New CEOs bring financial savvy to Canopy Growth, Medicine Man Technologies

It’s Day One of the Investor Intelligence Conference in Las Vegas, but we wanted to highlight two news stories out Monday morning that directly support our main theme:

The cannabis industry needs to improve capital return analysis and investor communication to public company standards if it is to successfully raise capital, as it is increasingly normalizing and competing for capital against traditional public companies industries.

Canopy Growth has a new CEO, David Klein, who formerly served as chief financial officer at Constellation Brands, and Medicine Man Technologies has a new CEO, Justin Dye, who runs a major outside investor in Medicine Man.

Both of these individuals have extensive financial and capital-raising experience that should serve their new companies well.

Klein will assume his role as Canopy’s CEO on Jan. 14, while current interim CEO Mark Zekulin will step down on Dec. 20. Klein has served as CFO of Constellation brands for 12 years, so he knows how to communicate medium- and long-term margin goals and the investments and returns needed to achieve them to investors.

Dye is managing general partner of Dye Capital and previously was one of the architects of Albertson’s $40 billion consolidation of the grocery industry. Dye Capital has invested $21 million in Medicine Man Technologies so far and has another 9.7 million warrants striking at $3.50 – quite an incentive to create shareholder value.

Medicine Man Technologies also announced that Bob DeGabrielle, the founder of Los Sueños Farms, will serve as chief operating officer and promoted Nancy Huber to CFO.

DeGabrielle runs the largest outdoor cannabis farm in Colorado and has a background in real estate investing. Huber was recently the CFO for a private food company.

Andy Williams will shift to vice chair of MDCL and will focus on “new initiatives across the industry,” but he remains a major shareholder of the company and seems to be looking for how to grow it beyond Colorado.

As outlined in our Deep Dive on Medicine Man Technologies, MDCL needs to raise about $100 million to close the 12 acquisitions, so Dye has his work cut out for him.

Craig Behnke can be reached at craigb@mjbizdaily.com

Mike Regan can be reached at miker@mjbizdaily.com