Charlie Bachtellis CEO and Co-Founder of Cresco Labs, one the leading vertically integrated, multistate cannabis companies in the United States. Named one of the top 100 cannabis industry leaders by Entrepreneur Magazine, Mr. Bachtell has spearheaded Cresco’s organic growth and acquisition strategies to build the most strategic geographic footprint and the leading distribution platform in the North
American cannabis market. Having successfully raised private funding in excess of $200 million, Mr. Bachtell has effectively deployed capital to build shareholder value including the $824 million acquisition of Origin House in 2019, the largest public company acquisition in U.S. cannabis industry history at the time. Deeply committed to driving positive social change, Mr. Bachtell oversaw the launch of Cresco’s Social Equity & Educational Development (SEED) initiative in May 2019, the cannabis industry’s first national comprehensive
social equity initiative promoting inclusion, expungement, equality, access and community engagement.
Mr. Bachtell is a sought-after speaker on the
cannabis industry’s national stages and has been
featured as an industry leader in mainstream
media like CNBC and Yahoo! Finance as well as
in industry publications like Marijuana Business
Daily, Cannabis Business Times and Marijuana
Venture Magazine. An attorney by training and
a former Executive Vice President and General
Counsel for one of the largest mortgage banks
in the country, Mr. Bachtell is recognized as one
of the foremost authorities on regulatory affairs
and compliance in some of the nation’s most
heavily regulated industries. He served on the
Cannabis Legalization Subcommittee of Illinois
Governor JB Pritzker’s transition team, which led
to the passage of legislation legalizing adult-use
cannabis in the state of Illinois, which now serves
as a model for other states to legalize marijuana
by statute rather than ballot initiatives. Mr. Bachtell
serves as an adjunct Professor at the Northwestern
University Pritzker School of Law teaching classes
on the legal and regulatory matters existing in
the emerging cannabis industry and is a founding
member or member of associations across the
country including the National Cannabis Bar
Association, Illinois Cannabis Bar Association,
National Cannabis Industry Association,
Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition and the Medical
Cannabis Alliance of Illinois.