Curaleaf is at or near the top of most rankings of the world’s biggest cannabis companies. The man in charge of its day-to-day operations, CEO Matt Darin, got his start in cannabis nearly 10 years ago by making a big bet on his home state’s newly opened medical market.
Matt began his cannabis journey in Illinois when the state opened its medical cannabis market a decade ago. Darin and two partners leapt on the chance to apply for medical cannabis licenses in September 2014 and founded Grassroots Cannabis that same year. As co-founder and COO of Grassroots, Darin helped grow the company into one of the largest privately held multi-state operators (MSOs) in the United States.
When Grassroots was acquired by Curaleaf in July 2020, it had 1,200 employees and more than 70 licenses to grow, process, and dispense cannabis in 12 states. Matt went on to serve as president of Curaleaf’s central region operations with leadership responsibility for the company’s strategy and execution in eight states. He was named president of the whole company in January 2022 and CEO in May.
Tom Adams of Global Go Analytics and Global Cannabis Times recently sat down with Matt Darin to discuss his thoughts on the current cannabis climate and his journey to the helm of the industry’s biggest public company, per our Global Cannabis 50 rankings published in December.
Listen in as Tom and Matt discuss topics ranging from Matt’s cannabis origin story (2:30), the merger of Grassroots Cannabis and Curaleaf (7:25) and the benefits and pitfalls of vertical integration (11:32) to the prospects for New York’s haltingly opened recreational cannabis market (17:12) and Curaleaf’s plan for European expansion (19:55), as well as the establishment of industry standards (23:22) and the future of legal cannabis in the United States and beyond (26:44).
Host: Tom Adams
Guest: Matt Darin
Producers: Anthony Chabolla & Alex Revelin
Engineer: Dave Visaya