Marijuana Business Magazine November December 2018

Jennifer M. Sanders Founder and CEO of CNS Equity Partners, a private equity and consulting firm in Las Vegas The EXECUT¬VE PAGE Q How did you identify this business opportunity in the cannabis sector? What was your “aha” moment? A It was not an “aha” moment. It was grief. My mom passed away, and I did home hospice her last few months of life. A friend from Harvard Medical School recommended we use cannabis hash oil. I was so against it. Before then, I hadn’t even tried or con- sumed cannabis. I was doing great in my professional life and didn’t even consider it. Later, because of another business, I moved to San Francisco. Once I sold a business after moving to San Francisco – a few months after my mother passed away – I realized I had a duty to go out there and tell people like me, business professionals, that this is truly a medicinal plant and legitimate business. There is real opportunity to help others and impact this industry, and we need to get medicine out there affordably. We have to invest, build and manage great companies that are built for philan- thropy and positive impact. Q How are business professionals different from other cannabis consumers? A We need to do it in a different way than it’s being done. I was living in California, and all these edibles would say “Made With Love,” and there was a lack of transparency in the ingredient and process. Instinctively, I knew this needed to change and that I needed to form a business to do that. Everyone (in the cannabis industry) keeps talking about how they care about the medicine, how they’re fighting the stigma. But for most of them, they’re not. They’re wearing hippie tie-dyed shirts and going around with reefer glasses and saying 4/20 this and 4/20 that, and that’s not changing anything. That’s not elevating the industry; it’s contributing to the stigma. The reason I’m still in the cannabis industry is because I diversified very heavily out of the cannabis industry. 50 • Marijuana Business Magazine • November/December 2018