Kyle Barich and Rabbi James Kahn of Holistic Industries

This Sunday, September 5, Dr. Bruce Feinberg speaks with Kyle Barich and Rabbi James Kahn of Holistic Industries.

Kyle Barich

Kyle Barich has joined Holistic Industries, one of the largest, private multistate operators in cannabis, as Chief Marketing Officer. His role is to grow and nurture their emerging Greenhouse of Brands and help lead the rapidly expanding company. Barich will oversee the creation of increasingly national brands across customer types and form factors and will leverage particular expertise to the fast-emerging health and wellness category. Prior to joining Holistic, Kyle was leading teams, brands, clients, and advertising agencies for more than 25 years. Most recently, Kyle was the CEO of CDM, one of the largest healthcare advertising agencies in the world. CDM has offices in Montreal, New York, Princeton, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan and Tokyo and services major Pharma clients like Pfizer, Biogen, Amgen, and Novartis as well as many emerging biotech companies. CDM is a $100M+ annual revenue company and is owned by the publicly traded advertising holding company Omnicom. At agencies, Barich led launch of dozens of market-changing healthcare brands including the global launch of Pfizer’s Viagra. The team’s efforts changed the conversation about impotence from stigmatized and secretive to one that was credible, medical, and acceptable.

Rabbi James Kahn

Rabbi James Kahn is the Executive Director of Liberty Cannabis Cares (LCC), the social impact and corporate responsibility team at Holistic Industries (one of the largest, multi-state, vertically integrated cannabis companies operating in the US). James joined Holistic in 2017, opening the Company’s first retail dispensary, Liberty Cannabis, in Rockville, MD. He then served as National Director of Community Outreach, developing Holistic’s corporate responsibility platform, Liberty Cannabis Cares (LCC) around 4 central pillars: social equity (repairing damage caused by the War on Drugs), diversity, cannabis education, and community service/philanthropy. As Executive Director, James works to integrate the mission of Liberty Cannabis Cares into every aspect of Holistic’s business and brands. A passionate cannabis advocate and educator, James got his start in cannabis in 2011, when his family opened Takoma Wellness Center – DC’s first medical cannabis dispensary. An ordained rabbi, James has served in a variety of positions, including, Senior Jewish Educator at the University of Maryland Hillel, Director of Chaplaincy at JSSA (a large social service agency serving the DMV region), Rabbinic Director for DC’s Hebrew Free Burial Society and the Washington Board of Rabbis.