Meet Noa Kahner | CEO of Kahner Global

We had the good fortune of connecting with Noa Kahner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Noa, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The ideal to start Kahner Global began when I was doing my MBA at Baruch College. It was always my dream to start my own business and when I finally felt the opportunity to do it was there, I decided to go for it. During my MBA, I designed a business plan and set forth in creating an extremely curated conference series for ultra high net worth investors and family offices in the cannabis industry. We now produce the Cannabis & Psychedelics Investment Summit three times a year in Miami, New York, and London.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Kahner Global specializes in curating high-level investor conferences and private events. The Cannabis and Psychedelics Investment Summits are exclusively for institutional investors, family offices, and ultra high net worth investors. The summits have been hosted annually in New York City, San Francisco, Toronto, Fort Lauderdale, Beverly Hills and London. We are the premiere investment conference in these industries.

The biggest challenge was putting together our first event in New York City back in 2015. I was just starting and didn’t have a business partner. Originally, I was in talks with an old wall street client to work together on the events series, but I quickly realized it wouldn’t be a fit for us to work together and we went our separate ways. I then began speaking with another family office I knew to work together. However, after planning together for over a month, I learned this individual wanted me to do all the work while they would receive most of the equity. It didn’t make any sense and I decided I would just do it on my own.

So, I began from scratch. I took a class from wix and built my own website. I attended a cannabis expo in New York City to meet some people in the space and to hopefully book a speaker or sponsor. I pitched a few law firms in NYC to get a venue for our first conference. Slowly but surely, things began to work out. Sponsors began to sign up and we ended up with almost 100 attendees at our first conference in New York. I got a lot of no’s but still kept going- I really wanted this to be a success! I think my drive and the help of those I met along the way is what helped make Kahner Global such a success.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love the Living Room at the Faena Hotel for their live music. It’s also so easy to spend the evening there eating dinner and then going for drinks and listening to their extremely talented performers.

Walk along Espanola way and Lincoln Road. Grab dinner at MILA, Paperfish, or Hosteria Romana.

Getting brunch at Sadelle’s in Coconut Grove and walking around the shops.

Grab lunch at Jaffa, an awesome Israeli food spot, and walk around the design district.

Go bike riding along the beach to South Pointe Park and walk along the water. Sunset Dinner at Smith & Wollensky

Favorite restaurants:

Mandolin

Moshi Moshi

Battubelin

Abbale

Call Me Gaby

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I really owe the idea to start doing cannabis conferences to my good friend Seth. I was boarding a plane and bumped into him as I was walking to my seat. I told him that I wanted to start an investment conference company but I didn’t know what would be the area of focus- real estate, private equity, hedgefund? What could I do that’s different and unique? He said that if he were starting a conference company, he would definitely do a cannabis conference. This was in 2015 when the cannabis industry was just starting….

My old mentor, Abbas, really encouraged me to start my own business. His mentorship and friendship helped me so much when I was first starting. He even gifted my first Kahner Global standing banner and business cards.

I owe a big thank you to Duane Morris, the law firm which hosted my first event in New York City. They believed in me when I didn’t have a brand yet and were such an essential partner of mine at the beginning. We still work together to this day and I love their team dearly.

My mother always encouraged me to further my education and always told me that I would start my own company or be a manager. Her encouragement is one of the reasons I got an MBA.

Website: www.kahnerglobal.com

Instagram: kahnerglobal

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kahner-global/

Twitter: @KahnerGlobal

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kahnerglobal/