Meet The Team

Meet the founding team of EMA Partners

Ted Harris, Partner

Harris is a seasoned entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist with over 25 years of professional experience in real estate and specialty finance. After 20 years as a commercial real estate broker, in 2016, Ted recognized the growing economic impact of the nascent cannabis business, when he co-founded Sweet Leaf Capital. Ted has led the financing initiatives for SLC, raising commitments of over $116M and making the company one of the largest equipment lessors in the cannabis & hemp industries. Today, now Sweet Leaf Madison Capital, has expanded services to provide equipment financing, real estate PE, and working capital to businesses nationwide. After founding a GFSI compliance certifying body in 2020, namely AVC, Ted Co-Founded EMA Partners and continues to work extensively in the capital financing, Real Estate and M&A verticals.

Luke DeNuccio, Partner

DeNuccio began his executive foundation in the software industry, building and expanding high performance sales teams, successfully leading two organizations through M&A and post integration efforts. Quick expansion from software into high end consulting alongside IBM, Deloitte, PwC, Accenture, Capgemini, Optum and others gave DeNuccio a newfound operational and infrastructural expertise, leading him to found Luca Ventures, an industry agnostic consulting firm focused on the operational, infrastructural, and commercial/global growth strategy build outs. In 5 years since its inception, DeNuccio has led Luca Ventures to facilitate multi-million-dollar capital funding efforts and successfully taken 3 organizations through liquidity events, positioned off of the foundational build outs Luca conducted. In process of building affiliation to several Hemp & Cannabis VCs, DeNuccio for the last 4 years has owned the infrastructure, sales, global expansion, and capital financing efforts for GVB Biopharma, successfully exiting them in May 2022 to publicly listed, 22nd Century Group (Nasdaq: XXII). Since its inception, Luke has led the strategy and go forward build out of Harris’ GFSI certification AVC and shortly after Co-Founded EMA Partners alongside his Partner Ted.

Michael Pappalardo, Chief Science Officer

Pappalardo has been at the forefront of innovation across the pharmaceutical world for over 25 years. While the list of notable achievements cannot be summed up in short words, Michael has built 12 RX/OTC facilities for giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Merck, and others, including the build out of a facility of his own. Michael has led drug ingredient registrations, INDs, NDA’s, ANDA’s and formulated, developed and patented some of the most well-known over the counter products such as the Advil Liquid Gel, first generation AIDS drugs, and the Tylenol Children’s Chewable tablets among many others. He has developed and educated tablet, particle and modified release coating technologies for specific delivery systems and built academia around it. In addition to the formulation skill sets, Michael brings considerable process engineering and optimization across all operational functions with an emphasis on streamlining activities to control costs and increase output. Michaels work incorporates considerable global regulatory background in facility concerns, dossier compilation and filings, product development and beyond providing a unique pharmaceutical lens for opportunity.