Pot firms luring mainstream business talent
Mainstream executives want in on the cannabis craze.
That’s not surprising, with the value of some Canadian pot businesses topping $10 billion and Coca-Cola Co. and Molson Coors Brewing Co. eyeing marijuana as the next trendy ingredient. But the burgeoning industry faces a unique hurdle: pot is still illegal at the national level in the U.S. – the world’s biggest consumer market.
As Canada prepares to legalize weed next week, and regulations loosen in some U.S. states, there’s growing demand for experienced executives to take leadership roles and help startup companies create the next generation of pot products. Yet, the federal ban in the U.S. has created a legal minefield for headhunters trying to find enough bodies to meet demand.
“Getting started in cannabis is probably a lot like when Prohibition ended in the 1930s,” said Catherine Van Alstine, who recruits executives for the industry as a partner in Vancouver for search company Boyden.
“Everybody thought the world was going to end because alcohol was going to become available and legitimate. That’s the way to think about cannabis.”
The latest flashpoint for recruiters: threats from U.S. Customs officials of potential lifetime bans for Canadians employed in the pot business trying to enter the U.S. That’s forced some executives in Canada to reconsider taking board seats or executive roles at weed companies. And search firms are fielding questions from U.S. business leaders as well, who are concerned about the implications of being tied to corporate cannabis.
The tension is complicating hiring for Gabriella’s Kitchen, a packaged-food company that’s adding a line with cannabis-infused products for sale in California, said CEO Margot Micallef. The Calgary-based company retained three search firms, including Boyden, to help it fill posts such as chief operating officer and vice president of development and will soon seek a chief financial officer, she said. Most of its sales are in the U.S., and the company has a manufacturing facility in Santa Rosa, Calif., she said.
“The roles that we are hiring for are all U.S. positions,” Micallef said, partly because of the border risk and lack of support from Canada’s government. “The result of that might be that Canadians don’t get offered positions that they might otherwise have been qualified for.”
Even without Canadians, Micallef said there’s been no shortage of people reaching out to show interest in the positions.
Ahead of Canadian legalization, the value of the industry there has surged to about $60 billion in the stock market, with shares spiking on any mention of cannabis. Canada’s government has estimated annual legal pot sales of roughly $3.1 billion. The market is already larger in the U.S., where a handful of states have legalized adult use. Total U.S. sales of legal pot are expected to reach $11 billion this year, according to a report by Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics.