Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here is another CEO you should know on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Meet Elon Sobel, CEO of Bioharvest Sciences.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I lived in
South Africa for the first twelve years of my life
and at the tend age of twelve and a half,
my parents decided to leave South Africa. They didn't agree
with the government at the time. It was an apartheid government.
I had an older brother that had to go into
(00:30):
the army and I didn't want my brother going into
the army and fighting for a cause he didn't believe in.
And my parents were very much part of the anti
apartheid movement and wanted us to grow up in the
right kind of environment. So twelve and a half thirteen
moved to Sydney, Australia. Well I had the more formative
(00:53):
part of my education secondary education. I went to university
at the University of New South Wales.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
My story is more of a school of hard knocks.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
In the sense of how I got to where I
got to, and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit
about that. But I was very fortunate to be part
of a unique program where I was on scholarship between
industry and the university for a group of five of
us in the areas of marketing and commerce as part
(01:27):
of a scholarship program. I did that for three years.
I got a little bit frustrated. I felt like I
needed to leave Australia. You know, it's like this little
island at the end of the world, far far away.
And I was very lucky to be able to receive
an opportunity to do an exchange program with a university
in the US, with a college in the US, and
I spent a year which very much influenced me, and
(01:49):
I'm very grateful for this. I spent a semester abroad
at Babson College in Boston. Babson's the number one school
in the US for entrepreneurial studies, and that really started
to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit inside me. I was amazing
professors and the way things worked at that time was
(02:12):
Australians were allowed to actually work in the US for.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
As long as you studied.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And after finishing my semester abroad, I didn't want to
go back to Australia.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I wanted to work and I.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Started to apply for internships, but it was really tough
to get an internship.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
When you didn't you know, you were this little kid
from Australia, and I was very lucky.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I interviewed for an internship at Pepsiicola in Boston, and
I was accepted as an intern and I started my
career at the back of a truck with a two wheeler,
literally getting up six o'clock in the morning and being
one of those, you know, very challenging job delivering products
to South Boston to Back Bay, up and down the
(02:59):
streets of Boston. And that's really where I started to
learn and understand the importance of how to bring consumer
brands to the marketplace and understanding the power of executing
the right way.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, you had an incredible journey, and we're going to
talk a lot about your really wonderful resume because the
one thing that I got from it is there's a
lot of diversity going on between the soda company and
high tech and now what you do for the last
four and a half years the CEO of Bioharvest Sciences,
which is an incredible company that we're going to find
a lot out about it with the mission and what
(03:32):
you do, but it really is revolutionary when our listeners
and CEOs and future entrepreneurs get to hear what you're
doing right now, because it really truly is extraordinary. I'm
going to have you dumb it down for me because
I'm still learning as I go here, but it's about
fruits and plants and really helping everybody out there when
it comes to that. But before we do that, I
want to talk about your journey out of school. And
(03:53):
you know it's not going to surprise you a lot
that you started doing really hard work right out of
the gate and out of school exactly what you want
to do, but you work your way up the ladder.
So if you could maybe kind of capsualize your journey
after that, after your interning at PEPSI and the things
that you did, because it really truly is an incredible resume.
So if you could get everybody kind of the highlights,
we'd love to hear that.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Sure, I want to go backwards to go forwards because
I think it's important because my story really is a
story of an immigrant and you know, coming to and
I'm sure many of your listeners have similar backgrounds. I
came to Australia as an immigrant. My parents came with
literally very little money. Anything that I wanted, whether it
was going to the movies or anything that was considered
a luxury, I had to work for. So at the
(04:35):
age of literally fourteen, I was lucky. I was pretty tall.
I looked sixteen. In Australia at the time, you had
to be sixteen to legally work.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And off I went as a fourteen year old and
I started to work.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
At that time, it was Saturdays and Thursday nights that
you worked like sixteen to twenty hours a week. And
I started in a delicatessen and learning how to slice
meat on a slicer and do window displays, and that
taught me how to do merchizing. And then I got
promoted with a speaker and a headphone to start to
do sales in the shopping center. And you know, there
I was on a Saturday talking about, you know, silver
(05:09):
side nine ninety nine ladies and gentlemen coming in to
cut price deli, You've got the best silver side and cheeses,
and off our went. And that taught me, you know again,
how do we engage with customers? All the way through
to dish being a dishwasher apprentice, butcher and you know,
at that time, you would do anything in order to
get some cash to be able to enjoy the benefits
(05:30):
of what people around you were enjoying, but you just
couldn't afford.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So I think that taught me the value of money.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And then I was lucky to get a scholarship, got
the opportunity in the US. Started at Pepsi cod I
spent in Pepsi. I was able to you know, I
had a lot of lucky breaks. You know, works dynamic.
I had a boss who basically quit all of a sudden,
What do we do, We need a merchandiser.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Take the Australian kid. Put him in that job.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
If I went, I learned how to merchandise and there
I was CBS, Walgreens, Walmart, resets and learned the area
of merchandising. And then one of the sales guys just
didn't come to work and the business development sales guards.
There's a take the Australian guy. And you know, Dennis,
I was very lucky in my career. I had a
lot of breaks.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
For example, at that time, if you can remember, there
was this great movie that Americans were infatuated with. There
was an Australian movie called Crocodile Dundee absolutely put your
shrimps on your barbie right if you remember that. And
here I was at that time.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I had a much thicker Australian accent because I wasn't
married yet to my South African wife, who's been my
sweetheart from when I was twelve years old.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
That's another story we can we can talk about it.
By the way.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
By the way, I do want to tell you that's
the first in the four years I've done this series
a Paul Hogan reference has been thrown into CEOs. You
should know, so bravo, do you, sir?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Well, Paul Hogan.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I owe a lot of my career jumps to Paul
Hogan because there I was, you know, going in and
pitching coke versus PEPSI all these different accounts, and because
I had to stick Australian accent, people remembered me and
it just helped me get those sales over the line
and I.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Started to win.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I started to win all these accounts in Fennel Hall
and all these strategic places in Boston, and before I
knew it, literally, I was running business development in Boston
City at my Pepsy van or If. I went to
every single lead and converted it and end of the
end of.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
My internship came up.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And I actually was very fortunate that Pepsi Cola USA
was willing to sponsor me from a visa perspective, come
to the US working operations for two years and then
going to.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Purchase New York. So there I was.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I had to go back to Australia tell my parents
I was going to live after immigrating from South Africa
to Australia. I had to tell my Jewish mother that
I was going to be leaving, leaving.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Australia, going to live in America. And I don't know
if you know much about Jewish mother's guilt, it wears
on you. And after having the discussions.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
With our parents, I said to them, Okay, I've got
three months here in Australia to finish off my undergraduate degree.
Wherever the best job is, I'm going the best jobs
in Singapore. I'm going to Singapore. If the best job
is still with Pepsi USA, I'm going to the US.
And I was really lucky. At this time, the Coca
Cola company was looking to hire ten middle managers to
(08:26):
develop and nurture with intense training over a one year
program in Australia, which is a very mature market, develop market,
and then send those managers into Asia. This is now
we're talking nine to ninety six. Ninety seven. Asia was pumping.
You got the growth of China, the growth of Indonesia,
(08:48):
and I was very lucky because of my experience at
PEPSI I got accepted onto that Coke program and that
Dennis was the start of an amazing eighteen year career
that I'm so grateful for, where I spent twelve years
in Asia in multiple different roles running businesses across Asia Pacific,
(09:09):
including in China.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Where I was headed up all of marketing and innovation
for the China business, where I was responsible for fighting
the Code Wars, which had a very interesting time in
the history of China, built a billion dollar juice business
with the Minimate brand, launching the Minime brand in China,
and was responsible for all the marketing around the Beijing Olympics.
