Marty Sumichrast has been an entrepreneur and business advisor for over 35 years. His businesses have operated on three continents and employed thousands of people. He grew up the youngest child of Eastern European immigrants in Washington DC. Marty’s recent businesses include several high profile publicly traded companies.

Marty Sumichrast was the co-founder and former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of cbdMD, Inc. (NYSE: YCBD) and served as a member of the board of directors and Chairman of the Board of Directors from April 2015 until June 2023.  Marty raised over $100,000,000 in equity and debt financings for cbdMD. He founded the Company in March 2015, was responsible taking the Company public in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in November 2017. Marty was responsible for the acquisition of the cbdMD brand in December 2018 in a $135,000,000 transaction and then growing the Company into a $400,000,000 market capitalization value, having it included in the Russell 3000 Index, generating over $250,000,000 in total aggregate sales with, managing over 200 employees and over 1,000,000 in customer transactions and received numerous achievement awards for Products of the Year.

Marty also was the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer and served as a member of the board of directors of Adara Acquisition Corp., since its formation and the Manager of its sponsor, Adara Sponsor, LLC, since its formation in August 2020. Mr. Sumichrast completed Adara’s Initial Public Offering on the NYSE in February 2022 which raised over $115,000,000 in equity capital for Adara. Adara acquired Alliance Entertainment in a $600,000,000 transaction in June 2023.
  
From 2013 until July 2020, he served as the Managing Member of Stone Street Capital, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based private equity firm, where he was responsible rise of the business and then for the successful wind down, after returning millions of dollars in assets to investors after it was devastated by the Siskey Ponzi scheme. This period is the basis for Getting Sheared.
 
Marty also served as a Trustee and Chairman of the Nominating and Governance Committees of the Barings Global Short Duration High Yield Fund, Inc. (NYSE: BGH) and the Barings Capital Funds Trust, Inc. from 2012 to 2022. From 1993 to 2002, he founded Global Capital Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: GCAP), his first public company and served as its Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, and during this period he built from this company from a start-up to a global investment bank with over 500 employees with 27 offices globally and several billion in assets under management. Prior to Global Capital Partners, Marty helped finance many new ventures in Czechoslovakia, where his late father Michael immigrated. In 1992, Marty’s USA Builders broke ground on a subdivision in Prague called Na Visluni. The first of its kind, USA Builders, partnered with home building giant, Trammell Crow, offered American style homes with wood construction and all American made materials. USA Builders’ model home was chosen by the US Department of Commerce as the “Model Home of the Year” for Eastern Europe. Marty was only 26 years old.
 
Marty has also co-authored two books with his father, Opportunities in Financial Careers and The New Complete Book of Home Buying, both published by Dow Jones Irving Books. Marty resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife of 27 years, Cindy. They have four amazing children, Isabelle, Martin II, Andrew, and Caroline.

Don Yaeger is an American author and public speaker. Don has authored and co-authored more than 30 books, including 12 New York Times best-sellers. He worked as a reporter for the San Antonio Light from 1984 -1985, as a reporter and Capitol Bureau Chief for Dallas Morning News from 1986 – 1990, and as writer and Associate Editor for Sports Illustrated from 1996 – 2008. Don Yaeger co-authored the autobiography of Pro-Football Hall of Fame Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton, Never Die Easy. He has co-authored with other notable sports figures such as former UCLA head basketball coach John Wooden, Chicago Cubs Manager David Ross, former (NFL) Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher, and Masters Tournament champion Bubba Watson. Don Yaeger co-authored, with former Duke University lacrosse head coach Mike Pressler, It’s Not About The Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives it Shattered, which accounts for events during the 2006 Duke lacrosse case. Don Yaeger co-authored, with Brian Kilmeade of Fox News: George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History and Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans: The Battle That Shaped America’s Destiny.

Jason Cole is an investigative reporter and author or co-authored of eight books, including the biography of Hall of Famer John Elway (Elway: A Relentless Life), Shut Up, Your Kid is Not That Great, including a foreword by Tom Brady Sr., Giant with Plaxico Burress, Heart for the Game with Simon Keith, and Ocho Cinco with Chad Johnson. Before covering the NFL, Cole covered the NBA, Major League Baseball, and high school sports in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cole’s five-year investigation of Reggie Bush and the University of Southern California resulted in Bush becoming the only player ever to relinquish his Heisman Trophy and USC losing its 2004 national championship. Cole has worked for publications such as Bleacher Report, Yahoo! Sports, The Miami Herald, and The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. He started his career with the Peninsula Times-Tribune in Palo Alto. Cole is a graduate of Stanford University, served as an adjunct professor in the Journalism Department at the University of Florida for 11 years and is the father of two Eagle Scouts.