CannabizTeam CEO Liesl Bernard recently spoke with Tiffany Kary of Bloomberg about executive staffing in the cannabis industry. In the past, top executives would typically steer clear from positions in the marijuana industry. Today, this trend is headed in the opposite direction.
“When I started my business in 2016, I used to have to beg people to take a chance on cannabis,” says Liesl. “Executives were concerned that working with marijuana, which is illegal on the federal level in the U.S., could cause them to lose professional licenses in areas like accounting or law. In 2020, CannabizTeam doubled our number of cannabis staff hires to over 1,000, with 25% to 30% of those at the management and executive levels.”
Liesl goes on to discuss a number of hiring trends she’s noticed in the cannabis industry:
- Executives and senior management from mainstream industries like consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, retail and pharmaceutical are increasingly moving into the cannabis space
- Salaries for top cannabis executives continue to rise across the country in almost all cannabis verticals and are now commensurate with most other industries
- Competitive demand is increasing and finding qualified executive candidates remains a challenge for many companies
The article concludes with the following question: have the desirable, sought after executives actually tried cannabis for themselves? Liesl says that level of detail isn’t necessarily important from a recruitment standpoint, but CannabizTeam does ask candidates about their overall experience with cannabis.
Bloomberg is a global business and financial news leader providing decision makers with information and ideas to give them a critical edge.
To read the Bloomberg article by Tiffany Kary in its entirety, visit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-13/executives-no-longer-spooked-by-pot-jobs-cannabis-weekly.
If your cannabis company is looking for strategic leadership to help ensure a lasting competitive advantage, reach out to our cannabis executive search team today.