And I was able to.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Then follow that up with going back to South Africa,
which is a really interesting opportunity from a leadership perspective,
where in South Africa leading up to the twenty.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Ten World Cup.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I was responsible for the marketing for that and also
leading the organization, the marketing and the commercial organization at
a time where it was critical from a diversity perspective
to change the nature of the organization to reflect the
Rainbow nation which South Africa is today he is so
well known for.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
And that was an amazing leadership experience.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So, you know, basically twelve years in Asia, three years
in Africa, and then I got sent to the US
initially to head up marketing for the Glasow business unit,
which which is brands like Vitamin Water, Smart Water, the
Power Aid sports drink line, and the energy portfolio. And
I was fortunate there to very quickly be able to
take over as general manager of that business unit that
(10:26):
I did for three years up until twenty fourteen. So
that really gave me a lot of global experience from
running businesses. You know, I started the business for Coca
Cola locally in Mongolia.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I'm an honor in Mongolian.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
I'm really happy to say there were like four countries
in the world where coke was not was not producing
locally at the time.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It was Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And Mongolia and the company had found a partner, and
I had the opportunity of really being able to work
with that partner, build a business, build food law in
Mongolia with the local Mongolian.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Authorities, and really upgrade the whole industry.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And when I say, I'm almost like an honorary Mongolian
in the sense of this, it's just a huge affinity
to the people.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Such wonderful people.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
And when you have an ability to come into a
market and obscure people and be able to pay people
more money and help them progress in their lives. You know,
these are the great benefits of what companies like cocon
Cola do all around the world, from an economic development
and professional development, female leadership, diversity, really critical human values
(11:35):
that are so important today that I had the benefit
of being part of for eighteen years.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I want our listeners to trust me on this one
that we could talk to a lot for a couple
hours about everything he did before Bioharvest, because it's such
a cool, diverse, incredible journey. But this is one of
my favorite questions that I get to ask any CEO
or founder or entrepreneur on this series when it comes
to the current place you're at the last four and
(12:02):
a half years as a CEO, and that's I can
certainly see what Bioharved Sciences was interested in you and
the diversity that you brought and all the change and
a risk taking that you've done. I'm very clear about that.
But what did you see in this company that made
you say I want to join them as CEO?
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Wow, that's a great question, Dennis.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So it's important to understand my journey because before I
got to Bar Harvest, I went from the front of
the aeroplane to the back of the aeroplane, and from
the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta to the Red Rooftop
Motel in Atlanta. I don't want to disparage the Red
Rooftop Motel for great people that run their place.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Get your analogy, yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
And so I went into startup weld and together with
two Israeli partners because I moved my family, I wanted
to become an entrepreneur. Hit the age of forty, I
kind of had a I would say, a positive midlife crossis.
I always had a deep connection to wanting, as a
religious Jewish and observant Jew to have my family live
(13:08):
in Israel, and I moved the family in twenty fourteen,
and I also wanted to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit inside.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Me in a way that you know, it was outside
of the corporate environment.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
And together with two partners, we built a big data,
IoT and software company in the beer industry, which we
were very fortunate. We had a lot of luck and
we landed up exiting after four and a half years,
and I was a bush Imbev, the largest brewery in
the world bought our company. I worked as part of
(13:41):
the deal. I had golden handcuffs. I had to work
for them for a year. They were a great company,
great management, amazing people, and I actually ended up working
for them for another year. But I got to the
stage where, you know, it was kind of ironic. I
was the oldest guy in the high tech company right
at that time. I was like, you know, forty five,
forty six years old, and I kind of felt that
(14:03):
again I was back in corporate America and I needed
to unleash that entrepreneurial spirit again inside me.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
And I got introduced to bio Harvest.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Sciences through a friend of mine, and wow, when I
came to this company, what I saw and the best
way to explain it because I came to the company
initially as an investor. What I saw was an R
and D gold mine, the most amazing technology to unlock
(14:34):
the secrets of plant biology, to be able to be
a bridge between the power of the plant kingdom and
all the fighter medicinal compounds and fighter nutrients that are
contained in plants. And to be able to have a
technology that can democratize all those critical fighter medicinal nutrients
(14:54):
compounds that I found at such small levels, but to
be able to find a way to manu to produce
it at such scale that you can democratize the power
of these molecules and change the world of health and
wellness for hundreds of millions of people, but doing it
in a way which preserved the planet for generations to come.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
And as a.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Father of three kids who were quickly growing into their
teenage years, I felt this significant compelling desire to want
to do something from a professional perspective, which was much
more in the spiritual stage of my life, where I
(15:36):
wanted to leave a legacy, a lasting legacy that my
kids would be super proud of me.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
That was a legacy that literally.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Changed the lives of millions of people from an overall
specifically health and wellness perspective, and what I saw.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
By harvest, I saw an R and D company was
a gold mine of R and D.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
But they didn't like many R and D companies, they
didn't yet have the knowledge on how to unlock this
R and D and commercialize it and bring it into
the global marketplace. I still ended up investing, even though
that was a risk in my investment. I was so
blown away with the IP strategy, with the clinical trials
(16:22):
that they'd done, with the regulatory strategy, and the regulatory
approvals that already received, all the way through to the
scalability of the technology, which is so important.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
At the time, I never thought I was going to
be the guy that was going to be, you.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Know, unlocking that and bringing the technology to the global market.
And I invested in the company, and I literally went
away with my family and I got a phone call
from at the time the CEO of the company, who
was the largest investor and an amazing man who's become
a dear friend and a partner for the last four years.
His name is doctor Zaki Rakiv and doctor Zaki he
(16:59):
was the co founder together with doctor Yokihagai, and he
himself has a very impressive resume.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
You should have him on his show as well.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
He invented voiceover Internet, the cable modem, and they had
invested his money similarly to my desire to change the world.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Wanted to take the money that he had made there and.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Build a buyerotech company ultimately that was going to be
able to change the world, leveraging the power of the
Plan Kingdom. And doctor Zaki called me up and he said, listen,
you drove me crazy during the due diligence process, and
I really did.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
You know again, going back, I don't come from money.
Every dollar I've earned from where I was at a
delicate testant all the way through to exits. Every dollar
is a dollar.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So if I'm investing like one hundred dollars or five
thousand dollars or more, it's the same due diligence, right,
drive some people crazy. But he said to me, listen,
besides driving us crazy with your due diligence, I realized
I need a professional CEO to come in and to
run the company and to be able to really bring
this technology to the world. And at this time my
(18:01):
heart started to beat, and it was the kind of
a Dredaline rush. Well I realized at the time, Wow,
this is an opportunity of a lifetime and almost Dennis
an opportunity if you think about it, if you go
back to my days with a two wheeler at the
back of a Pepsi truck and as a merchandiser and
as a sales guy all the way through to all
(18:21):
the roles I did in the Coca Cola company, and
then going into high tech as an entrepreneur and being bootstrapped.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I couldn't have asked, you know, for a a better
training camps, multiple training camps in order to be able
to you know, take this company who at the time
had just gone private just sorry, I had just gone public,
and to be able to manage this company and scale
the technology and bring the amazing molecules that day had
(18:52):
already developed to the marketplace and impact people's health and wellness.
And so it was a very quick decision.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
For me which I made, and after unraveling some of
our responsibilities with Annals of Bush, I started as CEO
in the company in June of twenty twenty and I'll
tell you it's been the best four and a half
years of my life from a professional perspective, and I
would probably say from a personal perspective, because when you're
professionally happy, you're personally happy, and it works the same way,
(19:21):
but it's just you have positive energy, you're energized, and
you know, we've now built an amazing business where where
we've brought to market our molecule, our key molecule, which
is a red grape cell molecule. And just to kind
of go back, maybe for your listeners to explain the
(19:42):
technology might just take like two minutes to explain the
technology of what we do, as people might find it
interesting and.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
It may help some of the future questions that you have.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
But basically, we've invented a technology called botanical synthesis. So
people have probably heard of chemical synthesis, people have heard
of biosynthesis.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
What we do is botanical synthesis. And what does that mean.
That's a big word, but simply what does it mean.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
We have a technology platform where we can take the
plant once and as you know, plants have these critical
FIVET and medicinal compounds that are found in very very
small levels that it's very very difficult to be able
to unlock these molecules in a way that's consistent, in
(20:29):
a way that's economically viable, and in a way that
you can actually build patents because you can't patent nature.
And this is these are the three core reasons why
pharmaceutical industry they started with the plant and move to
chemical synthesis, because when you chemically synthesize a compound, it's consistent,
it's cheap normally, and you get patents. So what our
(20:53):
technology does is allows us to take the plant. Once
we understand exactly where in the plant cells that produce
these critical phytomdicinal compounds. We take the cells, We grow
the cells in a petra dish, and we do literally
thousands of experiments where we change the nutrition we feed
(21:13):
the cells, We change other variables like the light, the temperature,
and a whole bunch of other variables that I'm not
allowed to talk about which are part of our ip box.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And at this stage we get the cells to do
two things. One, we get the cells to produce the
exact same mirror of the phyto medicinal compounds that the
plant produces. We call this mirroring.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Two, we can identify a specific phyto medicinal compound that
we want to increase by an order of magnitude by
changing the variables.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
We call this magnification. So in the case of our
red grape.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Cell, we produce a very unique compound called pissis vitral.
Pissirisvitraal is the gold standard of res vitrol because it
has the highest level of solubilit is twenty five times
more soluble than regular resveratrol, and it's much more bioavailable.
