Previously to founding JLS Fund, Simeon served in various leadership capacities across several industries. As a seasoned founder, entrepreneur, and operator, he led several teams to successful exits.

He founded an engagement and gamification platform, which was the winner of the 4th Annual Digital Media Learning Competition supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He co-founded the High Art Collective in 2008, the world’s first Psychedelic Art Gallery and Medical Marijuana Dispensary. It was praised as a paradigm shift at the very beginning of the end of prohibition and was featured in the Wall Street Journal and Rolling Stone.

Simeon founded the Hinman Foundation where he served as trustee and president focusing on making grants to community-based organizations, building capacity, and diaspora diplomacy. He formulated the vision and led all efforts on the ground in Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal, Myanmar, India, and Bhutan. There he also oversaw grants to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) which included a study on the Psychological and Cognitive Effects of Long-Term Peyote Use and the efficacy of hallucinogens for treating substance dependence.

As the founder of a multinational trading and manufacturing company, he led sustainability and innovation from Shanghai for 7 years, where he shipped some of the first bioplastic products to the largest retailers on the planet. There he also acquired worldwide exclusive licenses for some of the most recognizable brands.

Simeon produced, directed, wrote, and starred in DOT, a feature-length critically acclaimed mockumentary and multi-festival award winner that was picked up by Showtime and Netflix.

He has mentored underserved youth while a faculty member of the Second City Conservatory where he taught thousands of students over many years.

Simeon advises several non-profits, psychedelic and impact startups, is an Aspen Institute Fellow, and a member of the New York Mycology Society.

His introduction to psychedelics came 30+ years ago in Chicago where he studied with Dr. Robert E.L. Masters and Jean Huston Ph.D., who authored the seminal book The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience: The Classic Guide to the Effects of LSD on the Human Psyche. Later, he immersed himself in the Amazon with various ayahuasqueros and syncretic churches, which showed him the power and efficacy of plant medicines, now becoming mainstreamed and medicalized.

Simeon has spent over 3 decades deeply immersed in the research, philanthropy, activism, policy, criminal justice reform, and the science of psychedelics. He is a sought-after speaker and co-hosted the world’s first Psychedelic Investment Summit at the beginning of this decade.

Born into a Peace Corps family, his early life was spent on assignment overseas where the ethos of exploration and helping others became deeply ingrained in his belief system.