Cannabis Industry Women of the Year Awards

The cannabis industry has a high concentration of talented women in positions of power and influence. Recently Rolling Stone Magazine wrote an article on women that are shaping the cannabis industry, and they gave credit to Jana Perez, Johanna Mortz, Sally Nichols and Shaleen Title. Other publications have listed Laura Harris, Lynne Lyman, and Jane West as the most prominent women in marijuana.

The Marijuana Business Daily recently published a report on women and minorities in the industry and found that the number of women in executive positions was 27%, which is better than the average of 23 percent across the United States business landscape. Some sectors within the cannabis industry, such as law firms and marketing agencies, have higher rates (over 40 percent) of women ownership.

However, according to Women Grow, women have majority ownership in 57% of cannabis businesses. Clearly, while the number of women in executive positions in the cannabis industry may be in dispute, their influence is not debatable.

We studied, did research, and dug deep into our well of industry insight and insiders to come up with our two Cannabis Industry Women of the Year recipients.

These women are both committed to the growth of the industry. They are fiercely energetic, compassionate, creative, clever, and dedicated to helping not only their own business interests, but to furthering the industry and helping build every cannabis business they touch.

Without further ado, here are our co-recipients of the 2017 Cannabis Industry Women of the Year Award:

Genifer Murray

Genifer has held several influential positions within the cannabis industry. She was the founder and president of CannLabs, one of the first cannabis testing facilities in the nation. She was a founding member of the Women’s CannaBusiness Network. She served on the Governor’s Task Force in Colorado to help implement Amendment 64 to end cannabis prohibition.

Murray founded Carbon Blue Consulting, to provide testing and consulting services to cannabis labs, and is a board member at Flowering Hope, an organization that helps provide cannabis medicine to patients that cannot afford it.

She also founded GENIFER M Jewelry, a line of cannabis-inspired jewelry that includes collections for men and women, as well as lines with proceeds that support charitable groups including women’s breast cancer.

Recently, Genifer was named Chief of Staff at the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), a national trade association advancing the interests of the legal and regulated industry, which supports tens of thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity in the United States.

In this role, Genifer is able to help advance the industry on a national level, while assuring that locally-based businesses – especially women and minority owned – get the special attention that they deserve.

Genifer is a tireless advocate for the cannabis industry and we are proud to name her as one of our two recipients of this year’s Women of the Year Award.

Kary Radestock

Kary is the founder and CEO of Hippo Premium Packaging, a unique company that that combines the talents and services of a full-service advertising agency, with the resources and expertise of a packaging company.

Kary works to help her clients succeed by providing them with an array of services, including: marketing strategy, brand development, social media, public relations, graphic and web design, printing and packaging.

She believes that there will come a day in the not-too-distant-future when cannabis businesses will have to compete with Big Pharma and Big Tobacco, so she helps her clients build strong brands so that they will not only survive in the increasingly competitive cannabis sector, but that they will thrive.

She has rapidly expanded her company and now has employees in key cannabis markets throughout the United States. She believes in having branding, marketing and packaging consultants available to meet regularly with business owners, and spend time to truly understand their goals and challenges. That way, the Hippo team of experts can develop custom, premium quality solutions that help her clients succeed.

Kary worked for over 20 years for some of the largest printing companies in the world, and she brings that insight and intimate knowledge of production processes to the cannabis industry, to give her clients top-shelf looking brands and custom packaging systems, without costing an arm and a leg.

Congratulations to these two dynamic women, our 2017 Cannabis Women of the Year Award Winners!