Stays in the body for at least twelve hours with
two peaks, one after one hour, one after five hours,
(22:11):
so it's like the Rolls Royce of resveratrol versus all
other resveratrol that comes from polygenum.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
It's called transfers vitral. It's much less soluble, much less bioavailable,
and we're the only.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Company in the world that can produce pi seed resveratrol
together with all the other polyphenales from the red grape,
computing catogen, costine, anti sinis and tannins because we magnify
the levels one hundred times at least one hundred times
versus what's found in the red grape. And at this point, Dennis,
we lock the cells we create a cell bank and
(22:43):
we never have to go back to the plant. And
then what we figured out how to do, and by
the way, all of this is non GMO. We don't
need any way change the molecular structure of the actual
cell itself. And then what we figured out what to
do is how to actually take these cells from a
petri dish and grow them in massive industrial scale bio
(23:05):
reactive thousand leader plus at economic scale. We do this
in eighteen to twenty one days. The cells multiply, they
produce the five and medicinal compounds. We harvest the cells,
we take out the water. We're left with the rich
mud of highly efficacious, soluble by available end product that
(23:27):
we dry and today it goes.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Into dietary supplements.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
We have as a company where science based everything we
do is backed with clinical trials, double blind, placeibo publish
and peer reviewed scientific journals. And in the case of
our red grape cell molecule, which we call vinear vnia,
we've been able to demonstrate the ability to significantly increase
dilation of arteries after taking one capsule every day for
(23:55):
ninety days. And arterial dilation is so important because it
increases blood flow and Dennis blood flow is the most
critical part of your body's operating mechanism.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
No blood flow, no quality of life.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
With more blood flow, you got more oxygen, more nutrients
flowing to the body, tiss your cells and organs, which
means you have more physical energy. More blood flow to
the peripher part of the brain. Our molecule gets below
the blood brain barrier, so we're able to increase blood
flow and critical parts of the brain. Normal brain flow,
more mental alertness, maintains blood pressure within already normal levels.
(24:30):
We're able to help reduce oxidation of LDL cholesterol and
oxidative damage to the cells. So this is a product
that now we've brought to the marketplace. It's a subscription,
subscription based product and it's really validated the power of
our technology platform. We set it as a supplement in capsules.
We've just launched a superfood coffee.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
We're about to launch a tea in the marketplace, all
direct to consumer. We don't go through retailers.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
After spending all my time with retailers, I said, thank
you very much, We're now going to go direct to
concer um. I always want to be directly connected to
the consumer.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
It's so important not.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Just to have the cash cycle that you need as
an entrepreneur, but also you have the voice of the
consumer directly in.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Your ear all the time.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
And today our product we have more than six thousand
verified reviews, four point eight out of five verified rating,
and we change people's lives. And this has been the
validation of the power of the technology platform that we have.
We have an olive cell molecule that we're going to
be bringing to market the end of next year which
has the most potent anti inflammatory called verbosco side from
(25:34):
the olive cell, which is going to target liver health
as well as lestro health and bone health to bone
and joint health. And now that we've scaled the business
and we've developed the technology and it's so mature, we
made a conscious decision to open the technology to other
companies and earlier this year we opened up a CDMO,
(25:55):
which is a contract development and manufacturing organization with existing
we have contracts with pharmaceutical companies, with nutrition companies to
develop unique molecules or their businesses. Its leveraging their muscles
so that we can really democratize these molecules from plants
and impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
(26:17):
That's why I think I have the best job in
the world. I'm really the chief plant officer for the world. Ultimately,
we're leveraging our technology to be able to bring the
power of the plant kingdom, and the world is now
realizing that if we don't start to responsibly utilize the
power of what we were given, whether it's from God
(26:38):
on Day three, evolution of creating the world, or whatever
evolution theory you subscribe to, there are five hundred thousand
plants that contain the secrets and answers to so many
of the challenges that we as human beings are dealing with.
And fortunately the world is becoming a lot more integrated
in their thinking as it relates to the whole world
(26:58):
of health and wellness. Timing for our technology really is perfect.
From leading farmer companies starting to go back to the
future because they started there, and going back to the
plankingdom for the next generation of.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Therapeutic solutions to address current indications today where there's no
solution ninety five percent of rare diseases, so there's no
solution out there. So I'm having the time of my life.
It's brutal hours.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I have an amazing team, but when you're changing people's
lives every day, and you know, I'm fortunate that I
get forty to fifty reviews because the direct to consumer
subscription business, we're getting reviews. I get forty to fifty
reviews from people every day. That keep my blood pumping
in addition to me taking two vinear a day, but
(27:48):
keep me going from a spiritual perspective because it's, you know,
being an entrepreneur. It's dealing with a company on the
public market. You're dealing with all these challenges, scaling expectations
of investors. But wow, I mean it's been an amazing
four and a half year journey. I have an amazing
team together with my partner, doctor Zaki Raki, going back
(28:09):
to who brought me into the company. He's a chairman
of the company and the two of us are very,
very dedicated management team and nineteen employees. You know, were
mission focused to change the world. With the north star
of developing ten to fifteen molecules from plants. They've got
(28:31):
to change the lives and health and wellness of hundreds
of millions of people by leveraging the power the plant
kingdom in a way that preserves the planet for generations
to come.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, it's pretty extraordinary. Of all the things you talked about,
and admittedly, as a B minus student in both are
sciences and chemistry, I understood most of what you were
talking about. But here's what I would like you to do,
because I know that you're a believer in this and
knowledge is power. And when you talk about what your
exact doing with your company, as you work with all
of your clients and heading them down to the consumer,
(29:05):
the consumer wants to know what's going in their foods
and maybe how they're processed or not process and how
they're growing and all that. So your clients and the
consumers want to know about this and need to know
about it. But I'm sure the education process is going
to take some time, and I imagine that as you
work with people that those are conversations that are happening
right now. So as you see the technology continuing to
(29:28):
evolve down the road and you're working with all these
clients who are delivering to the consumer, what's the overall
plan of educating everybody of all the great things that
are coming out of this.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So look, firsty, the world is changing rapidly and consumers
are understanding the need to move to cellular based technologies,
whether it's you know, meat cells, chicken cells.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Our space that.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
We own and we've been you know, global leaders of
because we've.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Been doing it for seventeen years. The company will start
in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Amazing team of female leaders from our founder, doctor Jokika Gai,
doctor Malki Dosai, VP of R and D, probably the
best plan cell biologist in the world, and a number
of other members of the team or PhD plan cell biologists.
My CEO runs manufacturing, doctor Elana Beltze, She's a PhD
(30:25):
plan cell biologist.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
So it's like it's all in the DNA.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
So, you know, the world has started to understand, the
regulatory environment has started to understand, and you know, we
as a company when it's related to the consumer, for
the brands that we're building in our director consumer business,
we invest a lot of resources educating the consumers, helping
(30:52):
the consumers understand the power of our technology, because when
you understand the power of the technology, you understand the
magnitude of impact of what you're putting into your body,
the cleanliness of it. Because we grow all of ourselves
in aseptic by reactors. So there's no funger sides, there's
no insecticides, there's no herbicides. You're coming to our manufacturing facility.
(31:12):
It's a really it's a sterile facility. Right, You've got
to be cold, I mean literally glay everything.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
And biological facility. And because at the end of the day,
consumers want to understand more. They're so open to be educated.
And when you take the time and you obviously you
have to simplify to understand it, and you explain to it.
