CannabizTeam’s CEO, Liesl Bernard, was recently interviewed by The Story Exchange for an article looking at the future of the cannabis industry, especially when it comes to the important role of women and minorities. The article explores the question: What does the future look like for this growing industry’s most marginalized players as legality spreads and the pandemic persists?
The article starts out with an overview of the burgeoning cannabis industry in early 2021:
- Five states joined the steady march toward legalization in November 2020, making cannabis legal in all but six U.S. states
- 91 percent of Americans now approve of cannabis being legalized in some form
- Many cannabis businesses were deemed essential when the COVID-19 crisis began, a huge step in the right direction for the industry
- Cannabis is still illegal on a federal level, which presents significant obstacles and notably limits industry growth
Liesl points out one of the major complications currently affecting cannabis entrepreneurs trying to launch or scale: “In the legal cannabis industry, each state has its own set of compliance laws, and because of that, each state has its own individual cultivation, testing, distribution and selling procedures. As you can imagine, this makes for a very challenging climate to do business in.”
The article by Candice Helfand-Rogers continues on to discuss diversity in the industry (or lack thereof), and what industry leaders are doing to combat the issue.
“Right now, men hold over 80 percent of cannabis c-level and board of director positions at the 50 largest public cannabis companies,” says Liesl. “Our mission is to help change that, which is why we launched CT Board Placement, a staffing division focused solely on increasing diversity and effective leadership in the cannabis industry.”
The Story Exchange is a nonprofit media organization dedicated to exploring the roles and stories of women business owners and entrepreneurs.
To read more about Candice Helfand-Roger’s article, visit: https://thestoryexchange.org/cannabis-legalization-coronavirus-pandemic-women-minority-entrepreneurs/.
Contact us to learn more about CT Board Placement, CannabizTeam’s newest staffing division focused on increasing diversity among cannabis executives.
