Assembling a world-class leadership team, Materia Ventures provide a corporate update, bringing together significant cannabis and pharmaceutical industry experience.
Materia Ventures, a medical cannabis and wellness company focused on the European market, is pleased to provide a corporate update and introduce its management team. Materia’s team brings decades of collective experience in the cannabis, pharmaceutical and consumer products industries – with proven expertise in navigating Europe’s complex regulatory environment.
Building a footprint for manufacturing and distribution of medical cannabis and wellness products across the European continent
Materia is currently in the process of retrofitting its manufacturing, extraction, and processing facility in Malta, where the company has received approval of its letter of intent with Malta Enterprises. Materia is on pace to be amongst the first companies to have a functional European Union (EU) Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certified facility for cannabis in the country; a highly strategic location to export products throughout Europe. The company has also completed a strategic investment and joint venture in Denmark and continues to assess opportunities to enter new jurisdictions.
“I have been fortunate to have assembled a team of talented and experienced professionals that share a common vision of enabling medical cannabis access across Europe,” said Deepak Anand, CEO of Materia.
“In a short period of time, we have already established a footprint across Europe through investments, supply agreements, distribution partnerships and the expansion of our team. We have also begun construction of our manufacturing facility and distribution hub in Malta, which will position us amongst the early movers in what we believe is the largest emerging cannabis market in the world.
“We are ready and excited for the future and grateful to have a strong support system of strategic investors, partners and advisors.”
Management team
Deepak Anand – Chief Executive Officer. Anand has extensive experience in the European pharmaceutical sector where his work involved supply and distribution of medical cannabis products across Europe. He is considered a thought leader in the global cannabis space through his regular interactions with senior government officials, politicians, health professionals, educators, investors, patients as well as producers. Anand was previously the Vice President of Business Development and Government Relations at Cannabis Compliance Inc. and Vice President of Business Development at Zenabis, a Health Canada licensed producer. Anand consulted with the Government of Canada to establish their policy, regulations and task force for recreational cannabis legalisation. He has also advised other international governments on their cannabis policy. Anand sits on several not-for-profit boards within the cannabis sector.
Nick Pateras – Managing Director, Europe. Pateras has a background in Fortune 500 healthcare, having spent most of his career at Johnson & Johnson overseeing some of the company’s largest OTC and health & beauty brands. He has experience scaling cannabis start-ups as an early stage employee at Lift & Co., helping grow the company to over 60 employees, including a go-public transaction and securing numerous government contracts. Pateras is well regarded within the sector and was invited as an industry representative to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s Cannabis Working Group. He also previously designed and taught the Cannabis Business Fundamentals course at George Brown College.
Dariusz Nieciecki – Chief Financial Officer. Nieciecki was previously Director, Strategic Initiatives at Brookfield Asset Management, a global alternative asset manager with over US$500 billion in AUM. At Brookfield, Nieciecki was highly involved in the firm’s strategic and business planning initiatives as well as a number of the firm’s M&A transactions including the recent acquisition of Oaktree Capital Holdings. He was also the Managing Partner at Red Sky Capital where he focused on investment strategies across numerous industries including healthcare. Nieciecki held similar responsibilities as a Vice President at GMP Investment Management, a multi-strategy hedge fund with a global mandate. Prior to joining GMP, Nieciecki spent time in the M&A groups of Lehman Brothers and Scotia Capital.
Michael Garbuz – President. Garbuz is an early entrepreneur and investor in the cannabis industry as founder, management, and counsel for various private and public global cannabis companies. He has extensive experience working on corporate formation, mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, private placements and going public transactions across international markets. He previously held a corporate strategy and legal counsel role at Origin House (formerly, CannaRoyalty) and helped build Cassels Brock & Blackwell cannabis law group into one of the leading legal cannabis industry practices in Canada.
Peter Pottier – Managing Director, UK. Pottier has over a decade of experience with some of the largest global pharmaceutical companies. He held various roles including positions in finance, strategy and global operations. Pottier was the EU Head of Business Development and Strategy at Pfizer and held ascending managerial positions with PepsiCo, where he focused on operations in Canada, the US and the UK.
Dennis Beker – Vice President, Legal & Corporate Strategy. Beker brings a wealth of experience within the areas of corporate law, mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance. He has experience working with both public and private companies and has worked on a broad range of global transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, take-over bids, public offerings, debt and equity financings, bank financings, private placements and corporate reorganisations. While working at Goodmans LLP, he was involved in several major cannabis financing deals.
Greg Gorzkowski – Vice President, Business Development and Strategy. Gorzkowski previously worked for Shopify, one of the world’s largest ecommerce and retail companies, where he helped launch its global cannabis program. He worked with many of the largest licenced producers in Canada assisting with their direct-to-patient medical cannabis sales, as well as the largest provinces in Canada for their adult use cannabis platforms. He then went on to help build out Ample Organics international seed-to-sale platform covering 70% of the licensed producers in Canada. Gorzkowski brings a wealth of knowledge regarding international regulations and the cannabis supply chain.
About Materia Ventures
Materia Ventures’ vision is to be the enabler of global cannabis access. Materia is developing a robust manufacturing and distribution ecosystem to grow the legal cannabis market across the European continent. With its expert, research driven team and state-of-the-art technology, Materia focuses on the high-margin downstream activities of processing, formulation and distribution into markets wherever there is a patient in need of cannabis medicine.
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