So a lot of TV that we do, we're explaining
to consumers our process and our technology and how the
(31:41):
technology works.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
And you know, mirror, magnify and multiply. This is how
we do it because this is the future. This is
the future of everything from food all the way to
preventative therapeutic solutions. This is the future because the world
cannot continue the way it is operating today. Look at
(32:03):
what we've just experienced from a global warming perspective, right,
you know, look at our friends in Florida, right, and
the southeast of dealing with right. You know, the magnitude
of impact of our actions from an industrial perspective, for
the last one hundred and fifty years, it's taken its
toll on the world. You cannot There are today, for example,
(32:24):
one hundred and forty drugs on the market that contain
critical active pharmaceutical ingredients from plants. If you're one of
those companies, your supply chain is at risk. Your supply
chain is at risk because of global warming. Your supply
chain is at risk because there's not a consistency in
(32:44):
your raw materials because you don't know what's going to
happen from let alone, day to day, month to month,
year to year, and you're not able to control the economics,
and you don't have a moat around your technology. So
this is where our technology becomes so critical care for everybody,
from players who are in the RX world all the
(33:06):
way through to if you think about cosmetics companies today,
the consumer today, Dennis has voted as saying to cosmetic
companies or the top ten all the way through to
the small guys, don't give me any active molecules that
come from chemicals. I'm not putting chemicals onto my skin
(33:29):
every single day.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
For thirty years, consumers have voted, you know, a major
change right now and technologies like ours become really poignant
and critical for those industries all the way through to
just the simple nutrition chain.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Think about what Stevia has done for the overall let's
call it food system, but I would even go broader
to say the healthcare system because at the end of
the day, the perils of sugar when you don't have
an active lifestyle and you have a seventy lifestyle, right,
this is what you know the American health and wellness
(34:09):
system is dealing with today.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
The unintended consequences of this. Stevia came in.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
It was a decent tasting non nutature sweetener that had
a following.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But what if we could develop the next generation, the
next generation of non nutature sweetener where there was no
trade off versus sugar, but ultimately you were bringing a
non nutature sweetener into everything that you ate. It would
change the whole healthcare system based on the perils of
(34:44):
the underlying perils of the biggest challenges of the healthcare system.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So this is where our technology really is anchored in
all these different areas and why these partnership with key
companies are so critical.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Whilst we execute our game plan on a direct to
consumer business launching all of our own products, which just
brings us significant scale and learnings so that we can
apply them all to our CDMO contract develament manufacturing organization
with these key partners.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
So the world is changing education. The consumer wants to
be educated. We just have to change the narrative. And
that's what we did. When we brought our resverratrial to
the marketplace, people said to me, Elan, you're crazy. There's
every other resvitral product out there.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
You go into Amazon, every other is viratual product out
there that use polygonum Japanese not weed. How are you
going to differentiate? No chance. That just made me more
motivated to try and figure out a way, and I
just realized that, look, you just have to change the
narrative to consumers. We have clinical trials, we have an
amazing technology. Let's just give them the respect and help
(35:58):
educate them, spend the time investment in the right kind
of For example, we brought the best medical and animator
in the world on board to work with us, and
David built three beautiful videos Top videos of medical animation
explain to consumers basically the power of our molecules and
(36:19):
how are molecules work in your body, and that was critical.
And those videos have been seen by thousands and thousands
of people.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
So you have to be willing to invest in education,
and the consumer's ready for it. They are ready for
it specifically if it's going to change their life from
a health and wellness perspective and protect the planet. And
so when you're hitting on those two areas, you have
the ear of the consumer.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I agree with that, and I'm glad you addressed the
education part because as much as we wanted, I think
once again, knowledge is power. We need to know what
we wanted, what's good for us, and it sounds like
the feature is bright. We are running out of time, Aline,
and I do want to do this and just maybe
do a little recap if we could, and just get
some final thoughts from you. It really is truly amazing
in just the four and a half years as you've
been there at CEO, at this incredible company, about what
(37:06):
has change and what the future looks like. It's blowing
me away the technology that you guys have patented and
what you're doing as you do direct to consumer. Let's
just get some final thoughts and recap everything. The floor
is your sir.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Some final thoughts.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Look, I would just say to all those CEOs out there,
you know, if you're doing something that you love and
you really feel is making a change in the world.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
You're aligning your heart with your values.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
And when your heart and values are aligned, then no
matter how big the challenge out there is, if you
have a great group of people around you. And I'm
so blessed to have an amazing team, and I've shared
number of the different people in my team, including our
chief medical officer who's from John Hopkins and has a
(38:05):
whole interesting story himself. Everybody's just got their own unique story,
and everybody is aligned with the strength of a team.
And when there's heart and soul and it's all congruent
with your values, your values as parents in some cases
in my team, your values as grandparents.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
Because in the world of biotech ages everything right, age
is everything that's high tech and biotech.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
You're able to climb a mount Killerman genre and back
ten times over because you're going to be facing and
every few months we face some really challenging hurdles. But
because there's such conviction and such deep belief in the
impact of what we're doing and our desire to really
(38:55):
change the world, that you're able to actually conquer those hurdles.
And so I just say to people like specifically like
for me, I'm so blessed that at the age of
forty five, I really found my calling. Honestly, like you, Dennis,
I think I was a nightmare for all.
Speaker 4 (39:13):
My biology teachers, right.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
I think I flunked out every class except one on biology,
and I don't want to talk about right, But I
just found that when I came to this company and
spending time with doctor Jokikaga, who's the mother of the
technology and amazing also she has thirty years of experience
in the pharmacide and the biotech side. Together with doctor Malkett,
(39:40):
I just became like a spongergame because I realized that they.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Simplified it for me. They helped me understand what they
were doing, and I realized that if I could tell
their story and if I could work with him with
all my experience in manufacturing and in high tech to
be able to scale the technology, we we as a
team to change the world. Right, And what better way
(40:05):
to wake up Like this is why I wake up
in the morning and I'm pumped and I'm happy. Like literally,
I always when I sit down with all my staff
members and I do like a media review or check in,
and I always ask them, when you wake up in
the morning, where are you?
Speaker 3 (40:21):
On a scale of one to ten. One you don't
want to get out of bed, you can't even open.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Up your eyes. Ten you can't wait to get out
of bed. By the way, there's very few people in
this world that are tens. For the last four and
a half years, I've been like a nine to nine
and a half right, which is amazing. And that's really
driven by the fact that every day I'm focusing all
my energy because there's no politics in our company. This
is either thing all those CEOs out there dealing with
(40:49):
politics pulling knives out of your back.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
It sucks energy when you're mission focused. When everybody comes
to work, from a biologist manufacturing to literally our team
in manufacturing that are working with the bioreactors, everybody understands
this bioreactor is going to produce twelve kilos of our
red grape cell video product and it's going to change
the lives of a few thousand people.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Everybody's all focused. The energy on the outside their hearts
and values are aligned. It's all positive energy and it
just allows for you to be able to achieve success
in a way that is so satisfying. And that's what
(41:33):
I would say to those CEOs out there. Find the
space where your heart and your values are aligned, where
ultimately you can be in your spiritual phase of your
professional career. By the way, it can happen much earlier
in life. The earlier the better.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
You can just stay there for longer, but make sure
you don't spend your time and energy doing something that
your heart and values are not aligned.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Get out of it, get out of it quickly. And
I was lucky that all through my career I was
pretty much aligned. But when I got to the.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
World of biotech and I saw the impact of all
my energy, Wow, right, like it really it's such a
virtuous cycle of energy that permeates individually and from a
team perspective. And this way we can really fulfill our
calling of unlocking the secrets of five hundred thousand plants
(42:30):
that are out there that are ready to be conquered
and utilized in.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
A responsible way, responsible way that leaves the planet in
a situation that generations to come will be able to
enjoy and.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Value well, so, well said man, thank you for that.
So you've got a great website, whoever designed it. It's beautiful,
it's easy to navigate. Let's give the website for everybody
who wants to check out a little bit more about
exactly what you and your team do. Add Bioharvestcience is
what's that?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
What's that? U r L so the webs So the
r L is Bioharvest dot com, b I H A,
R V E S T dot com. And if you
want to lettle more about a product Vinia, you can
go to Vinia dot com. V I N I A
dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
All right, and sir, before you go, I'd like to
pay you a compliment. I've talked to a lot of
CEOs and entrepreneurs on this series for the last four years.
There is a common theme about getting up every day,
being excited about what they do, having the best team
members on the planet that sometimes are usually more smarter
than them and are very good at what they do,
the communication, having fun, working your tails off, being jacked
(43:38):
up about you know about what we're doing and what
the future is, but also your passion and your enthusiasm
come loud and clear through our conversation, and I will
give you a personal story that I relate to a
lot of people that listen to the series. In my industry,
what I do, and i'd like to think over the
thirty years of what I do, I do a pretty
good job. But every hiring manager lon that's ever said, hey, Dennis,
(43:59):
do you know that's why I hired you. It wasn't
for all your gifts and what you brought to the
team and what you're good at. I brought you because
of your passion of the industry. And that comes loud
and clear that you're passionate about what you do. And
I think that's a good lesson for all the entrepreneurs
in future CEOs that if you're passionate about and you're
willing to take chances like our guest has, you're probably
going to succeed. So I want to pay you that
(44:20):
compliment because that came through loud and clear.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
Thank you. I really appreciate it. And you know you've
got to be passionate about what you believe in.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's where Will said, well, listen on,
Thank you so much for a valuable time, continued success.
It really is extraordinary where you and your team are doing,
and we really appreciate you joining us on Iheart's CEOs.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
You should do. Thank you very much. I enjoyed the
opportunity to talk with you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
That's another CEO you should know. Thanks for being a
part of our community, and thank you for listening to
this iHeart Omaha radio station.
