Bryan Passman, Founder of Hunter + Esquire – Interview Series

While this may not be surprising to anyone working in the cannabis sector, the industry and its businesses face a set of unique challenges that are rarely encountered in other fields. One of the most prevalent issues within the U.S. cannabis market is the difficulty of staffing and hiring qualified candidates across all departments—ranging from manufacturing and marketing to C-suite leadership.

For a deeper look into the factors and concerns surrounding quality staffing in this space, mycannabis.com spoke with Bryan Passman, Founder of Hunter + Esquire.

What subjects did you mainly study while attending the University of Florida? How did your studies and degree give you an advantage in your career and working with cannabis businesses?

I majored in Business Finance and Economics at The University of Florida with minors in cannabis consumption and commerce. One set of studies has not been applied all that much while the other has helped me crush a lot of relationship-building opportunities in cannabis.

What were the industries and types of businesses you mainly worked with during your quite extensive time with MRINetwork? How did the needs and challenges related to recruitment and staffing change depending on the client and industry sector that they worked in? 

I began my professional career by spending 15 years with an MRINetwork franchise focused on placing very technical leadership roles in Quality/Regulatory Compliance, Scientific Affairs, R&D, Operations for Medical Device companies globally. Afterwards, I spent another 3 years with a different MRINetwork franchise focused on the food and beverage CPG/FMCG industry where the focus was more on the placement of Commercial, Operational and Financial leaders around the world. Both industries are obviously very well established, innovative and highly regulated, but the commonalities stopped there. Hiring needs and retention challenges in MedTech spike around FDA approvals and FDA actions such as Warning Letters and Consent Decrees whereas the food and beverage challenges were more akin to those in cannabis in that it was more proactive than reactive. 

What were some of your regular duties as a member of the Human Resources Committee for the National Cannabis Industry Association?

Technically speaking, my duties were to provide industry and disciplinary specific expertise, help shape best practices, and educate the public on industry issues. I’m most proud to have been able to serve 6 years on the HR Committee of the NCIA because of the amount of educational content we were able to create for leaders in cannabis during a time when there was a lot of effort to go from family/friends hiring to more professionalized hiring and employee relations practices. 

While serving on the Forbes Human Resource Council, what industries were represented, and what were the most widespread HR-related issues among those industries?

My peers on the Forbes HR Council worked across several dozen industries and we covered every imaginable employment related topic. Candidly, I just tried to utilize the platform selfishly to spread the cannabis industry gospel and build our brand!

What in particular inspired you to create Hunter + Esquire? Why is Hunter + Esquire catered towards companies in the health and wellness industry in particular?

My wife Jessica and I launched the cannabis industry’s first fully retained executive search firm in 2017. We were inspired to launch because we knew it was unmet need to serve for the industry we really wanted to work in. I spent a few years before 2017 trying and failing to land an in-house Talent Acquisition role in cannabis, but hiring in-house recruiters back then was not as popular as it’s become. I’m grateful for the rejection and to my wife Jessica for nudging me to take the leap with her! We were originally named The GIGG (Grass Is Greener Global) and eventually rebranded as Hunter + Esquire to elevate the vibe of our executive search and advisory expertise. We kept The GIGG around for awhile as a staffing agency, but the juice was not worth the squeeze for us. 

From your experience when it comes to recruiting and finding exceptional talent for cannabis companies, what have been the most effective strategies? And what are the most desirable skills that your cannabis clients most commonly look for in prospective hires?

That is a very broad and dynamic spectrum. Our cannabis clients are varied in size and life-cycle on the plant-touching and every imaginable service/good solution-providing fronts. They all have unique cultures and market challenges that lead to a very broad spectrum of talent needs and preferences. I could write a novel on this but will just distill down to our best strategy is getting to know both sides of the hiring equation really well! Really understanding each hiring side’s needs and styles as well as really understanding candidates on the professional, personal and financial fronts. Our focus on really humanizing the experience for everyone, always being in a relationship > transactional mindset and personalizing each partnership. Cannabis is still in its infancy, so we handle each interaction with our softest kid gloves.

