The cannabis industry is quick to mention its boosting of women management in top positions. It is part of the industry’s conscious effort to appeal to women both as consumers and professionals. In October 2015, Marijuana Business Daily reported that 36 percent of executive-level roles in cannabis were held by women. Comparatively the U.S. business market has an average of 23 percent of women in executive-level positions in companies.
But as traditional seed funding and traditional business enter the cannabis space, the industry has approached closer to the national average. According to an online poll by MBD, only 27 percent of women staff executive-level roles in cannabis. This is a substantial drop from previous noteworthy figures.
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Part of this could tie into the investment sector, as women only occupy 10 percent of that space.
Not all is on the decline, though. As Eli McVey noted, “Women comprise 42 percent of the executive positions at ancillary services companies, for instance, and 35 percent of medical dispensaries/recreational stores.”
It will be interesting to watch then as cannabis matures into the accepted business world, if it will lose the trailblazing edge it’s had for the past few years, with regards to hiring practices and operations. You would never expect marijuana workers to conform to the system, but stranger things have happened.