Here is another CEO you should know on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Meet Elon Sobel, CEO of Bioharvest Sciences.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I lived in
South Africa for the first twelve years of my life
and at the tend age of twelve and a half,
my parents decided to leave South Africa. They didn't agree
with the government at the time. It was an apartheid government.
I had an older brother that had to go into
(00:30):
the army and I didn't want my brother going into
the army and fighting for a cause he didn't believe in.
And my parents were very much part of the anti
apartheid movement and wanted us to grow up in the
right kind of environment. So twelve and a half thirteen
moved to Sydney, Australia. Well I had the more formative
(00:53):
part of my education secondary education. I went to university
at the University of New South Wales.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
My story is more of a school of hard knocks.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
In the sense of how I got to where I
got to, and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit
about that. But I was very fortunate to be part
of a unique program where I was on scholarship between
industry and the university for a group of five of
us in the areas of marketing and commerce as part
(01:27):
of a scholarship program. I did that for three years.
I got a little bit frustrated. I felt like I
needed to leave Australia. You know, it's like this little
island at the end of the world, far far away.
And I was very lucky to be able to receive
an opportunity to do an exchange program with a university
in the US, with a college in the US, and
I spent a year which very much influenced me, and
(01:49):
I'm very grateful for this. I spent a semester abroad
at Babson College in Boston. Babson's the number one school
in the US for entrepreneurial studies, and that really started
to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit inside me. I was amazing
professors and the way things worked at that time was
(02:12):
Australians were allowed to actually work in the US for.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
As long as you studied.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And after finishing my semester abroad, I didn't want to
go back to Australia.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I wanted to work and I.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Started to apply for internships, but it was really tough
to get an internship.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
When you didn't you know, you were this little kid
from Australia, and I was very lucky.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I interviewed for an internship at Pepsiicola in Boston, and
I was accepted as an intern and I started my
career at the back of a truck with a two wheeler,
literally getting up six o'clock in the morning and being
one of those, you know, very challenging job delivering products
to South Boston to Back Bay, up and down the
(02:59):
streets of Boston. And that's really where I started to
learn and understand the importance of how to bring consumer
brands to the marketplace and understanding the power of executing
the right way.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, you had an incredible journey, and we're going to
talk a lot about your really wonderful resume because the
one thing that I got from it is there's a
lot of diversity going on between the soda company and
high tech and now what you do for the last
four and a half years the CEO of Bioharvest Sciences,
which is an incredible company that we're going to find
a lot out about it with the mission and what
(03:32):
you do, but it really is revolutionary when our listeners
and CEOs and future entrepreneurs get to hear what you're
doing right now, because it really truly is extraordinary. I'm
going to have you dumb it down for me because
I'm still learning as I go here, but it's about
fruits and plants and really helping everybody out there when
it comes to that. But before we do that, I
want to talk about your journey out of school. And
(03:53):
you know it's not going to surprise you a lot
that you started doing really hard work right out of
the gate and out of school exactly what you want
to do, but you work your way up the ladder.
So if you could maybe kind of capsualize your journey
after that, after your interning at PEPSI and the things
that you did, because it really truly is an incredible resume.
So if you could get everybody kind of the highlights,
we'd love to hear that.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Sure, I want to go backwards to go forwards because
I think it's important because my story really is a
story of an immigrant and you know, coming to and
I'm sure many of your listeners have similar backgrounds. I
came to Australia as an immigrant. My parents came with
literally very little money. Anything that I wanted, whether it
was going to the movies or anything that was considered
a luxury, I had to work for. So at the
(04:35):
age of literally fourteen, I was lucky. I was pretty tall.
I looked sixteen. In Australia at the time, you had
to be sixteen to legally work.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And off I went as a fourteen year old and
I started to work.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
At that time, it was Saturdays and Thursday nights that
you worked like sixteen to twenty hours a week. And
I started in a delicatessen and learning how to slice
meat on a slicer and do window displays, and that
taught me how to do merchizing. And then I got
promoted with a speaker and a headphone to start to
do sales in the shopping center. And you know, there
I was on a Saturday talking about, you know, silver
(05:09):
side nine ninety nine ladies and gentlemen coming in to
cut price deli, You've got the best silver side and cheeses,
and off our went. And that taught me, you know again,
how do we engage with customers? All the way through
to dish being a dishwasher apprentice, butcher and you know,
at that time, you would do anything in order to
get some cash to be able to enjoy the benefits
(05:30):
of what people around you were enjoying, but you just
couldn't afford.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So I think that taught me the value of money.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And then I was lucky to get a scholarship, got
the opportunity in the US. Started at Pepsi cod I
spent in Pepsi. I was able to you know, I
had a lot of lucky breaks. You know, works dynamic.
I had a boss who basically quit all of a sudden,
What do we do, We need a merchandiser.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Take the Australian kid. Put him in that job.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
If I went, I learned how to merchandise and there
I was CBS, Walgreens, Walmart, resets and learned the area
of merchandising. And then one of the sales guys just
didn't come to work and the business development sales guards.
There's a take the Australian guy. And you know, Dennis,
I was very lucky in my career. I had a
lot of breaks.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
For example, at that time, if you can remember, there
was this great movie that Americans were infatuated with. There
was an Australian movie called Crocodile Dundee absolutely put your
shrimps on your barbie right if you remember that. And
here I was at that time.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I had a much thicker Australian accent because I wasn't
married yet to my South African wife, who's been my
sweetheart from when I was twelve years old.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
That's another story we can we can talk about it.
By the way.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
By the way, I do want to tell you that's
the first in the four years I've done this series
a Paul Hogan reference has been thrown into CEOs. You
should know, so bravo, do you, sir?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Well, Paul Hogan.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I owe a lot of my career jumps to Paul
Hogan because there I was, you know, going in and
pitching coke versus PEPSI all these different accounts, and because
I had to stick Australian accent, people remembered me and
it just helped me get those sales over the line
and I.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Started to win.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I started to win all these accounts in Fennel Hall
and all these strategic places in Boston, and before I
knew it, literally, I was running business development in Boston
City at my Pepsy van or If. I went to
every single lead and converted it and end of the
end of.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
My internship came up.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And I actually was very fortunate that Pepsi Cola USA
was willing to sponsor me from a visa perspective, come
to the US working operations for two years and then
going to.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Purchase New York. So there I was.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I had to go back to Australia tell my parents
I was going to live after immigrating from South Africa
to Australia. I had to tell my Jewish mother that
I was going to be leaving, leaving.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Australia, going to live in America. And I don't know
if you know much about Jewish mother's guilt, it wears
on you. And after having the discussions.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
With our parents, I said to them, Okay, I've got
three months here in Australia to finish off my undergraduate degree.
Wherever the best job is, I'm going the best jobs
in Singapore. I'm going to Singapore. If the best job
is still with Pepsi USA, I'm going to the US.
And I was really lucky. At this time, the Coca
Cola company was looking to hire ten middle managers to
(08:26):
develop and nurture with intense training over a one year
program in Australia, which is a very mature market, develop market,
and then send those managers into Asia. This is now
we're talking nine to ninety six. Ninety seven. Asia was pumping.
You got the growth of China, the growth of Indonesia,
(08:48):
and I was very lucky because of my experience at
PEPSI I got accepted onto that Coke program and that
Dennis was the start of an amazing eighteen year career
that I'm so grateful for, where I spent twelve years
in Asia in multiple different roles running businesses across Asia Pacific,
(09:09):
including in China.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Where I was headed up all of marketing and innovation
for the China business, where I was responsible for fighting
the Code Wars, which had a very interesting time in
the history of China, built a billion dollar juice business
with the Minimate brand, launching the Minime brand in China,
and was responsible for all the marketing around the Beijing Olympics.
