James Whitcomb has served as the Interim Chief Financial Officer and Chief Development Officer of Parallel, one of the largest privately held multi-state cannabis companies in the world, since October 2019 and was appointed a member of its board of directors in July 2018. On February 22, 2021, Ceres Acquisition Corp. (“Ceres”) (OTCQX:CERAF), a special purpose acquisition corporation, announced a definitive business combination agreement involving a transaction that would result in Parallel becoming a public company. Mr. Whitcomb also serves as a Managing Partner of Tesseract Ventures, a consumer-focused venture capital and growth equity vehicle that makes investments in early-stage, branded consumer product companies. Mr. Whitcomb joined Parallel as its first Chief Financial Officer in 2016, a role he held until 2019. Prior to Parallel, he worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Restructuring Groups at Perella Weinberg Partners, an investment bank in New York, where he executed over $22 billion in transactions across multiple industries. He began his career with Dory Ventures, a consumer brand-focused family investment office, where he was a turnaround consultant for portfolio companies and spent extensive time in China on manufacturing assignments. Mr. Whitcomb received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University.