Meet Three Women Who Are Disrupting the Canna-business
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December 2019
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For women bent on disrupting, it may be a perfect time in cannabis. What is estimated to be a $44.8 billion market in the United States Yes, the deck is stacked against you if you’re female. Much has been made, and rightly so, of a cannabis playing field now tilted unfairly Despite the numbers, and in some cases because of them, women — including women of color — are entering cannabis because they see the opportunity to shape the industry. They are determined to make it inclusive, responsible, and a business that caters to people like them. Meet three of these disruptors who transitioned from ambitious careers to come shake up the greenway.
Related: A Cannabis Entrepreneur Shares What She Wishes She Knew Before Starting Her Business
Advocating for Social Justice
Shanel Lindsay, CEO, Ardent
A career in pot was nowhere in Shanel Lindsay’s plans as a girl. The type A powerhouse was raised Inspired, Lindsay made her way to Northeastern University School of Law. A legal career, she figured, not only could be financially rewarding; it would also feed her deeper passion for social justice — which turned out to be true, but not quite in the way she expected.
Lindsay was practicing as an attorney in Massachusetts when she got arrested for possession during a routine traffic stop. She’d started using marijuana, before it was legal, to help relieve pain from ovarian cysts and to relax. And although she was never charged (she had less than the legal limit), she says she was put in a holding cell with no probable cause. That harrowing experience stoked her fire to change things for the disadvantaged and people of color. But it didn’t lessen her interest in pot.
At home in her kitchen, Lindsay was already experimenting with making raw weed ingestible Related: She Was a Caterer. Now She’s a Budtender.
Meanwhile, she saw the chance to do something about social injustice in her new industry “I loved the power that came with being an attorney, but I reached a point where I wasn’t able to use my voice in the most effective way,” says Lindsay, whose company is partnering with programs for youth and the disadvantaged, and has raised $1 million and generated more than $7 million in revenue with a commercial model to launch in 2020. “Now I am.”
Fighting for Diversity
Jeanne M. Sullivan, General partner, The Arcview Group
Jeanne M. Sullivan shocked her family and friends when she jumped into the cannabis industry with both feet. “I had excoriated my husband and kids when they used cannabis. The stigma was upon me,” Sullivan admits. “But once I researched the industry, I realized all the social injustice that existed — the arrests and felony convictions, particularly for people of color — and I experienced firsthand the wellness issues.”
The other thing that got her attention were the numbers. Sullivan, whose background includes operating roles at ATT and Bell Labs, cofounded a tech-focused VC firm for which she’s still a special adviser. “Being a long-time investor, within five seconds, I saw the economic upside and that cannabis was the next big wave, and how there were so many similarities to the early tech days,” says Sullivan, who became general partner at The Arcview Group, the first and largest group of high-net-worth cannabis investors, with more than $280 million invested so far. “I learned a lot from the blatant inequities in tech. We have a responsibility to push harder for inclusion and diversity, and the only way to do that is for all underrepresented and traditionally disadvantaged populations to help each other.”
Having made it to the top of the cannabis industry, Sullivan advises female entrepreneurs about the educational and network-building resources available to them and coaches teams on things like packaging and messaging. Most important, she opens the door for financing in a way that traditionally has been available to only a chosen few. “This gets me excited — the opportunity to create a whole new world where we all can truly win,” says Sullivan. “That is the opportunity a new industry like cannabis brings.”
Growing the Female Market
Victoria Flores, Cofounder, Lux Beauty Club
When Victoria Flores landed her first job in the financial industry, it was no small feat. As a Mexican American teenager, she’d been the first in her family to go to college. But during her 18 years at firms like Morgan Stanley Prime Brokerage and Katz Capital, she knew Wall Street was just a stopping point. She wanted to start her own business and, as a user of CBD, started eyeing the new industry. Compared with the world she was in, it seemed to be a more level playing field for women and people of color. And, if she succeeded, she could bring in a whole new market of female consumers to help keep the field level.
Related: Chelsea Handler Gets Into the Cannabis Business
Flores teamed up with a childhood friend, a registered nurse named Leslie Wilson. They both saw a huge white space in the beauty industry. “CBD-infused beauty products tend to be either low-rent, with marijuana-leaf packaging targeting men,” says Flores, “or very expensive body serums at Sephora.” She and Wilson decided to make CBD products for the mainstream cosmetics market. Raising $750,000 in seed funding from some of Flores’ former Wall Street connections, they founded Lux Beauty Club in 2016.
Rather than investing in booth space at crowded cannabis trade shows that tend to cater to the “stoner” crowd, the cofounders put on lab coats and found their place at beauty industry conventions, where they’ve been one of only a few CBD brands on the show floor. “We have the best packaging, and being women doesn’t hurt,” says Flores. “The women commercial buyers love to do business with other women.”
Three years after launch, Lux Beauty Club has a partnership with Express Brands’ new mindfulness website, UpWest, and other deals in the wings. Furiously raising capital, selling product, and hiring sales staff to target medi-spas, boutiques, and doctors’ offices, the founders are focused on scaling. “It’s a war on the ground, and we are in full combat mode,” says Flores. “It’s game on. And we are ready.”