And I was able to.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Then follow that up with going back to South Africa,
which is a really interesting opportunity from a leadership perspective,
where in South Africa leading up to the twenty.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Ten World Cup.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I was responsible for the marketing for that and also
leading the organization, the marketing and the commercial organization at
a time where it was critical from a diversity perspective
to change the nature of the organization to reflect the
Rainbow nation which South Africa is today he is so
well known for.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
And that was an amazing leadership experience.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So, you know, basically twelve years in Asia, three years
in Africa, and then I got sent to the US
initially to head up marketing for the Glasow business unit,
which which is brands like Vitamin Water, Smart Water, the
Power Aid sports drink line, and the energy portfolio. And
I was fortunate there to very quickly be able to
take over as general manager of that business unit that
(10:26):
I did for three years up until twenty fourteen. So
that really gave me a lot of global experience from
running businesses. You know, I started the business for Coca
Cola locally in Mongolia.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I'm an honor in Mongolian.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
I'm really happy to say there were like four countries
in the world where coke was not was not producing
locally at the time.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It was Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And Mongolia and the company had found a partner, and
I had the opportunity of really being able to work
with that partner, build a business, build food law in
Mongolia with the local Mongolian.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Authorities, and really upgrade the whole industry.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And when I say, I'm almost like an honorary Mongolian
in the sense of this, it's just a huge affinity
to the people.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Such wonderful people.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
And when you have an ability to come into a
market and obscure people and be able to pay people
more money and help them progress in their lives. You know,
these are the great benefits of what companies like cocon
Cola do all around the world, from an economic development
and professional development, female leadership, diversity, really critical human values
(11:35):
that are so important today that I had the benefit
of being part of for eighteen years.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I want our listeners to trust me on this one
that we could talk to a lot for a couple
hours about everything he did before Bioharvest, because it's such
a cool, diverse, incredible journey. But this is one of
my favorite questions that I get to ask any CEO
or founder or entrepreneur on this series when it comes
to the current place you're at the last four and
(12:02):
a half years as a CEO, and that's I can
certainly see what Bioharved Sciences was interested in you and
the diversity that you brought and all the change and
a risk taking that you've done. I'm very clear about that.
But what did you see in this company that made
you say I want to join them as CEO?
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Wow, that's a great question, Dennis.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So it's important to understand my journey because before I
got to Bar Harvest, I went from the front of
the aeroplane to the back of the aeroplane, and from
the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta to the Red Rooftop
Motel in Atlanta. I don't want to disparage the Red
Rooftop Motel for great people that run their place.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Get your analogy, yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
And so I went into startup weld and together with
two Israeli partners because I moved my family, I wanted
to become an entrepreneur. Hit the age of forty, I
kind of had a I would say, a positive midlife crossis.
I always had a deep connection to wanting, as a
religious Jewish and observant Jew to have my family live
(13:08):
in Israel, and I moved the family in twenty fourteen,
and I also wanted to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit inside.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Me in a way that you know, it was outside
of the corporate environment.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
And together with two partners, we built a big data,
IoT and software company in the beer industry, which we
were very fortunate. We had a lot of luck and
we landed up exiting after four and a half years,
and I was a bush Imbev, the largest brewery in
the world bought our company. I worked as part of
(13:41):
the deal. I had golden handcuffs. I had to work
for them for a year. They were a great company,
great management, amazing people, and I actually ended up working
for them for another year. But I got to the
stage where, you know, it was kind of ironic. I
was the oldest guy in the high tech company right
at that time. I was like, you know, forty five,
forty six years old, and I kind of felt that
(14:03):
again I was back in corporate America and I needed
to unleash that entrepreneurial spirit again inside me.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
And I got introduced to bio Harvest.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Sciences through a friend of mine, and wow, when I
came to this company, what I saw and the best
way to explain it because I came to the company
initially as an investor. What I saw was an R
and D gold mine, the most amazing technology to unlock
(14:34):
the secrets of plant biology, to be able to be
a bridge between the power of the plant kingdom and
all the fighter medicinal compounds and fighter nutrients that are
contained in plants. And to be able to have a
technology that can democratize all those critical fighter medicinal nutrients
(14:54):
compounds that I found at such small levels, but to
be able to find a way to manu to produce
it at such scale that you can democratize the power
of these molecules and change the world of health and
wellness for hundreds of millions of people, but doing it
in a way which preserved the planet for generations to come.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
And as a.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Father of three kids who were quickly growing into their
teenage years, I felt this significant compelling desire to want
to do something from a professional perspective, which was much
more in the spiritual stage of my life, where I
(15:36):
wanted to leave a legacy, a lasting legacy that my
kids would be super proud of me.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
That was a legacy that literally.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Changed the lives of millions of people from an overall
specifically health and wellness perspective, and what I saw.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
By harvest, I saw an R and D company was
a gold mine of R and D.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
But they didn't like many R and D companies, they
didn't yet have the knowledge on how to unlock this
R and D and commercialize it and bring it into
the global marketplace. I still ended up investing, even though
that was a risk in my investment. I was so
blown away with the IP strategy, with the clinical trials
(16:22):
that they'd done, with the regulatory strategy, and the regulatory
approvals that already received, all the way through to the
scalability of the technology, which is so important.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
At the time, I never thought I was going to
be the guy that was going to be, you.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Know, unlocking that and bringing the technology to the global market.
And I invested in the company, and I literally went
away with my family and I got a phone call
from at the time the CEO of the company, who
was the largest investor and an amazing man who's become
a dear friend and a partner for the last four years.
His name is doctor Zaki Rakiv and doctor Zaki he
(16:59):
was the co founder together with doctor Yokihagai, and he
himself has a very impressive resume.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
You should have him on his show as well.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
He invented voiceover Internet, the cable modem, and they had
invested his money similarly to my desire to change the world.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Wanted to take the money that he had made there and.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Build a buyerotech company ultimately that was going to be
able to change the world, leveraging the power of the
Plan Kingdom. And doctor Zaki called me up and he said, listen,
you drove me crazy during the due diligence process, and
I really did.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
You know again, going back, I don't come from money.
Every dollar I've earned from where I was at a
delicate testant all the way through to exits. Every dollar
is a dollar.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So if I'm investing like one hundred dollars or five
thousand dollars or more, it's the same due diligence, right,
drive some people crazy. But he said to me, listen,
besides driving us crazy with your due diligence, I realized
I need a professional CEO to come in and to
run the company and to be able to really bring
this technology to the world. And at this time my
(18:01):
heart started to beat, and it was the kind of
a Dredaline rush. Well I realized at the time, Wow,
this is an opportunity of a lifetime and almost Dennis
an opportunity if you think about it, if you go
back to my days with a two wheeler at the
back of a Pepsi truck and as a merchandiser and
as a sales guy all the way through to all
(18:21):
the roles I did in the Coca Cola company, and
then going into high tech as an entrepreneur and being bootstrapped.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I couldn't have asked, you know, for a a better
training camps, multiple training camps in order to be able
to you know, take this company who at the time
had just gone private just sorry, I had just gone public,
and to be able to manage this company and scale
the technology and bring the amazing molecules that day had
(18:52):
already developed to the marketplace and impact people's health and wellness.
And so it was a very quick decision.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
For me which I made, and after unraveling some of
our responsibilities with Annals of Bush, I started as CEO
in the company in June of twenty twenty and I'll
tell you it's been the best four and a half
years of my life from a professional perspective, and I
would probably say from a personal perspective, because when you're
professionally happy, you're personally happy, and it works the same way,
(19:21):
but it's just you have positive energy, you're energized, and
you know, we've now built an amazing business where where
we've brought to market our molecule, our key molecule, which
is a red grape cell molecule. And just to kind
of go back, maybe for your listeners to explain the
(19:42):
technology might just take like two minutes to explain the
technology of what we do, as people might find it
interesting and.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
It may help some of the future questions that you have.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
But basically, we've invented a technology called botanical synthesis. So
people have probably heard of chemical synthesis, people have heard
of biosynthesis.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
What we do is botanical synthesis. And what does that mean.
That's a big word, but simply what does it mean.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
We have a technology platform where we can take the
plant once and as you know, plants have these critical
FIVET and medicinal compounds that are found in very very
small levels that it's very very difficult to be able
to unlock these molecules in a way that's consistent, in
(20:29):
a way that's economically viable, and in a way that
you can actually build patents because you can't patent nature.
And this is these are the three core reasons why
pharmaceutical industry they started with the plant and move to
chemical synthesis, because when you chemically synthesize a compound, it's consistent,
it's cheap normally, and you get patents. So what our
(20:53):
technology does is allows us to take the plant. Once
we understand exactly where in the plant cells that produce
these critical phytomdicinal compounds. We take the cells, We grow
the cells in a petra dish, and we do literally
thousands of experiments where we change the nutrition we feed
(21:13):
the cells, We change other variables like the light, the temperature,
and a whole bunch of other variables that I'm not
allowed to talk about which are part of our ip box.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
And at this stage we get the cells to do
two things. One, we get the cells to produce the
exact same mirror of the phyto medicinal compounds that the
plant produces. We call this mirroring.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Two, we can identify a specific phyto medicinal compound that
we want to increase by an order of magnitude by
changing the variables.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
We call this magnification. So in the case of our
red grape.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Cell, we produce a very unique compound called pissis vitral.
Pissirisvitraal is the gold standard of res vitrol because it
has the highest level of solubilit is twenty five times
more soluble than regular resveratrol, and it's much more bioavailable.
