Most people get one career. I’ve been restless enough to run two — and it took me years to see they were never really separate.
The media years. I started at Dick Clark Productions in the 80's and then at Nickelodeon in the 90's, casting the shows a generation grew up on. Then I went into the deep end of commercial production — 5,000+ commercials as a staff producer, thousands of small stories each built for hundreds of clients. I directed a film that premiered at the opening ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics. Around 2000, I helped build one of the first video-enabled social networks — streaming video years before the tools existed to make it easy, and before most people had the word for it. I’ve also spent 20+ years as a working voice-over artist. I’ve spent my whole life a little early.
The cannabis years. In 2009 I made a bet most people thought was reckless and co-founded Phototron — now GrowLife — an early publicly traded cannabis company. Over the sixteen years since, I served as president and CEO of two companies through their journeys to the public markets, co-founded an early-licensed Nevada testing lab (Digipath Labs — the first to take in a regulated sample tested in the state), grew it into a market leader and drove it to acquisition, and structured a multi-state operator through M&A.
The throughline. Alongside all of it, I founded The National Marijuana News — an independent, fact-based platform that’s reached hundreds of thousands of people and let me interview 150+ of the industry’s most important voices, from scientists and patients to CEOs and lawmakers. I host three podcasts, co-authored the book Money Matters, and speak at conferences like the Milken Institute Global Conference. Here’s what two careers taught me: they’re the same job. A thirty-second spot, a public offering, a board presentation — underneath, the work is always trust. The instinct that built audiences is the same one that raises capital and steadies a boardroom. I’m not done building, and I’m most interested in the places where media, technology, and emerging industries collide.
If that’s your world — let’s talk. 📍 Las Vegas, NV · ✉️ todd@tnmnews.com · 📞 702.604.7896 · 🌐 todddenkin.com
