Women to Watch: Naomi Granger

Naomi Granger had already reached the promised land for most CPAs with a position at PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the “Big 4” accounting firms. However, by 2015, the conservative world of corporate accounting was wearing thin for Granger and despite ascending the corporate ladder for a decade, she eventually felt no other choice but to pack up her office and begin working for herself.

While learning the ropes of building her own firm, Granger was told by a mentor that she needed to pick a solid niche to really scale her business. In 2017, Granger chose cannabis and was somewhat of a pioneer, one of only a small handful of CPAs willing to cater to the industry at that time.

“I thought I was already late, because somebody else told me about it,” she says.

Today, Granger is a go-to accountant for the cannabis industry and has worked with more than 600 accounting firms across the United States, training them on the nuances of the cannabis business and some of the best practices within the industry.

Along the way, Granger took note of the wide-ranging needs of cannabis businesses, which varied greatly from one state to the next and sometimes, even one municipality to the next. She realized the industry wasn’t just lacking CPAs, it was lacking a CPA network.

So she founded the National Association of Cannabis Accounting and Tax Professionals, an organization dedicated to standardizing accounting in the cannabis space and providing vital resources to accountants, bookkeepers and other business professionals.

In addition to the accounting resources, NACAT is developing a network of ancillary businesses that have expertise in cannabis.

“We bring together insurance providers and software providers who service this industry and everything that we need in one place so accountants can know where to go,” Granger says.