Stays in the body for at least twelve hours with
two peaks, one after one hour, one after five hours,
(22:11):
so it's like the Rolls Royce of resveratrol versus all
other resveratrol that comes from polygenum.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
It's called transfers vitral. It's much less soluble, much less bioavailable,
and we're the only.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Company in the world that can produce pi seed resveratrol
together with all the other polyphenales from the red grape,
computing catogen, costine, anti sinis and tannins because we magnify
the levels one hundred times at least one hundred times
versus what's found in the red grape. And at this point, Dennis,
we lock the cells we create a cell bank and
(22:43):
we never have to go back to the plant. And
then what we figured out how to do, and by
the way, all of this is non GMO. We don't
need any way change the molecular structure of the actual
cell itself. And then what we figured out what to
do is how to actually take these cells from a
petri dish and grow them in massive industrial scale bio
(23:05):
reactive thousand leader plus at economic scale. We do this
in eighteen to twenty one days. The cells multiply, they
produce the five and medicinal compounds. We harvest the cells,
we take out the water. We're left with the rich
mud of highly efficacious, soluble by available end product that
(23:27):
we dry and today it goes.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Into dietary supplements.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
We have as a company where science based everything we
do is backed with clinical trials, double blind, placeibo publish
and peer reviewed scientific journals. And in the case of
our red grape cell molecule, which we call vinear vnia,
we've been able to demonstrate the ability to significantly increase
dilation of arteries after taking one capsule every day for
(23:55):
ninety days. And arterial dilation is so important because it
increases blood flow and Dennis blood flow is the most
critical part of your body's operating mechanism.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
No blood flow, no quality of life.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
With more blood flow, you got more oxygen, more nutrients
flowing to the body, tiss your cells and organs, which
means you have more physical energy. More blood flow to
the peripher part of the brain. Our molecule gets below
the blood brain barrier, so we're able to increase blood
flow and critical parts of the brain. Normal brain flow,
more mental alertness, maintains blood pressure within already normal levels.
(24:30):
We're able to help reduce oxidation of LDL cholesterol and
oxidative damage to the cells. So this is a product
that now we've brought to the marketplace. It's a subscription,
subscription based product and it's really validated the power of
our technology platform. We set it as a supplement in capsules.
We've just launched a superfood coffee.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
We're about to launch a tea in the marketplace, all
direct to consumer. We don't go through retailers.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
After spending all my time with retailers, I said, thank
you very much, We're now going to go direct to
concer um. I always want to be directly connected to
the consumer.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
It's so important not.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Just to have the cash cycle that you need as
an entrepreneur, but also you have the voice of the
consumer directly in.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Your ear all the time.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
And today our product we have more than six thousand
verified reviews, four point eight out of five verified rating,
and we change people's lives. And this has been the
validation of the power of the technology platform that we have.
We have an olive cell molecule that we're going to
be bringing to market the end of next year which
has the most potent anti inflammatory called verbosco side from
(25:34):
the olive cell, which is going to target liver health
as well as lestro health and bone health to bone
and joint health. And now that we've scaled the business
and we've developed the technology and it's so mature, we
made a conscious decision to open the technology to other
companies and earlier this year we opened up a CDMO,
(25:55):
which is a contract development and manufacturing organization with existing
we have contracts with pharmaceutical companies, with nutrition companies to
develop unique molecules or their businesses. Its leveraging their muscles
so that we can really democratize these molecules from plants
and impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
(26:17):
That's why I think I have the best job in
the world. I'm really the chief plant officer for the world. Ultimately,
we're leveraging our technology to be able to bring the
power of the plant kingdom, and the world is now
realizing that if we don't start to responsibly utilize the
power of what we were given, whether it's from God
(26:38):
on Day three, evolution of creating the world, or whatever
evolution theory you subscribe to, there are five hundred thousand
plants that contain the secrets and answers to so many
of the challenges that we as human beings are dealing with.
And fortunately the world is becoming a lot more integrated
in their thinking as it relates to the whole world
(26:58):
of health and wellness. Timing for our technology really is perfect.
From leading farmer companies starting to go back to the
future because they started there, and going back to the
plankingdom for the next generation of.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Therapeutic solutions to address current indications today where there's no
solution ninety five percent of rare diseases, so there's no
solution out there. So I'm having the time of my life.
It's brutal hours.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I have an amazing team, but when you're changing people's
lives every day, and you know, I'm fortunate that I
get forty to fifty reviews because the direct to consumer
subscription business, we're getting reviews. I get forty to fifty
reviews from people every day. That keep my blood pumping
in addition to me taking two vinear a day, but
(27:48):
keep me going from a spiritual perspective because it's, you know,
being an entrepreneur. It's dealing with a company on the
public market. You're dealing with all these challenges, scaling expectations
of investors. But wow, I mean it's been an amazing
four and a half year journey. I have an amazing
team together with my partner, doctor Zaki Raki, going back
(28:09):
to who brought me into the company. He's a chairman
of the company and the two of us are very,
very dedicated management team and nineteen employees. You know, were
mission focused to change the world. With the north star
of developing ten to fifteen molecules from plants. They've got
(28:31):
to change the lives and health and wellness of hundreds
of millions of people by leveraging the power the plant
kingdom in a way that preserves the planet for generations
to come.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, it's pretty extraordinary. Of all the things you talked about,
and admittedly, as a B minus student in both are
sciences and chemistry, I understood most of what you were
talking about. But here's what I would like you to do,
because I know that you're a believer in this and
knowledge is power. And when you talk about what your
exact doing with your company, as you work with all
of your clients and heading them down to the consumer,
(29:05):
the consumer wants to know what's going in their foods
and maybe how they're processed or not process and how
they're growing and all that. So your clients and the
consumers want to know about this and need to know
about it. But I'm sure the education process is going
to take some time, and I imagine that as you
work with people that those are conversations that are happening
right now. So as you see the technology continuing to
(29:28):
evolve down the road and you're working with all these
clients who are delivering to the consumer, what's the overall
plan of educating everybody of all the great things that
are coming out of this.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So look, firsty, the world is changing rapidly and consumers
are understanding the need to move to cellular based technologies,
whether it's you know, meat cells, chicken cells.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Our space that.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
We own and we've been you know, global leaders of
because we've.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Been doing it for seventeen years. The company will start
in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Amazing team of female leaders from our founder, doctor Jokika Gai,
doctor Malki Dosai, VP of R and D, probably the
best plan cell biologist in the world, and a number
of other members of the team or PhD plan cell biologists.
My CEO runs manufacturing, doctor Elana Beltze, She's a PhD
(30:25):
plan cell biologist.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
So it's like it's all in the DNA.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
So, you know, the world has started to understand, the
regulatory environment has started to understand, and you know, we
as a company when it's related to the consumer, for
the brands that we're building in our director consumer business,
we invest a lot of resources educating the consumers, helping
(30:52):
the consumers understand the power of our technology, because when
you understand the power of the technology, you understand the
magnitude of impact of what you're putting into your body,
the cleanliness of it. Because we grow all of ourselves
in aseptic by reactors. So there's no funger sides, there's
no insecticides, there's no herbicides. You're coming to our manufacturing facility.
(31:12):
It's a really it's a sterile facility. Right, You've got
to be cold, I mean literally glay everything.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
And biological facility. And because at the end of the day,
consumers want to understand more. They're so open to be educated.
And when you take the time and you obviously you
have to simplify to understand it, and you explain to it.
