(Chicago, IL) – November 2, 2018 – PRESS RELEASE – Cresco Labs, one of the largest vertically integrated multi-state cannabis operators in the United States, has announced the appointment of Scott Wilson to the new role of chief experience officer. As CXO, Wilson will extend Cresco Labs’ mission to professionalize and mainstream cannabis as a conventional consumer product with brands tailored to the largest consumer segments.
Scott Wilson, former global creative director for Nike, has also been a design leader for many top consumer organizations including IDEO, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Fortune Brands and Motorola. His work has been recognized with countless international design awards, including the prestigious Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Product Design (2012), an honor bestowed on the top designer in the country. Wilson has been featured in WIRED Magazine, ID Magazine’s Top 40, TIME Magazine’s Style+Design100 and Fast Company’s Masters of Design, where he was named one of the 50 Most Influential Designers in America. In 2007, he founded MNML, a globally-recognized product development and brand incubation firm serving clients such as Microsoft, Xbox, Logitech, Dell, Nike, Adidas and Coalesse. Over the past decade he has also founded, invested and partnered with dozens of early stage startups to accelerate and amplify their market entry including sparking the global crowdfunding movement with the first million-dollar Kickstarter in history.
“Scott has been designing the ‘consumer experience’ for decades,” said Cresco Labs CEO and Co-Founder Charlie Bachtell. “Design can be a powerful tool for educating, guiding, inspiring and on-boarding new consumers looking for effective alternative relief through cannabis solutions that have been, up until now, unregulated and confusing. As our CXO, Scott will be a tremendous asset to Cresco, and a game-changer for the cannabis industry, where Scott’s ingenuity will offer a world-class perspective on the consumer experience for marijuana.”
Wilson will be charged with inspiring, defining and overseeing the elevation of all brand touch points across the Cresco Labs portfolio as well as playing a major role in new ventures including product strategy, design, packaging, retail, digital, product forms and future brand sensory experiences and collaborations. He will continue to separately manage MNML, the design studio he founded over a decade ago. While MNML serves clients across numerous verticals, Wilson’s dual role will allow him to leverage his award-winning design and engineering teams, as well as top creative talent in his network, to accelerate Cresco’s mission to develop industry-leading, integrated product experiences for its brands and customers.
“In this early stage of the legitimate cannabis industry, I feel it is critically important to employ strategic design thinking and world-class product development practices to help define, develop and execute thoughtful and meaningful experiences for those looking for alternative relief,” said Wilson. “The safe, non-toxic, pain management that medical cannabis can provide is incredibly promising and embedding design strategy at the beginning of an emerging consumer category can significantly improve outcomes for all involved. I look forward to leveraging my background in consumer, lifestyle, and medical product design and development to influence and elevate the user journey in this industry – both for the medicinal and recreational use markets.”