When it comes to the professionals that Hunter + Esquire has assisted in finding and hiring for cannabis companies, what other industries do those professionals originally come from, if not already from the cannabis industry? How are roles from those industries surprisingly transferable with roles in the cannabis industry?

I’ll begin with stating the obvious fact that we help facilitate a lot of responsible hiring of talent already within the cannabis industry since getting a leader with a flattened learning curve and depth of existing relationships is often a preference. However, we’re very often asked to find a “great athlete” from outside the industry. Building on the above reference to having a broad spectrum of clients in the cannabis economy, we pull from a broad range of industries. We have cannatech (SaaS) clients that request talent from mainstream (SaaS) tech. We have hardware tech (i.e. automated equipment and robotics) clients that request talent from those industries. We recruit a lot for plant-touching operators and brands who lean heavily towards food and beverage (alc bev, especially beer) industry talent, but depending on the role will value talent from other heavily regulated industries. Something we’ve learned in terms of how to measure someone’s success potential in cannabis as a newbie is to look at their breadth of industry experience. Candidates from outside the industry who have real success across industries are typically more adaptable and curious than others, and those are important traits. 

From your experience with cannabis businesses, what are some HR and staffing-related issues that only cannabis businesses seem to deal with? Why are those issues so prevalent, mainly in the cannabis industry as opposed to other industries that Hunter + Esquire work with?

Cannabis is a startup industry without an established playbook or framework or even established frame of reference towards what works really well time after time. Cannabis is unable to mature as an industry until regulations are set in stone. The jury is still deliberating on what profiles are best for what roles, but we’re getting enough clarity to continue evolving. Cannabis margins are razor slim which means these businesses are very cash-strapped which makes it difficult to compete on a cash compensation front. Cannabis equity has largely lost its sex appeal and it’s often difficult to get a 401k in place, so there’s a long-term incentive challenge to attracting and retaining talent. A large majority of the industry workforce is an eclectic and rebellious group of hourly waged and entry/junior level folks who need a lot of support in an industry full of leaders living in a constant state of time-triage. People challenges in cannabis are fast & furious and we have a lot of first-time leaders who are easily frazzled.

Based on your experiences working with psychedelic companies, what similarities do they have with the cannabis businesses you’ve worked with? Simultaneously, what are the largest differences between the two industries?

Psychedelics are a whole other animal in that you’re building something with federal approval and regulation pathways. Something like >90% of capital spent to build a psychedelics business is on research, development and clinical trials. Very little is commercialized in psychedelics and teams are much smaller and typically very science-y and senior with little to no waged workforce compared to cannabis. Psychedelics are being developed as pharmaceuticals while the cannabis industry took a CPG turn quite a long time ago. Companies in both industries are consistently reporting quarterly losses, but the upside potential in psychedelics is far greater.

Generally speaking, both industries have a large population of very passionate first-time founders/leaders who are trying hard to build the plane correctly as they fly it and appreciate as much pro-bono human capital advisory as we’re willing to offer to build trust. Psychedelics companies enjoy our deep network of life science professionals which of course most cannabis companies could not care less about, save/sans some in Europe we work with. Both industries are doing trailblazing plant-medicine work but feel worlds apart.

If a federal rescheduling of cannabis were to occur, how would that change your duties as someone who provides recruitment services for cannabis companies? Would such a huge and widespread change in cannabis law change the qualities that you look for in potential candidates?

Yes! I’m excited about the potential of federal rescheduling removing the 280E and interstate commerce barriers to profitability for many of our regulated cannabis clients. They will have more cash to spend on attracting even stronger talent and less talent from outside the industry will have any reservations about jumping in with us. This regulatory change will allow the cannabis industry to mature as an established industry versus remaining perpetually as a startup industry. I’d also like to believe my regular duties would include less invoice collection efforts!

Finally, I look forward to increased medical research after rescheduling which may help us move towards signing up life sciences clients who will value our talent networks in cannabis and life sciences. We believe the current regulated dispensary model will thrive under rescheduling for cannabis businesses but also believe FDA-approved cannabinoid compound medicines will be developed. We hope to serve both sets of hiring needs with our diverse network and deep experience working in both sets of business models and cultures.