40 Under 40
For the past five years, the Marijuana Venture staff has compiled an annual list of some of the brightest young leaders and influencers in the cannabis industry. As in past years, we have narrowed the list from hundreds of worthy candidates to present 40 individuals from the vast and ever-changing business in the United States and Canada.
It is our honor to share their stories.
Edwin Fowler
Age: 37
Company: Shift Cannabis
Title: CEO
In the summer of 2017, Edwin Fowler stepped in as CEO of Shift Cannabis to help the company transition from a consulting business to a full-fledged, multi-state, vertical cannabis company. It was a period of intense expansion and by the summer of 2018 Shift Cannabis products had gone from being on zero store shelves to having distribution into than 150 stores in Colorado, one of the most consolidated and hardest-to-penetrate markets in the industry.
“Those shelves were already sold,” Fowler says. “We are selling into the big, vertical chains and in many cases, we are the only product in a category that is not their own.”
During that time, the company also opened three retail stores in New Mexico and extraction facilities in both Colorado and New Mexico. Fowler says the company’s expansion required not just high-quality products, but cultivating a brand that resonates with consumers and making a value proposition for the cannabis retailers.
“All of those things have to work in order to penetrate into the hardest market,” Fowler says. “Now we know that if we can do this in Colorado then we can do this in any market.”