Virtual Summits
Focus On: Quality Assurance
May 15, 2024 at 1:00pm EDT

Tom Ulanowski
Tom Ulanowski is cofounder of Quantify Environmental Ltd, a cutting-edge consultancy driving sustainability and profitability for manufacturing businesses through the innovative use of Industrial IoT. Tom is also the founder and former President and VP of Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs at Nextleaf Labs (CSE: OILS), where he also held the regulatory positions of Quality Assurance Person (QAP) and Responsible Person. At Nextleaf, Tom was intimately involved in day-to-day manufacturing activities, as well as process optimization, research and product development, regulatory liaison, and licensing/permitting.

Prior to Nextleaf Labs, Tom was the Quality Assurance Manager, QAP, and Qualified Person in Charge at Canna Farms Ltd., British Columbia’s first legal licensed producer of award-winning cannabis products, based in Hope, BC.  He helped grow Canna Farms into one of the first profitable Canadian cannabis companies, which was sold to VIVO Cannabis (TSX-V: VIVO) for $133M CAD in 2018.

Since joining the legal cannabis industry in 2014, Tom has quality-assured hundreds of batches of cannabis, while leading efforts to obtain multiple production and sales licences, win national industry awards, and increase output ten-fold via expansions, improvements to current production practices, and the development of new processes and products.

Tom has been integral in developing Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s former Plant Production and Facility Management course and has taught hundreds of students around the world about cannabis production and the interpretation of national and international regulations. He has appeared on multiple National TV, Radio, and News Articles, and has presented to numerous federal and provincial regulatory bodies and at dozens of national and international industry conferences about cannabis production, processing, and the environmental impacts of cannabis production.

Prior to his work with the cannabis plant, Tom was managing an environmental research laboratory at the Biotron Institute for Experimental Climate Change Research at the University of Western Ontario and conducting multidisciplinary scientific research in northern Canada.  Tom is a Professional Chemist (ACPBC), Chartered Chemist (ACPO), and Professional Agrologist (BCIA), and holds an HBSc Degree in Analytical Chemistry and Environmental Monitoring from the University of Toronto, as well as a MSc Degree in Biogeochemistry and Hydrogeology from the University of Western Ontario (supervised by Dr. Brian Branfireun, former Canada Research Chair in Environment and Sustainability). Tom is a published scientist, named inventor on multiple patents, and was named the Agrologist of the Month (May 2021) by the British Columbia Institute of Agrologists.  He currently serves as Chair of the C-45 Quality Association, a non-profit organization that promotes regulations and quality in the legal cannabis industry.

Nina Ackah
Nina Ackah has been the QA Manager/QAP of Freedom Cannabis since 2021 and has a wealth of knowledge and experience in quality management systems, analytical testing, risk analysis, research and data analysis for both the food and the cannabis industry. Nina worked with Viridis Natural Health Products Ltd. as the QA Manager / QA Person from 2018 to 2021, prior to becoming a member of the Freedom Cannabis team.

John Slaughter
John Slaughter is the CEO and Founder of High North Laboratories. John started High North in 2016 by analyzing cannabis for dispensaries in Vancouver and Toronto to aid in purchasing decisions and pricing strategies. In 2018, High North moved to it’s current 16,000 sqft GMP facility in Toronto, where High North has performed over 450,000 tests on cannabis while capturing lab of the year for 2021, 2022 & 2023.

Before High North, John experience was in the pharmaceutical, Nutrecutical, Chocolate & Candy, and Pet Food industries with such companies as Maple Leaf Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Mondelez, and Mars.

John has an undergraduate degree from UWO and an MBA from the Ivey Business School.