Kotarba, who has helmed operations at Native Roots for nearly eight years, has steered the company through go-go growth while championing gender equity and operational excellence. Native Roots is Colorado’s largest independent vertically integrated cannabis operator, with 21 retail locations across the state.
Under Kotarba’s leadership, Native Roots achieved 30% growth in 2021, a company record. Despite subsequent industry-wide challenges, the company has maintained market share and stable growth.
“When I started, there wasn’t really a playbook for success,” Kotarba told Green Market Report. “So, it has been incredible to watch Native Roots grow over the years and see the positive impacts we’ve made on both the business and the community.”
Kotarba’s tenure has been marked by big operational improvements. She implemented changes that doubled output capacity to 52,100 pounds annually. Her team also refined production processes, which allowed Native Roots to scale to demand effectively without oversupply.
Cultivation efficiency also saw marked improvement, with grams per square foot increasing from 49.4 in 2016 to 56.45 in 2023.
While those numbers are impressive on their own, Kotarba’s most notable achievement might be the advancement of gender equity within the company. When she joined Native Roots, only two women held management positions in operations; today, that number has grown to 17, with women occupying 64% of senior leadership roles.
“Helping to create a supportive and inclusive culture has been incredibly rewarding,” Kotarba said. “Seeing talented women thrive in leadership roles and knowing I’ve played a part in their success makes me proud every day, especially in this industry.”
Kotarba’s impact on company culture is reflected in her division’s 78% employee engagement rating.
Her journey in cannabis hasn’t been without challenges. Kotarba cited the implementation of an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as one of the biggest hurdles she’s faced.
“It was a multiyear, complex project that added work and more stringent controls to our existing processes,” she said. “This resulted in a lot of resistance and frustration from our production teams, especially when COVID hit and paused everything.”
Despite calls to abandon the project, Kotarba kept pushing forward, believing in its long-term benefits.
“Now, three years later, it is amazing to see how it has transformed our operations and how our staff has learned to work with the applications,” she said.
Before entering the cannabis industry, Kotarba accumulated more than 25 years of experience in management consulting and corporate leadership across various sectors, including financial services, manufacturing, retail, and aerospace.
“I love bringing a touch of traditional business savvy from my previous career to the cannabis industry,” Kotarba said, “mixing in professionalism, structure, and best practices while keeping things fun and true to this unique industry.”
Beyond her role at Native Roots, Kotarba is active in industry mentorship. She participates in the Marijuana Industry Group mentor program, which promotes diversity and inclusion by fostering relationships between social equity entrepreneurs and established cannabis business leaders.
Massachusetts regulators will require cannabis businesses to use a single laboratory for all compliance testing in an effort to prevent companies from shopping around for favorable test results.
The state’s Cannabis Control Commission voted 3-0 to require licensed businesses submit testing samples to one independent laboratory starting April 1, 2025, according to an administrative order advanced Thursday. The new rule is meant to close loopholes that some say have allowed companies to shop around for labs to juice their numbers for market share.
“This administrative order continues our mission of being a strong regulator,” Acting Executive Director Debbie Hilton-Creek said in a statement.
Under current rules, companies can split testing among multiple labs. The practice has led some facilities to report suspiciously high THC levels or overlook contamination to attract business.
The commission’s enforcement team said the changes would reduce risks of noncompliant products reaching consumers and improve audit capabilities. The move follows a November listening session in which testing concerns were raised, according to the announcement.
If an original testing lab needs to subcontract work, they must first obtain commission approval and demonstrate they are “incapable of performing certain required tests due to a hardship.” Labs also can only subcontract with one other facility at a time.
“The commission shall only approve subcontracting agreements when the Originating Independent Testing Laboratory is incapable of performing certain required tests due to a hardship relative to its facilities, instrumentation, personnel, or required consumable materials or in the event of an actual or potential conflict of interest,” according to the order.
Results must be uploaded to the state’s tracking system within 72 hours, with all certificates of analysis containing the complete testing results, including any subcontracted work, it said.
The commission will also begin publishing THC test results on its public data platform and establishing regular meetings with licensed laboratories to improve oversight.
The commission thus far has struggled to implement effective testing oversight. Earlier this year, the agency contracted with a private lab for a “secret shopper” program to verify retail products’ test results, Green Market Report previously reported. Unlike other major cannabis markets such as California and Colorado, Massachusetts lacks a state reference lab to independently verify commercial lab results.
Analysis of testing data by MCR Labs found that across multiple states, laboratories reporting higher THC concentrations tend to increase their market share while those reporting average failure rates lose business, according to Chemical & Engineering News.
Florida-based Cansortium (CSE: TIUM.U) (OTCQB: CNTMF), which does business as Fluent, has finalized its megamerger with New York-based RIV Capital, (CSE: RIV) (OTC: CNPOF), creating a new multistate operator that has a footprint in four states with 42 operational dispensaries.
The move gives Cansortium immediate access to New York, one of the fastest-growing legal marijuana markets in the nation, along with its existing portfolio of cannabis shops and grows in its home state, Pennsylvania and Texas. The company now owns eight total cultivation and processing facilities, which it said in a press release would allow it to bolster the Fluent brand even more going forward.
The company reportedly has $33 million in the bank with which to finance further acquisitions, it said in a Thursday announcement.
Another major winner in the deal is Scotts Miracle-Gro, which has a sizable stake in RIV Capital through its subsidiary The Hawthorne Collective. Existing shares will be converted into 1.245 shares of the newly formed Fluent, eliminating $160 million in company debt.
Shareholders of Cansortium will own 51.25% of the new Fluent, while shareholders of RIV Capital will own 48.75%, the company said. The company will continue trading under Cansortium’s existing ticker symbols on the Canadian Securities Exchange and the Over-The-Counter markets.
Cansortium CEO Robert Beasley will continue to lead the new company, and RIV Capital interim CEO David Vautrin will serve as the new company’s chief commercial officer.
Beasley said in the release that Fluent intends to scale up wholesale operations in New York to boost its Moods brand of marijuana products and “gain additional shelf space in dispensaries across the state,” which he said has “immense potential.”
The merger could prove key to the long-term prospects for both Cansortium and RIV Capital. Cansortium posted an $11.7 million net loss for the third quarter of 2024, and RIV Capital reported a $63.4 million net loss for the same period.
“Looking ahead, we remain focused on sustainable, long-term growth and will continue to drive efficiencies across all areas of the business to achieve our profitability and cash generation goals,” Beasley said.
Greenway Greenhouse Cannabis Corp. entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire all of Choice Growers’ consumer packaged goods brands, SKUs and listings of the brands, trademarks, goodwill and other associated intellectual property. This acquisition encompasses all of Choice Growers’ brands, including Grapefruit God Bud (also known as Grape God), The Jeffrey, Watermelon Pebbles, Pink Lemonade, Duke Nukem, Tangerine Dream and Blackberry Cheesecake.
Innocan Pharma Corp. intends to complete a non-brokered private placement of up to 3.5 million units of the company at a price of C$0.20 per unit for gross proceeds up to C$700,000 plus 15% overallotment options. The offering is expected to close on or around Dec. 31.