◼ BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek July 22, 2019
20
executives in Colorado were women, but two
years later that had dropped to 27%, according to
Marijuana Business Daily. Some in the industry fear
thesamelackofdiversitythat’scharacterized such
sectorsasfinanceandtechnologywillbecomethe
normforthefastgrowingpotworld.
“It’sthedoubleedged sword of capitalism,” says
Fahed Sultan Al Essa, a graduate student at the
University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of
Business who’s researching the cannabis industry
and hosted an inaugural summit on gender diver
sity in the sector earlier this year. “As the industry
gets more and more appealing, more money comes
in and sexism comes in.” Women in the industry
interviewed by Bloomberg say they’ve experienced
sexism, from being told to dress in heels and a skirt
for a meeting with investors to being asked when
they plan to have children and having questions
redirected to male colleagues.
Among the 20 most valuable publicly traded
cannabis companies in the U.S. and Canada, there
are only two female chief executive officers and not
a single chief financial officer. There’s also a notice
able lack of women on boards: At those same busi
nesses, just 13% of board members are women,
compared with about 31% for the top 20 banks. Six
of the top marijuana companies have no female
board members. “The boards are mostly made up
ofoldwhiteguys,”saysJeannetteVanderMarel,
whofoundedGreenOrganicDutchman,a Canadian
potcompanyworthmorethan$600million,and
is nowcoCEOofTorontobased 48North Cannabis
Corp. “A glass ceiling certainly already exists.”
Canopy Growth Corp., the world’s most valu
able cannabis company, has only one woman on
itsboard.Boostingdiversityis partofthemandate
ofHilaryBlack,anindustryveteranwhojoined
theOntariobased company in 2015 and became
chief advocacy officer earlier this year. She says the
dearth of women and minorities is a result of the
nascent industry’s focus on growth. “When peo
ple criticize Canopy and the industry for the lack of
diversity, it’s important to understand that it’s not
something that happened consciously,” she says.
“It’s not like there was a group of men sitting in
a boardroom stroking their beards going, ‘Hmm,
how are we going keep all the ladies out of this?’
It’s a matter of how fast everything grew.”
Weed was dominated by men when it was strictly
a black market business; as the legal industry has
evolved, some of that gender imbalance has lin
gered.Somepotcompanies,includingonesrun
bywomen,aretryingtomakethebusinessmore
femalefriendly, with executives frequently talking
about pulling in customers from outside the base
THEBOTTOMLINE Thenascentpotindustrywasexpectedto
befemale-friendly.Butthetop20 cannabis companies include just
two female CEOs and few women directors.
ofstonerdudes,whobuythelion’sshareofweed.
But evenwiththe focuson soccermomsand
professional women looking to swap chardonnay
for a vape pen, there are still concerns that female
founders and executives are getting pushed aside.
“I’ve watched one woman after another take in
sometypeofcapitalorpartnershipdealforherbusi
ness,andnextthingyouknowshe’snolongerthe
CEO,”saysJessicaBillingsley,cofounder and CEO
of Akerna Corp., which provides consulting services
● Share of women on
boards, by industry*
BankingApparel
Tech
Cannabis
31% 29%
22%
13%
andcompliancesoftwaretothecannabisindustry.It
recentlybecamethefirstfemaleled cannabis busi
ness to list on Nasdaq. “It’s a discouraging trend.”
VanderMarel says that’s pretty much what hap
pened to her. She lost her daughter to Dravet syn
drome, a rare form of epilepsy, and became an
advocate for medical access to cannabis after seeing
a mom use it to help boost her son’s appetite during
chemotherapy.Sheandherhusbandbuiltanindoor
potfarmandfoundedGreenOrganicDutchmanin
2012.Afterit wona soughtafter Canadian license
to produce weed in 2016, as legalization for recre
ational use approached, venture capitalists became
controllingshareholdersandeventuallyinstalleda
CEO.VanderMarelsaysshedecidedtoleaveafter
herresponsibilitieswerecuttoa parttime role.
Now she shares the CEO role with Alison Gordon
at48North,whichhasthreefemaleboardmem
bers.WhileVanderMarelishopefulcorporate
cannabis can turn the tide on its gender problem,
she acknowledges it will be difficult. “It’s an uphill
battle,” she says. “It takes years to change boards.”
�Ellen Milligan, Kristine Owram, and Jordyn
Holman, with Sam Unsted