When Fortune Magazine launched its first Fortune 500 back in 1955, the list included both publicly and privately held companies for which revenues were publicly available. As we all know, companies typically are identified with their brand and superior products or services, the people who run the company and who are charged with maximizing profitability (the Chief Executive Officer or the Chairperson) or for some faux pas that was so egregious and public that their leadership became public pariahs (you know what I mean Ken Lay, ex-CEO & Chairman of Enron?).
In today’s world, the Glass Ceiling has come down bit by bit as leadership positions become increasing filled by women that have earned and pioneered their way to the top of the mountain. The first woman to head-up a Fortune 500 company was Katherine Graham of the Washington Post Company in 1972.
This year’s CBE’s Most Influential Woman is composed by policy makers, entrepreneur’s seasoned business executives, activists and politicians and we at CBE believe that their presence on the list will only grow in years to come. In lieu of a lack of financial transparency to date for much of the industry, we expect that to change in the future.
Members of the list will surely face new challenges and opportunities as they lead their companies. Dale Sky Jones has just taken on the CEO title at Oaksterdam University and will have to balance that responsibility with contributing heavily to California’s effort to legalize cannabis in 2016.
Amy Poinsett and Jessica Billingsley have their hands full leading MJ Freeway, the leading seed-to-sale software supplier in the industry past their recent implementation troubles.
And…Dr. Nora Volkow, 2014’s CBE Most Influential Woman, for leading the charge against drug addiction while the end to prohibition approaches.
There are many other deserving women that will surely be included in future lists and will contribute to eliminating the glass ceiling and taking the Cannabis Industry to new heights. Enjoy the list and please share your thoughts!
Rob Meagher
President & Editor-in-Chief
CBE Press LLC
2014 CBE 20 Most Influential Women
| Rank | Photo | Name | Job Title | Category | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Dr. Nora Volkow | Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) | Federal Agency | Since 2003, Dr. Volkow has led NIDA. The career bureaucrat, who served her psychiatry residency at NYU, is an expert on addiction and fervently opposed to the end of prohibition. She has been a road block to efforts to balance the research about the efficacy of cannabis while pursuing any and all avenues to perpetuate the federal government's prohibition rhetoric and stance. |
| 2 |  | Dale Sky Jones | President & CEO Oaksterdam University | Training & Education, Activist | In addition to her duties at Oaksterdam, Ms. Jones is the Chairwoman of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform and was the spokesperson for the failed 2010 Proposition 19 initiative in California to legalize marijuana. Ethan Nadelmann said, " no question that Prop 19 had a fundamentally transformational effect-- it legitimated discourse about marijuana" and probably set the path for legalization in Colorado. |
| 3 |  | Michelle Leonhart | Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) | Federal Agency | As head of the DEA, Ms. Leonhart has led the agency's stonewalling efforts to remove marijuana from schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act and has chided the President for his stance on cannabis legalization. She has also consistently turned down research requests regarding the therapeutic and medicinal benefits of marijuana. |
| 4 & 5 |  | Amy Poinsett & Jessica Billingsley | Co-Founder & CEO & COO, MJ Freeway Business Solutions | Seed to Sale Software | The leading provider in hosted software for the marijuana industry, MJ Freeway is a women owned company which features a premium business platform with patent-pending inventory control and grow management applications. MJ Freeway delivers cloud-based point of sale systems with patient and financial record management, guaranteed state-specific regulatory compliance, and multiple integrations with social networks, testing labs, and locator services, accessible to any marijuana business with a computer and a web connection. A recent software upgrade implementation has not gone well severely effecting customer sales and revenues. The two leaders must rise to the occasion as the space they operate in has gotten more crowded. |
| 6 |  | Barbara Lee | US Representative, California | Democrat | Since being elected to Congress in 1998, The Congresswoman has been a strong proponent of safe communities, affordable housing, the homeless, low income energy assistance, job training, making health care affordable and universal, just immigration policies, the establishment of a living wage, and protection of the right of women to make decisions about their reproductive health. Lee has also supported the efforts to loosen federal banking regulations, including promoting Fincen guidelines. Additionally, along with Californian Republican Dana Rohrabacher, she helped pass legislation that increases funding for the Second Chance Act that prohibits the use of funds by the Department of Justice to prevent states from implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana. |
| 7 |  | Steph Sherer | Executive Director, Americans for Safe Access (ASA) | Public Policy | Steph Sherer is the founder and executive director of the nation's leading medical cannabis patient advocacy organization. She has built ASA into an organization with 16 active ASA chapters and a grassroots base of over 50,000 members. She also works with American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), to help establish regulations for the medical marijuana industry. |
| 8 |  | Alison Holcomb | Criminal Justice Director for the ACLU of Washington | Legal, Activist | After working on Initiative 75, which made marijuana enforcement the lowest priority for the Seattle Police Department Ms. Holcomb was one of the architects of Washington State's comprehensive I-502 bill and campaign. As reported last week by the NY Times, she has recently accepted a new position to head-up the new ACLU political campaign, financed by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, to slash an incarceration rate that has tripled since 1980. There are currently some 2.2 million prisoners in the United States. |
