on Facebook.”The conservative board of her company was all “old straight white guys,” and the financial industry was even worse.
So Gagnon made the difficult decision to step down from her leadership role in the company.What could’ve been a very isolating and alienating experience introduced Gagnon to a whole new community, Women Grow, a group of women in the cannabis industry that at that time numbered around 3,500.“In the male community, it was ‘We don’t want you to be in here, you’re bringing us all down.’ Women were like ‘How did you do that?
You ran a billion-dollar company, what?’” Gagnon remembers. “Suddenly I was valuable, I was appreciated. I was suddenly respected and my advice was sought.”Some of the women weren’t exactly warm to.