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

I build growth engines, ecosystems, and people.

By day, I’m a sales and growth leader operating at the intersection of technology, cannabis, retail, and payments, helping companies move up-market, close complex enterprise deals, and turn strategy into repeatable revenue. I’ve led teams through territory design, enterprise pricing, multi-year negotiations, and go-to-market shifts, always with an eye toward long-term value creation, not short-term wins.

Equally important, I believe how you show up matters as much as what you sell.

I’m an emcee, moderator, and public speaker trusted to lead rooms: whether it’s executive roundtables, sales kickoffs, panels, or curated founder dinners. My strength is creating presence, momentum, and dialogue: asking the right questions, connecting ideas across industries, and making complex topics feel human, actionable, and real.

At my core, I’m an ecosystem builder.

I design and host experiences that bring together operators, founders, executives, investors, and rising leaders, creating environments where trust compounds, partnerships form naturally, and ideas turn into action. From leadership forums and industry events to private dinners and community-led experiences, I focus on building platforms that outlast a single transaction.

I’m most energized by:

Scaling revenue through clarity, discipline, and storytelling

Building high-trust sales cultures and executive relationships

Moderating conversations that challenge how leaders think and operate

Connecting people across technology, retail, wellness, and culture

If you’re building something meaningful and believe growth is as much about people as it is about numbers. I’m always open to the conversation.

Sign up for my monthly leadership newsletter for rising leaders, executives & decision makers: www.readpolarisperspective.com

https://www.vettedcv.com/skv

Shahbaaz Kara-Virani

The number one reason I love having travel be such an important aspect of work?

Getting to see some of your greatest friends in each city you visit.

If you haven’t followed Dustin Steerman & his journey to building Vert I would highly reccomend it.

Dustin and I met 6 years ago through Pavillion. While I was living in Costa Rica, we had weekly calls that kept us sane through Covid.

Dustin has been instrumental to the growth The Cannabis Collective and is overall a wonderful business leader, friend and energy.

Find yourself friends like Dustin- your life will be infinitely better!

Building & Guiding Championship Teams | Revenue Growth, Elite Coaching, M&A, Sales Marketer, Burgeoning Athlete

No alternative text description for this image

Soon we are going to live in a world where no one knows anything 

So do yourself a favor and learn something. 

Practice the skill and art of learning.

Enjoy learning it.

Learning is such an important motion for longevity.

Happy Saturday- Enjoy this picture of Soda learning how to be a Princess for Valentines Day

Change management, Culture, Belief don't start with a 47-slide deck. They start with Micro Motions.

Last week at our BLAZE® Sales Kick Off we had 26 hours. We had to keep ideas small enough to absorb instantly, big enough to compound immediately. It was equal parts culture and enjoyment, but all of it was engineered around one outcome: momentum

Or as I like to say: Climbing #MomentumMountain


Ten minutes before kickoff, our fearless US Sales leader Ryan Piemeisl car decided to stop working, 1 mile from the beautiful Populous hotel, the venue for the SKO. 

Not ideal timing and starting 15 mins late wasn't on the forecast, yet change management isn’t about perfect conditions. Conditions will nunca be perfecto.

The Key SKO Micros:

1) The “House” Exercise: Environment > Skill
-Teams of two. Partner A had 60 seconds to draw a house. Partner B then had to recreate that exact house using their non-dominant hand, eyes closed, while being coached verbally.

The team whose drawings looked the most identical won.

Observations: environment dictates performance. Vulnerability accelerates trust. Clear communication beats raw talent. Coaching (encouragement) matters.

Lesson: Change begins when people feel safe being uncomfortable and are surrounded by humans they trust. 

2) L2 / L3 Sandler Discovery → Product Mapping Outcomes

With each session, the goal was to teach/present/activate on a whiteboard. Get those marker to mind juices flowing.

I walked through how to funnel discovery properly, quantify retailer pain, assign real dollar value to inefficiencies, Christopher Violas followed it up perfectly showcasing how to map those problems to outcomes.

If you're curious about our new, game changing solutions that are solving real problems like pricing compression, tech sprawl & consumer discovery, you must see the webinar in comments 

3) Own Your Territory: Project “Funway” by Melanie King

Teams of three were given a $7,500 budget to build and pitch a real marketing event. The point was simple: strong reps don’t wait for demand, the generate it. A MUST HAVE skill for sellers TODAY.

With guest judges Matthew Ockrim Jillian DeHerrera Seth G. the room had creativity, constraint, and competitive tension.

Observation: It takes a lot of planning across ideation, messaging, P&L management, branding and acquistion to throw a succesful event. 

Lesson: If done right & with the right resources, your homegrown events make you unstoppable as the CEO of your Territory

4) Competitive Breakdown with Tristan Cutler
We ran a detailed competitive matrix session. Not “we’re better.” But where we win, where we lose, and where we must improve.