| 9 |  | Valerie & Mike Corral | Executive Director & Co-Founder, Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) | Activist and Public Policy | Valerie and Mike Corral received the High Times Freedom Fighter of the Year Award in 2003 for their tireless efforts to legalize medical marijuana.They co-founded WAMM in 1993 and Valerie was a key-player in the crafting and passage of Proposition 215 (also known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996), which allowed patients with a doctors recommendation to use marijuana medicinally. |
| 10 |  | Patricia Rosi | CEO, Wellness Connection of Maine (WCM) | Medical Dispensaries | Heads up WCM which owns 4 of the 10 licensed non-profit dispensaries after helping build Pierce, an Omnicom promotion agency, in Maine. |
| 11 |  | Jan Schakowsky | US Representative, Illinois | Democrat | Schakowsky co-sponsored the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act, is a pro hemp advocate and a big supporter of Illinois' medical marijuana initiative. Schakowsky is among 18 U.S. Representatives who sent a letter in February of this year to President Obama asking him to direct Attorney General Eric Holder to remove marijuana from the most restrictive list of banned substances. |
| 12 |  | AC Braddock | CEO, Eden Labs | Extraction Equipment | A sales and marketing expert by trade, Ms. Braddock recognized the potential of the cannabis industry and joined Eden Labs in 2007. She became CEO in 2010. Ms. Braddock has successfully grown the company into a multi-million dollar extraction technology powerhouse. She is a founding member of two of Washington’s cannabis business Women’s groups; WOW (Women of Weed) and the MJBA’s Women’s Alliance. |
| 13 |  | Brooke Gehring | Managing Partner. Patients Choice of Colorado | Dispensary and Cultivation | In addition to being the Managing Partner at Patients Choice which owns 4 dispensaries and 2 large grow facilities in CO, Ms. Gehring is heavily involved in legislative regulatory framework in the state. She is also an Executive Board member of MIG and a sustaining member of the NCIA. |
| 14 |  | Betty Aldworth | Executive Director | Activist and Public Policy | Ms. Aldworth has been involved in community outreach, public relations, advocacy, and policy reform as a consultant to cannabis-related businesses and nonprofit organizations. She served as spokesperson and advocacy director for Colorado’s successful Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the collaborative committee responsible for legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana for adults in Colorado. Betty was the Deputy Director of NCIA in 2013, the organization’s largest year of growth, and she now heads Students for Sensible Drug Policy. |
| 15 |  | Toni Fox | Owner, 3D Cannabis Center Founder | Cultivator & Dispensary, Activist | A marijuana activist for 20 years, Toni Fox is the owner of 3D Cannabis Center in Denver, a recreational marijuana distributor. The center, however, is nothing typical in the industry, logging in with 14,000 sq ft of cultivation. She is also on the Board of Directors for SAFER, WCBN (Women’s Canna Business Network), a founding member of the Women’s Marijuana Movement and & the National Cannabis Industry Association. |
| 16 |  | Hillary Clinton | Former Secretary of State/Senator NY/First Lady | Democrat | Hillary Clinton is a former US Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady. As the projected 2016 Democratic nominee for the US President, Clinton has gone on record supporting state's legalization efforts as an incubator for possible federal policy changes in the future. Unlike her husband, she has gone on the record saying she has always abstained from using marijuana. |
| 17 |  | Genifer Murray | President & Co-Founder, Cannlabs Inc. | Lab Testing Services | Since graduating from Colorado State University with a bachelor of science in microbiology Ms. Murray has been a busy advocate for the cannabis industry. In addition to founding Cannlabs, the longest running cannabis test lab in Co, she has also founded the Medical Cannabis Testing Coalition (MCTC) which helped develop analytical testing standards for the State. She also served on the task force for the implementation of Amendment 64. |
| 18 |  | Anne Holland | Co-Founder, Marijuana Business Media (MBM), a division of Anne Holland Enterprises | Publishing | Ms. Holland is a serious electronic publishing entrepreneur, the Founder of Anne Holland Ventures, Founder of WhichTestWon.com and MarketingSherpa which she sold in 2007. Together with Cassandra Farrington, CEO, MBM they launched Marijuana Business Media in 2011, Marijuana Business Factbook, an annual guide to industry finances and data; Marijuana Business Magazine, the industry's only print trade journal; and, the Marijuana Industry Directory, an online directory of B2B cannabis-related businesses in the US. They also run the largest industry trade show, Marijuana Business Conference & Expo which is projected to have over 2,500 attendees this week. |
| 19 |  | Hillary Bricken | Lawyer/Partner, Harris Moure | Legal, Activist and Public Policy | The bulk of Ms. Bricken's work is helping cannabis businesses navigate the increasingly confusing and murky legal climate surrounding Washington State medical and recreational cannabis laws. She represents business owners struggling with a myriad of problems in the industry. She has also been involved in IRS 280e tax reform which prohibits cannabis businesses from taking the same write-offs that other small businesses qualify for. Ms. Bricken represents the Cannabis Business Group, CBG is dedicated to implementing I-502 for cannabis producers, processors, and retailers. |
| 20 |  | Rachel Gillette, Esq. | Executive Director, Colorado NORML, Attorney | Legal, Public Policy, Activist | Since beginning her cannabis related practice in 2010, Ms. Gillette has represented clients to navigate the licensing process, and businesses contending with the IRS application of 280E. She is also Co-Chair of the Coalition for Drug Testing Policy Reform and is committed to ending the prohibition of cannabis at the national level and ensuring state licensed marijuana businesses are fairly taxed at both the state and federal level. |
