Meet General Cannabis’ Board of Directors: Chairman of the Board Michael Feinsod

Bringing Great Minds Together: Cannabis Investment Expert Michael Feinsod is Powering Up General Cannabis with Intellectual Capital  

Michael Feinsod is an established expert in investment strategy and a hands-on leader of General Cannabis, serving as Chairman of the Board since August 2014.

Feinsod is known as a great business-minded mentor and educator, and has a reputation as someone who is thinking ahead of everyone else.

For Feinsod, his goal with General Cannabis is bringing together “the highest quality people in the industry.”

Feinsod, who has two decades of experience in mainstream investment and acquisitions, began working with General Cannabis, or Advanced Cannabis Solutions as it was then known, in 2014 when he helped them work through U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission processes.

Michael Feinsod is Chairman of the Board for synergistic holding company General Cannabis.

When he researched Colorado’s burgeoning cannabis industry coming to life in 2014 as the first state to initiate legalized sales to adult consumers, he observed that no single company was large enough to justify being public. He saw an opportunity for real estate-focused General Cannabis to acquire other specialized B2B cannabis companies, and help those companies improve their business practices, customer experience and hone their understanding of market dynamics like pricing.

To Feinsod, what’s intriguing about the regulated cannabis industry is the even playing field: “No one is a 20-year industry veteran.”

Feinsod took on the role of chairman of the board, and in 2015 when public shares of General Cannabis were relisted, he led an acquisition strategy that has resulted in several successful partnerships, including security provider Iron Protection Group, cannabis cultivation consultancy Next Big Crop, as well as branding and apparel designer Chiefton, among others.

What excites Feinsod most about General Cannabis is tapping into the increased intellectual capital generated by having wildly different aspects of the cannabis industry work together under the same umbrella, and the benefits and synergy that ancillary companies can achieve after joining General Cannabis.

He says the power of General Cannabis lies in forethought: “We can help execute because we’re five steps ahead of any startup.”

He is looking forward to taking everything General Cannabis has learned from Colorado’s industry growth and adjusting and customizing it to actively pursue opportunities in other states and countries where cannabis is becoming legal to produce and consume. “Colorado was a dress rehearsal and now we’re taking it to other states,” he says.

Feinsod started his career in business finance in the late 1990s by handling mergers and acquisitions for a large law firm. He then moved over to evaluations and was an investment analyst and portfolio manager at Mark Boyar & Company, Inc., a broker-dealer.

In 1999, he created his own New York-based investment management firm, Infinity Capital, where he serves as Managing Partner. He also served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ameritrans Capital Corporation until 2013.

Feinsod earned his JD law degree from Fordham University, after earning his bachelor’s in Political Science and Government from George Washington University. He is a longtime board member of the Sid Jacobson JCC, and serves on the National Council for Arts & Sciences at George Washington University.