So a lot of TV that we do, we're explaining
to consumers our process and our technology and how the
(31:41):
technology works.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
And you know, mirror, magnify and multiply. This is how
we do it because this is the future. This is
the future of everything from food all the way to
preventative therapeutic solutions. This is the future because the world
cannot continue the way it is operating today. Look at
(32:03):
what we've just experienced from a global warming perspective, right,
you know, look at our friends in Florida, right, and
the southeast of dealing with right. You know, the magnitude
of impact of our actions from an industrial perspective, for
the last one hundred and fifty years, it's taken its
toll on the world. You cannot There are today, for example,
(32:24):
one hundred and forty drugs on the market that contain
critical active pharmaceutical ingredients from plants. If you're one of
those companies, your supply chain is at risk. Your supply
chain is at risk because of global warming. Your supply
chain is at risk because there's not a consistency in
(32:44):
your raw materials because you don't know what's going to
happen from let alone, day to day, month to month,
year to year, and you're not able to control the economics,
and you don't have a moat around your technology. So
this is where our technology becomes so critical care for everybody,
from players who are in the RX world all the
(33:06):
way through to if you think about cosmetics companies today,
the consumer today, Dennis has voted as saying to cosmetic
companies or the top ten all the way through to
the small guys, don't give me any active molecules that
come from chemicals. I'm not putting chemicals onto my skin
(33:29):
every single day.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
For thirty years, consumers have voted, you know, a major
change right now and technologies like ours become really poignant
and critical for those industries all the way through to
just the simple nutrition chain.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Think about what Stevia has done for the overall let's
call it food system, but I would even go broader
to say the healthcare system because at the end of
the day, the perils of sugar when you don't have
an active lifestyle and you have a seventy lifestyle, right,
this is what you know the American health and wellness
(34:09):
system is dealing with today.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
The unintended consequences of this. Stevia came in.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
It was a decent tasting non nutature sweetener that had
a following.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But what if we could develop the next generation, the
next generation of non nutature sweetener where there was no
trade off versus sugar, but ultimately you were bringing a
non nutature sweetener into everything that you ate. It would
change the whole healthcare system based on the perils of
(34:44):
the underlying perils of the biggest challenges of the healthcare system.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So this is where our technology really is anchored in
all these different areas and why these partnership with key
companies are so critical.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Whilst we execute our game plan on a direct to
consumer business launching all of our own products, which just
brings us significant scale and learnings so that we can
apply them all to our CDMO contract develament manufacturing organization
with these key partners.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
So the world is changing education. The consumer wants to
be educated. We just have to change the narrative. And
that's what we did. When we brought our resverratrial to
the marketplace, people said to me, Elan, you're crazy. There's
every other resvitral product out there.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
You go into Amazon, every other is viratual product out
there that use polygonum Japanese not weed. How are you
going to differentiate? No chance. That just made me more
motivated to try and figure out a way, and I
just realized that, look, you just have to change the
narrative to consumers. We have clinical trials, we have an
amazing technology. Let's just give them the respect and help
(35:58):
educate them, spend the time investment in the right kind
of For example, we brought the best medical and animator
in the world on board to work with us, and
David built three beautiful videos Top videos of medical animation
explain to consumers basically the power of our molecules and
(36:19):
how are molecules work in your body, and that was critical.
And those videos have been seen by thousands and thousands
of people.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
So you have to be willing to invest in education,
and the consumer's ready for it. They are ready for
it specifically if it's going to change their life from
a health and wellness perspective and protect the planet. And
so when you're hitting on those two areas, you have
the ear of the consumer.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I agree with that, and I'm glad you addressed the
education part because as much as we wanted, I think
once again, knowledge is power. We need to know what
we wanted, what's good for us, and it sounds like
the feature is bright. We are running out of time, Aline,
and I do want to do this and just maybe
do a little recap if we could, and just get
some final thoughts from you. It really is truly amazing
in just the four and a half years as you've
been there at CEO, at this incredible company, about what
(37:06):
has change and what the future looks like. It's blowing
me away the technology that you guys have patented and
what you're doing as you do direct to consumer. Let's
just get some final thoughts and recap everything. The floor
is your sir.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Some final thoughts.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Look, I would just say to all those CEOs out there,
you know, if you're doing something that you love and
you really feel is making a change in the world.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
You're aligning your heart with your values.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
And when your heart and values are aligned, then no
matter how big the challenge out there is, if you
have a great group of people around you. And I'm
so blessed to have an amazing team, and I've shared
number of the different people in my team, including our
chief medical officer who's from John Hopkins and has a
(38:05):
whole interesting story himself. Everybody's just got their own unique story,
and everybody is aligned with the strength of a team.
And when there's heart and soul and it's all congruent
with your values, your values as parents in some cases
in my team, your values as grandparents.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
Because in the world of biotech ages everything right, age
is everything that's high tech and biotech.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
You're able to climb a mount Killerman genre and back
ten times over because you're going to be facing and
every few months we face some really challenging hurdles. But
because there's such conviction and such deep belief in the
impact of what we're doing and our desire to really
(38:55):
change the world, that you're able to actually conquer those hurdles.
And so I just say to people like specifically like
for me, I'm so blessed that at the age of
forty five, I really found my calling. Honestly, like you, Dennis,
I think I was a nightmare for all.
Speaker 4 (39:13):
My biology teachers, right.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
I think I flunked out every class except one on biology,
and I don't want to talk about right, But I
just found that when I came to this company and
spending time with doctor Jokikaga, who's the mother of the
technology and amazing also she has thirty years of experience
in the pharmacide and the biotech side. Together with doctor Malkett,
(39:40):
I just became like a spongergame because I realized that they.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Simplified it for me. They helped me understand what they
were doing, and I realized that if I could tell
their story and if I could work with him with
all my experience in manufacturing and in high tech to
be able to scale the technology, we we as a
team to change the world. Right, And what better way
(40:05):
to wake up Like this is why I wake up
in the morning and I'm pumped and I'm happy. Like literally,
I always when I sit down with all my staff
members and I do like a media review or check in,
and I always ask them, when you wake up in
the morning, where are you?
Speaker 3 (40:21):
On a scale of one to ten. One you don't
want to get out of bed, you can't even open.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Up your eyes. Ten you can't wait to get out
of bed. By the way, there's very few people in
this world that are tens. For the last four and
a half years, I've been like a nine to nine
and a half right, which is amazing. And that's really
driven by the fact that every day I'm focusing all
my energy because there's no politics in our company. This
is either thing all those CEOs out there dealing with
(40:49):
politics pulling knives out of your back.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
It sucks energy when you're mission focused. When everybody comes
to work, from a biologist manufacturing to literally our team
in manufacturing that are working with the bioreactors, everybody understands
this bioreactor is going to produce twelve kilos of our
red grape cell video product and it's going to change
the lives of a few thousand people.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Everybody's all focused. The energy on the outside their hearts
and values are aligned. It's all positive energy and it
just allows for you to be able to achieve success
in a way that is so satisfying. And that's what
(41:33):
I would say to those CEOs out there. Find the
space where your heart and your values are aligned, where
ultimately you can be in your spiritual phase of your
professional career. By the way, it can happen much earlier
in life. The earlier the better.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
You can just stay there for longer, but make sure
you don't spend your time and energy doing something that
your heart and values are not aligned.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Get out of it, get out of it quickly. And
I was lucky that all through my career I was
pretty much aligned. But when I got to the.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
World of biotech and I saw the impact of all
my energy, Wow, right, like it really it's such a
virtuous cycle of energy that permeates individually and from a
team perspective. And this way we can really fulfill our
calling of unlocking the secrets of five hundred thousand plants
(42:30):
that are out there that are ready to be conquered
and utilized in.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
A responsible way, responsible way that leaves the planet in
a situation that generations to come will be able to
enjoy and.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Value well, so, well said man, thank you for that.
So you've got a great website, whoever designed it. It's beautiful,
it's easy to navigate. Let's give the website for everybody
who wants to check out a little bit more about
exactly what you and your team do. Add Bioharvestcience is
what's that?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
What's that? U r L so the webs So the
r L is Bioharvest dot com, b I H A,
R V E S T dot com. And if you
want to lettle more about a product Vinia, you can
go to Vinia dot com. V I N I A
dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
All right, and sir, before you go, I'd like to
pay you a compliment. I've talked to a lot of
CEOs and entrepreneurs on this series for the last four years.
There is a common theme about getting up every day,
being excited about what they do, having the best team
members on the planet that sometimes are usually more smarter
than them and are very good at what they do,
the communication, having fun, working your tails off, being jacked
(43:38):
up about you know about what we're doing and what
the future is, but also your passion and your enthusiasm
come loud and clear through our conversation, and I will
give you a personal story that I relate to a
lot of people that listen to the series. In my industry,
what I do, and i'd like to think over the
thirty years of what I do, I do a pretty
good job. But every hiring manager lon that's ever said, hey, Dennis,
(43:59):
do you know that's why I hired you. It wasn't
for all your gifts and what you brought to the
team and what you're good at. I brought you because
of your passion of the industry. And that comes loud
and clear that you're passionate about what you do. And
I think that's a good lesson for all the entrepreneurs
in future CEOs that if you're passionate about and you're
willing to take chances like our guest has, you're probably
going to succeed. So I want to pay you that
(44:20):
compliment because that came through loud and clear.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
Thank you. I really appreciate it. And you know you've
got to be passionate about what you believe in.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's where Will said, well, listen on,
Thank you so much for a valuable time, continued success.
It really is extraordinary where you and your team are doing,
and we really appreciate you joining us on Iheart's CEOs.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
You should do. Thank you very much. I enjoyed the
opportunity to talk with you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
That's another CEO you should know. Thanks for being a
part of our community, and thank you for listening to
this iHeart Omaha radio station.
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