Our Team

Senior Management

Kyle Kazan

Co-founder, Chairman & CEO

A seasoned investor and expert manager of private equity funds with over two decades of domestic and international experience, Kyle has a track record of growing de novo companies to industry leadership in the fields of fund/asset management, property management and insurance. In 1991 he began investing in real estate, eventually launching a total of 23 Private Equity funds with a current estimated value of owned and managed properties that stands above $2.75 billion. Kyle also served on the boards of multiple international investment and hedge funds before pivoting in 2016 to the regulated cannabis industry, where he closed four funds and consolidated them to form the vertically integrated Glass House Brands. Since his early service as a special education teacher and law enforcement officer, Kyle has been a vocal advocate for police reform and ending the War on Drugs and its injustices, speaking on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and appearing in many media outlets ranging from CNN to Fox. He is a frequent guest professor at NYU Stern School of Business, USC Marshall Business School, and UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Kyle is a graduate of the University of Southern California, where he played varsity basketball for Hall of Fame Coach George Raveling.

Graham Farrar

Co-founder, President & Board Director

Graham is a serial entrepreneur who began his career as part of the original team at Software.com, taking the company public in 1999. Shortly thereafter, he served on the board of Seacology and was part of the founding team at Sonos, where he was involved with product design, development, sales, and customer support. After Sonos, Farrar served as a board member for Heal the Ocean, was a founder and partner of ebook publishers iStoryTime Inc. and zuuka, and founded a Santa Barbara luxury rental company. He first ventured into the regulated cannabis industry by founding Elite Garden Wholesale, an agriculture technology company focused on developing products for the hydroponics industry. Farrar currently sits on the Board of Directors of The Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation.

Mark Vendetti

Chief Financial Officer

With over 30 years of finance and accounting experience, Mark’s career spans a wide variety of industries including retail, CPG, e-commerce, manufacturing, financial services and entertainment. He has worked for some of the world’s most iconic enterprises, including Procter and Gamble, Abercrombie and Fitch, Bauer Hockey, and Mattel. From 2019 to 2021, just prior to joining Glass House Brands, Mark was the CFO of Canndescent, a leading producer of premium cannabis. He was also CFO of Francesca’s, a women’s specialty retailer, from 2013 to 2015, when the company enjoyed annual sales growth rates in excess of 20% and opened 240 new stores. His leadership of turnaround efforts at Bauer Hockey and Mattel generated significant improvements in company profitability, and he has helped engineer two multi-billion-dollar transactions: the merger of XM Satellite Radio with Sirius and the sale of the Sears Credit Card business to Citigroup. He holds a BA in Mathematics from Amherst College and an MBA from Harvard University.

Hilal Tabsh

Chief Revenue Officer

With over two decades of experience in CPG businesses spanning multiple continents and categories, Hilal has an impeccable track record of success in leading sales, marketing and distribution channels. In his fifteen years at Red Bull, he served as the head of sales and marketing strategy based in Dubai, for the Middle East, Africa, and Pacific regions before moving to Red Bull North America in Chicago, where he oversaw sales, marketing and route-to-market distribution strategy, managing over one billion dollars in annual revenue. He then co-founded and helped grow Limitless Beverage company, facilitating its acquisition by Keurig Dr. Pepper within 3 years of its founding. Hilal subsequently joined the cannabis industry, as Senior VP at BellRock Brands (Mary’s Medicinals, Dixie & others) and then as Chief Revenue Officer at SlangWorldWide (O-Pen Vape, District Edibles & others). In these roles, he oversaw strategy, sales growth, and brand development for THC and CBD product lines across North America. He grew the distribution footprint of BellRock Brands by 10x and also expanded the presence of Slang’s O-Pen Vape brand, growing market share to reach a leadership spot in multiple states, including Colorado. Regardless of market, product or category, Hilal’s greatest strength lies in his ability to drive substantial revenue growth via an understanding of consumer behavior and distribution channels.

Benjamin Vega

General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

Benjamin Vega is a corporate lawyer with over 20 years of experience in complex business transactions and litigation across a range of industries.
Mr. Vega has extensive expertise in Finance, Private Equity, M&A, Banking, Gaming and Hospitality, Media, Professional Sports and Construction.
Prior to joining Glass House Brands, Mr. Vega served as Deputy General Counsel for Covetrus, Inc., a $4B public company in the animal health industry. Mr. Vega has also served as General Counsel for Manhattan West, a Venture Capital, Private Equity and Financial Services firm and for the Meruelo Group, a multi-asset family office with holdings in Gaming and Hospitality, Media, Professional Sports, Food Service, Construction, Real Estate and Banking. Prior to the Meruelo Group, Mr. Vega was a Senior Counsel at Sony Pictures Entertainment and served as an Associate General Counsel for Ascent Media Group. Mr. Vega began his legal career with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.
Mr. Vega earned an AB from Harvard College and a JD from Harvard Law School.

