AnnaRae Grabstein
AnnaRae Grabstein is an executive and advisor with a legacy of leadership in the cannabis industry. Her career leading experience has spanned such roles as CEO, COO, founder, Board Director, entrepreneur and industry advocate. Her extensive accomplishments in cannabis have made her a key player in the legal cannabis industry where she has led, operated and guided innovative and market leading companies; building and scaling businesses to fulfill market needs that previously did not exist during prohibition and in a highly regulated and complex environment. She is passionate and ambitious in her approach to leadership and prides herself on empowering and building capacity in people. AnnaRae is skilled at building momentum, solving problems and delivering on big visions.
Consistently, AnnaRae has succeeded at pushing the envelope and rallying people together in pursuit of common goals. Sometimes those goals have been lofty, like building the largest cannabis delivery network in California, other times they’ve been awe inspiring like dreaming up and executing one of the first Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs in cannabis, but sometimes the common goals have been less sexy like engineering and executing a 75% downsize of staff or driving 13 disparate teams towards an ERP implementation. No matter the purpose, AnnaRae approaches challenges with vigor and strategy considering key elements such as: messaging, values alignment, processes, key stakeholders, resources, risks, rewards; always looking 5 steps ahead.
The infinite potential of the cannabis industry inspires AnnaRae in her quest to create and increase impactful opportunities in the industry both in her home market of California and in all the emerging markets in the US. Currently her firm, Wolf Meyer, works to grow, scale and expand the cannabis industry with strategy, vision and leadership. AnnaRae’s career highlights include being the Chief Compliance Officer of NorCal Cannabis, one of the largest vertically integrated companies in California, CEO of Steep Hill, the first ever cannabis analysis laboratory, and COO of Marin Sun Farms, a values driven meat processor, brand and distributor. She was an elected member of the California Cannabis Industry Association(CCIA) Board of Directors where she served amongst the top executives in the cannabis industry to help realize a thriving legal cannabis marketplace. She is also a Board Member of Higher Growth, a fintech startup working to bridge solutions in cannabis banking and Chemistry, an innovative cannabis brand and manufacturing company.
AnnaRae is a long time Board Member of WWOOF USA, a non profit that creates educational opportunities on organic farms, and is founding member of Chief the only network dedicated to growing women in c-suite and board roles. She holds an MBA from the USF and is mom to Joaquin.
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