Women cash in on the marijuana boom

giadha DeCarcer
Former investment banker Giadha DeCarcer is the founder and CEO of New Frontier, a data analytics provider for the cannabis industry.

The cannabis industry is rapidly becoming attractive to female entrepreneurs.

Medical or recreational marijuana is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia. As legalization progresses, so does sales. In 2013, the industry was $ 1.8 billion.

According to ArcView Group, a cannabis-focused investment and research firm, it was estimated at $ 5.4 billion in 2015 (considering an evolving business model).

“The cannabis industry is so new that there are few barriers to entry, especially for women,” said Giadha DeCarcer, CEO and founder of New Frontier, a provider of data analysis for the marijuana industry.

More importantly, she said the marijuana industry is not as biased towards men as many other industries. This is a personal appeal to De Carcer, a former investment banker and technology and defense consultant.

“These are all male-dominated areas, which was my greatest frustration,” she said. “It made it difficult to reach the top.”

DeCarcer launched New Frontier in 2014. She said the value and size of the business doubled in less than a year. She said it would be beneficial, but she wouldn’t disclose her income.

Related: Take a weed break at work.Allowed

Women make up 36% of all cannabis market executives, according to the report. Marijuana Business Daily. According to the Pew Research Center, this is well above the national average of 22% for executive women in all industries.

Finding the total number of female cannabis entrepreneurs is difficult. However, the anecdotal evidence that more women are stepping into the door is strong.

Jane_west
Women Grow co-founder Jane West.

Jane West is at the forefront of this trend.

A “proud cannabis user,” West co-founded Women Grow, a professional networking group for cannabis women. The first event in 2014 had 70 participants. It currently has branches in 44 cities, with 21,000 weekly newsletter subscribers and 30,000 Instagram followers.

The Women Grow Summit will begin on February 3rd in Denver. West expects the three-day event, including singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, to have more than 1,500 attendees this year.

“There are only opportunities for women in this industry, and we need to spread the word,” West said. “Women come up with great business ideas, many of which are driven by legitimate marijuana advocacy.”

Related: Marijuana Women

Salwai Brahim has long been a legitimate defender of marijuana. “I’m also from the Bay Area, the birthplace of the medical marijuana movement,” she said.

In 2012, Ibrahim and its business partners opened Blum, a medical marijuana pharmacy, in Oakland, California. It was a steep learning curve, but she made some wise moves to quickly establish it.

“I attracted the best talent possible and gave them an incentive to continue and grow their business,” she said. Blum now sees 800-1,000 patients a day and adds a cultivation center, production facility and 70 employees. More than half of her staff are women.

Last month, her business was Terra Tech Corp ((((TRTC)... Ibrahim is a Managing Director, adding two clinics in Las Vegas and one in Reno.

Gengote Female Marijuana
Jennifer Gote, founder of AOW Management.

In terms of cultivation, cannabis growers are still predominantly male.

It is incompatible with Jennifer Goat.

Related: Forget Ohio, 10 more states are trying to legalize marijuana

Gote was forced to fall into the industry. “I got out of a bad relationship and became a single mother of four children,” said Gote, who lived in Arizona. Her friend suggested that she work as a trimmer in a marijuana growing facility.

“That’s the way I started,” she said. In a year she learned all aspects of business (growth, harvesting, packaging, distribution).

When the manager’s position opened, she wore a hat and was promoted. “I went my own way, so I got the respect of everyone,” she said.

She resigned last November and launched AOW Management, a cannabis cultivation and dispensing management company.

“The business is really going well,” she said. But Goat now wants to see more women on her side of the business.

“I want to hire a woman,” she said. “In fact, I’m hiring an inexperienced woman right now. This allows me to teach women everything I’ve learned from the beginning.”

CNNMoney (New York) February 3, 2016 First Edition: 7:38 AM ET



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