The opportunity to work with teams across geographies and cultures to build a global brand for the firm–and influence the cannabis industry’s emerging brand journey–are key reasons why Mary Beth is passionate about her role at MAZAKALI.

Mary Beth brings more than 20 years of marketing and business leadership to MAZAKALI, starting her marketing career at Apple Far East (Hong Kong) and serving as a top marketing leader for several global professional services firms including: Korn Ferry Consulting, A.T. Kearney, EDS (now HP), PE firm Ygomi and Media Partners International (now JCDecaux). In these roles she has been responsible for marketing in more than 30 countries.

Honing her global business skills as a management consultant to clients such as General Motors and BMW, Mary Beth also spent more than half a decade living and working in Asia which included a high-profile leadership role with McDonald’s China.

She currently serves on the Marketing and Advertising Committee (MAC) of The National Cannabis Industry Association, is a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow and member of the International Women’s Forum (IWF), and is a former active member of the Mayor of Chicago’s China Committee, the Joffrey Ballet women’s board, the Executives’ Club of Chicago and The Chicago Club. Mary Beth holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a BA from The Colorado College.

Early in her career Mary Beth was the co-founder of a business school at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Vietnamese Refugee Camp–an experience inspiring her strong interest in leadership and mentoring. While Mary Beth is based in Chicago, she particularly enjoys spending time in the mountains to ski and hike with family and friends.

Justin Schleifer serves as MAZAKALI’s Director of Compliance. In this role, he is responsible for developing the firm’s controls and overseeing the advisory business. Having spent his entire career in compliance, Justin is particularly passionate about finding simple solutions to complex scenarios.

He is also the CEO and co-Founder of Aspect Advisors LLC, a San Francisco-based compliance consulting firm for asset managers, broker-dealers, and fintech companies.

Since beginning his securities compliance career as a ground-floor employee at Gordian Compliance Solutions, Justin has consulted for and has been an Outsourced Chief Compliance Officer (OCCO) for many financial firms across a wide spectrum of investment models/focus areas. Justin has also served as the Financial Operations Principal for several broker-dealers.

Justin has extensive experience interfacing with the SEC, FINRA, the NFA, and state regulators on topics ranging from initial registration applications, business expansion applications, regulatory audits, enforcement proceedings, and arbitrations.

Justin earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel Administration, with a concentration in Business Law, from Cornell University. He holds FINRA series 7, 24, 27, 55, 66, 79 and 87 licenses. He is based in the San Francisco area where he and his family are active members in the dog community.

Mathew Auric serves as Legal Counsel for MAZAKALI and is based in Los Angeles, CA. He is responsible for general legal support including contract drafting and negotiation, internal business structuring,  strategic planning and liability management. He has extensive experience in corporate structuring, capital raises, acquisitions and contract drafting. His training as a physicist and teacher combined with his legal prowess provide him a unique ability to analyze issues, solve complex problems and explain results in a highly effective way.

Mathew has decades of experience in the legal cannabis industry. He was involved in the legal cannabis industry as a cultivator and real estate developer in the early 2000s, has been a corporate attorney  with cannabusiness firm Hoban Law Group, and is currently engaged in hemp farming in southern California. Mathew has a deep understanding of the regulatory, practical and historical issues involving cannabis, and combined with his legal acumen in business and regulatory law brings to MAZAKALI a unique perspective and accretive skill set.

He received his JD from Ventura College of Law and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Santa Cruz.

As a father, avid surfer, fisherman and traveler Mathew enjoys living near the ocean, boating and traveling to his favorite destinations such as the Channel Islands in California and remote islands in Indonesia.

Bob serves as a Director of Investments at MAZAKALI. In this role, Bob is responsible for assisting wealth managers and investors with investment opportunities in the cannabis and plant-based medicine space.

Bob joined the cannabis industry based on the belief that cannabis will impact nearly every sector of the economy after experiencing the positive effects of cannabis in his personal life. This belief, combined with more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, compelled Bob to seek opportunities to meaningfully contribute to the development of this emerging market.

During his financial career, Bob has worked closely with retail and institutional asset managers, broker dealers and financial advisors to digitize and expand their national sales distribution networks, build AUM and provide an integrated client experience. This includes several years with wealth advisor Beaumont Capital Management as the firm’s Director of National Sales and a decade with registered investment advisor FundQuest where he grew the sales distribution network for its fee-based turnkey asset management platform (TAMP) to $11Billion AUM. Bob’s experience working across a range of investment management offerings and asset classes – including separately managed accounts (SMAs), ETFs and alternative assets – provides him a distinct breadth and depth of knowledge for his role with MAZAKALI.

Bob holds an MBA from Babson College and a BA from St .Lawrence University, and currently resides in Southern New England where he enjoys an active lifestyle of skiing, boating and the great outdoors.

As a consultant to MAZAKALI, Mark provides valuable insight into the RIA and broker/dealer channel and has helped MAZAKALI on business development strategies along with process and organizational structure. Mark has over 30 years of financial services experience in sales management and product management, and was instrumental in designing the Alternative Investment operational due diligence process for Charles Schwab in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession.

Mark has gone on to found Portman Enterprises, a cannabis focused real estate and private equity firm based in Alameda California. In addition to his business related activities, Mark is a founding board member of Gwendolyn’s Light, a charity focused on reducing the risk of youth suicide in the Bay Area. Mark lives in Alameda with his wife, 12 year old daughter, and two golden retrievers.