Episode 17: Sheri Orlowitz, Artemis Holdings

The X Factor: The Human Performance & Leadership Podcast with Dr. Stephen Long

Into this new world, Sheri L. Orlowitz’s 30-plus-year experience as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, turn-around expert, board director, corporate leader, attorney and former federal prosecutor make her uniquely qualified not only to lead companies in the cannabis industry but to advise regulators and identify best in class cannabis companies. Few can match her track record of success.
Sheri has owned and led a dozen very different companies, some acquired from Kodak, Tyco International, and Applied Magnetics, employing over a thousand people and raising $100 million in the process. She has invested in seed and venture capital companies for over 25 years including a payments company acquired by PayPal.
Her foray into cannabis was marked by years of monitoring the industry and after careful analysis, she made her first investment in MJ Freeway a track and trace software company. Sheri subsequently raised the capital needed to fill out its Series C round to prepare it to be the first U.S. based SaaS marijuana company to be listed on the NASDAQ under the name Akerna.
From real estate development to computer component manufacturing, her successful ventures required precision, negotiating expertise, commitment to quality, coordination with federal regulators and an insistence on the highest ethical standards of corporate behavior. With an eye towards using her decades of board experience and turn around expertise, she guides growth in companies, as a member of boards such as Connected Living and AgTools or in the C-suite most recently as Chief Strategy Officer of Witi a cannabis and medical device tech company.
Sheri’s commitment to social justice led her 25 years ago to found a non-profit to address human trafficking as well as sit on the Harvard University Women’s Leadership Board and others. It also led to her involvement with the Marijuana Policy Project, the leading public policy advocacy group whose work is largely responsible for the “cannabis industry”. Sheri’s experience, integrity, and vision are used to help promote the safety of users and increase prosperity for people disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs.
To accelerate efforts to increase safety and mainstream the industry Sheri founded and is Chairman of the Board of the Council for Federal Cannabis Regulation. The Council is made up of best in class professionals in the cannabis industry, FDA scientists, government relations, law, and social equity.