John Brebeck

VP Investor Relations

John has more than 25 years of investment advisory experience. Prior to joining Glass House Brands, he was Senior Advisor at Quantum International Corporation, Taiwan’s premier Capital Market Advisory firm. He was also previously the Head of Research at Yuanta Securities, the No. 1 Broker in Taiwan. While at Yuanta, Mr. Brebeck became the first-ever foreign-born President of Yuanta Investment Consulting. He also was the Head of Research for the Dalton Greater China Fund and continues to serve as an External Director to the Fund. During the early years of Taiwan’s rise to become an IT manufacturing powerhouse, Mr. Brebeck was Head of Research & Senior Technology Analyst at JP Morgan Securities in Taiwan, and a key member of JP Morgan’s top-ranked Asia Ex-Japan Technology Research Team. John is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in China Regional Studies from Georgetown University and attained his MBA degree at the University of Chicago Booth. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Ben Vasquez

VP Farm Operations

Ben has been working at Houweling Nurseries, the business formerly operating at Glass House Brands’ SoCal cultivation location, since serving as a Construction Supervisor on the facility’s very first phase of construction in 1996. By 1999, when the facility doubled from 40 to 87 acres under glass, he became Labor Manager, overseeing the entire site and working to improve labor efficiencies. He then applied this cost-saving mentality to the entire operation when he became Operations Manager in 2004. In 2007, the site expanded by another 38 acres, bringing the total acreage under glass to 125, and after the company constructed its Utah facility, Ben became the General Manager of US Operations. He continues to lead a number of efficiency-based projects and has served on the Board of Directors of the Ventura County Agriculture Association.

Jennifer Barry

VP Retail

For over 25 years, Jen has worked to grow and transform retail operations for well-known companies such as Nordstrom and Anthropologie (an Urban Outfitters brand). She joined the cannabis industry in 2018 as Vice President of Retail for Green Thumb Industries (GTI), a publicly-held multi-state operator, where she helped scaled retail expansion from 8 to 25 locations across 7 states and served as a member of the executive leadership team that more than doubled annual revenue while elevating gross profit. Prior to GTI, Jen led large-format and wedding retail brands at Anthropologie/URBN and was the Director of Retail for the Eastern/Western/Southwestern regions, executing the opening of new large-format and wedding stores, launched 80 additional new stores, implemented omnichannel improvement initiatives across the brand, and directed teams of up to 4,000 employees across 11 regions. She credits strong relationship- and team-building as the core principle of her successes.

Will Tu

VP Corporate Controller

Jacqueline de Ginestet

VP Sales

Beginning her career in the Alcohol Beverage Industry, Jacqueline has spent over 12 years building brands and developing high performing teams. Jacqueline joined the Cannabis Industry in 2021 as Vice President of Sales for Canndescent, a leading producer of premium cannabis. She has held leadership roles for beverage industry majors such as E&J Gallo Winery and Young’s Market Company. Clearly mapping out sales strategies, providing her sales teams with the right tools and closely tracking execution of these strategies are the straightforward steps Jacqueline credits with expanding the market share of the well-known brands she managed. Examples include growing Tito’s and Jack Daniels into the No. 1 Vodka and Whisky brands, respectively, and establishing Menage a Trois as the No. 1 Red Blend Wine. Jacqueline graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Business Administration from the Marshall School of Business.

Josh Karchmer

VP Marketing

Josh is a creative brand builder and marketer with over two decades experience across the cannabis, music and advertising industries. Most recently, Josh was the Head of Marketing for High Season, where he led the rebrand of High Season and the creation of Gratitude brand. Josh followed his passions to cannabis in 2018 with MOXIE, where he led the launch initiatives of the DART vaporizer & MX Brand and led digital marketing for California, Arizona and Nevada. Prior to cannabis, Karchmer was a commercial director, producing content campaigns for global brands including Microsoft, Jeep and Chevrolet. He started his career in the music industry as a marketer and artist manager, representing clients signed to Epic, Universal and Columbia Records.