5) We closed with a wonderful happy hour, a great dinner, and a strong venue

All of these motions aligned & were put to the test around one macro objective: Drive our Q1 product webinar.

We broke Zoom capacity.

The ability to create, manage, and evolve through change=CULTURE

I feel young, like I’m just getting started

If you told 19 year old SKV that one day he would be at Cannabis Europa in Paris discussing/moderating a panel on lessons learned in Canada’s 🇨🇦 medical framework

He wouldn’t believe you. More so he wouldn’t even be able to think it because it was such a far fetched idea locally, let alone globally.

Aras Azadian & José Tempero dropped incredible knowledge on the perils and powers of the Canadian Medicinal framework for Key stakeholders in France’s 🇫🇷 medical program

A few key take aways from the full event in Paris put on by Prohibition Partners 

1) Canadian Cannabis knowledge ( & cannabis) is a huge export globally
- as countries look to legalize worldwide, having a Canadian on your team who has been in the trenches of early days cannabis gives you a significant competitive advantage
- Canadians: your skillsets are extremely valuable internationally (one of the only reasons I could be involved in NY and across the USA)

2) M&A Opps are on the horizon
- Organigram Global proposed acquisition of Sanity Group was the talk of Paris
- early M&A, if done right has the opportunity to create a big moat for the companies who go after it
- if there’s a deal to be made, there’s also a window in which that deal can be made-this summer will be hot in European markets.

3) Connectors are becoming more important 
- I listened to a few panels that were fully in French (how much of it I retained still remains to be seen)
-with so many languages, cultures and experiences across the EU, there is a significant space for individuals and leaders who can connect people and ideas: it’s clear EU countries do not want to work together on policy/regulation/roll out

4) France roll-out
- slow, calculated, cautious will be the name of the game
-medical reimbursements, no flower, only oils and vapes
- patient experience must be front and center however physicians will need to be educated- what will their receptiveness be?

5) Technology & data vendors will be increasingly important to the ecosystem
- I see a ton of opportunities for tech players, especially in the early stages of acceleration in markets 
-these opportunities are hiding in the shadows, and won’t be illuminated by a market report- you must go seek them out, shake hands and build deep relationships across participating EU countries

6) There continues to be a blurred line between recreational and medical cannabis globally that desperately needs clarity

Well done Stephen Murphy Matt Freemantle. To all the European, American and Canadian friends I saw/met, thank you for a lovely trip. In addition, thanks to Zoé Demange for the great dinner the night before the conference

Over the last few months, our product and engineering teams at BLAZE® have been building relentlessly.

On February 12, we’re opening the hood and showing exactly what’s coming next.

This isn’t a feature dump. It’s a look at how modern retail operators will win in 2026:

🤖 AI Budtender + Executive Dashboards
 💸 Faster, simpler checkout with ACH + CFD
 📧 Smarter loyalty and marketing
 ⚙️ Deeper controls and transparency in POS
If you run multi-location retail, care about margins, or want to future-proof your operation — this is worth 90 minutes of your time.

📅 Feb 12 | 10am PT / 1pm ET
 👉

Open article: BLAZE Q1 Product Webinar: The AI Revolution for Cannabis Retail by events.zoom.us

BLAZE Q1 Product Webinar: The AI Revolution for Cannabis Retail

What I've learned about Enterprise Buying as a VP Growth (hint, a lot of gold in here for sellers)

1. Not one single decision is made alone, we deliberate. Even after verbal agreement on "we might need this"

2. When a relevant prospecting email comes to me, I'll take at least take a  second look

3. If it's not relevant to me, but it is relevant to another department in the company, I'll fwd to that leader and ask "interested?"

4. I don't want the "burden of change" to "own implementation projects" or to "manage change across the org" unless it's saving $, increasing revenue substantially, gives me time back in my day, or helps my team get in front of our ICP/buyers faster

5.  Timing matters more than you could ever know

6. If the rep selling is educated on my problems, the problems of the industry, and has a POV, even if I don't buy, I'll refer

7. I don't understand 90% of the prospecting emails I get, but I look at 100% of the messages across every channel I receive them on

8. AI doesn't work, hyper personalization does

9. I check my voicemail

Things they don’t teach you about in highschool 

1) mortgages

2) socal connectivity 

3) budgeting 

4) choosing the right partner 

5) the endocannibinoid system

6) selling into the enterprise

7) org behavior

8) managing and coaching groups of humans 

9) taxes and trusts 

10) how to acquire customers on a Monday 

What else?

taplio

The Battle

Kieve Huffman

Shahbaaz Kara-Virani

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The Battle

Kieve Huffman

Shahbaaz Kara-Virani

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Shahbaaz Kara-Virani's LinkedIn Performance

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