In the two years since the Cannabis Business Executive website was launched, we have published a number of lists and received feedback indicating that we have missed several folks or companies that were more than deserving of inclusion. When we published last week’s list, The 2016 CBE 50 Most Important Women in the Cannabis Industry, we were happy to see the immediate response from our readers and industry leaders. As usual, we are more than happy to give a call out to those women that we clearly could have or should have included.
List Background
Before doing so, I would like to remind readers about the purpose of these lists and how CBE perceives their value towards helping the young industry grow and prosper.
Here are a few of the basic reasons that CBE Press, a publisher of Business to Business information serving stakeholders in the Cannabis Industry, decided to rank individuals and companies as a service to our nearly 30,000 weekly subscribers. I may be redundant, but we noticed a surge in readers last week and they should fully understand CBE’s mission and goals to serve these readers.
- CBE lists are meant to identify successful companies whose results are tangible so that their peers can use these examples as benchmarks to follow, emulate or learn from.
- CBE lists and the company stories (we have written company stories and presented their profiles for many of the companies and individuals that have made our rankings) that we present each week are intended to share the good, the bad and the ugly best practices to help entrepreneurs and business leaders avoid the pitfalls that dot the landscape in any emerging, regulated industry.
- CBE lists identify legally licensed, revenue and job creating companies and ancillary businesses whose innovation is building the next great American industry and to help investors and their capital find its way to deserving businesses and not the many high risk and get rich quick schemes that have permeated the early days of the cannabis industry.
- CBE highlights individuals responsible for creating, crafting and adjusting a regulatory and business environment that provides legal access to cannabis worldwide.
We do our best with our bootstrapped resources to vet as many candidates (most of which are or are from private companies) as possible for a particular list. As our resources and the industry expands, we are expand the number of rankings. In this vein, CBE relies on information supplied by the companies vetted and accept them at their word but continually monitor their progress and veracity to maximize the accuracy of the information that we are presenting.
It’s almost just as important to note what we don’t consider when creating these lists.
- Our lists are not pay for play (I can’t tell you how many times we are asked by companies we are considering for our lists how much it costs to be part of the rankings… hmmm I wonder what other publishers are doing). We may not always get it right, but those ranked have earned their way on CBE lists based on hard work, dedication, focus, execution and results.
- Our lists are not personal, we don’t belong to any industry clique and aren’t surveying a select group of industry participants or conducting popularity contests to determine candidates and ranking placement.
- We don’t use the lists to pursue personal vendettas against people or companies that we don’t necessarily feel great about and are as quick to recognize our competitors as well for a job well done.
Others Who Deserve a Call Out!
So for those of you who are new to CBE, and for those who have been reading us since we launched in November of 2014, thank you for the many comments and feedback on this year’s list of the most important women in the industry and for sharing others that we believe could have been included if we had more resources. We anticipate expanding this list once again next year and will include others that have made important contributions to the industry—like some of the women below that have been brought to our attention and who deserve mention and recognition including ….
Julie Berliner, Founder and CEO of Sweet Grass Kitchen
Hilary Dulany, COO of Accuvape and other Cannabis Ventures
Debbie Goldsberry, Mentor at Gateway Incubator and Executive Director at Magnolia Wellness
Lauren Ginsberg, Chief Retail Officer of Native Roots
Shannon Wilson, Founder and Owner of Mahatma
Deirdre O’Gorman, CEO of Fourth Corner Credit Union
Emily Paxhia, Founding Partner & Director of Relations of Poseidon Asset Management
Gaynell Rogers, Managing Director of BLOOM PR
We look forward to continuing to recognize the leaders and companies that are building the fastest growing industry in the US, if not the World. As always, we look forward to your input and comments.
Cheers,
Rob Meagher
Founder & Editor, CBE Press LLC