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Women of Influence: Angela Pih Is Walking the Walk

September 18, 2023 Published by

One of Angela Pih’s favorite aspects of the cannabis industry is its velocity. What she’s referring to is the “incredibly exciting” speed of bringing new products to market within months. With extensive experience across retail, consumer packaged goods and cannabis, Pih is head of marketing for StateHouse Holdings, a vertically integrated California-based cannabis enterprise. From the moment she engages you in conversation, it’s quite evident the woman knows what she’s talking about.

One industry trajectory Pih isn’t a fan of is the dramatic decrease in the number of women in the C-Suite holding leadership positions. Over the last year, she says, many women have either been pushed out or simply burned out. 

“Everybody’s struggling right now,” Pih says, naming the challenges of over-taxation and overregulation as particularly responsible for the woeful decline in women executives. “As companies become leaner, many women are trying to weather the storm.” 

With fewer women in leadership roles, Pih is eager to support other women and nurture the next generation of female executives and leaders in cannabis.  “What are we doing to cultivate that level of expertise so that they can sustain the challenges and growth within this industry?” Pih asks. “We all talk about it, but are we doing anything about it? Actions speak louder than words.”

Pih says she feels lucky when it comes to her own experience as a leader, as she’s been widely respected and supported. However, she acknowledges that if women aren’t in the founder role or in the CEO’s office, it can be “very challenging for women to keep within the decision-making roles of a company.”

For other women wanting to move into cannabis, Pih says it’s important to be confident and to know your worth.

“People get very excited about joining a cannabis company because it’s exciting and they allow themselves to accept roles that are maybe below what their expertise is—and maybe below the kind of compensation they should have,” Pih says. “Historically, women aren’t as good at negotiating as men, especially when it comes to their salary compensation. I always say to women to know what they’re worth. You’re going to bring something to the table and it’s important to stand up for that.”

Legacy growers and small farmers play an important role at StateHouse Holdings. Pih spearheaded an initiative that ensures shelf space for small craft sungrown farmers in StateHouse-owned dispensaries, including history-making Urbn Leaf West Hollywood—the first adult-use dispensary to open in Los Angeles’ fabled Sunset Strip.

“There are fewer and fewer legacy farmers and craft growers because they’ve been unable to operate,” says Pih, who reveals she wants to “support these farmers, preserve their expertise and preserve strain diversity during these very early stages of our industry’s development.”

Pih is also determined to band together for a unified cannabis industry. She says she sees it as a requirement for more favorable taxation laws. “We’re not able to do anything about it as individual companies; we have to come together as an industry, regain trust for one another and find ways to be effective as a collective.” 

As the proverb says, unity is strength. Exactly.

This story was originally published in issue 48 of the print edition of Cannabis Now. Read it now on the Cannabis Now iTunes app.

The post Women of Influence: Angela Pih Is Walking the Walk appeared first on Cannabis Now.

Angela Pih Is a Master of Brands

May 11, 2023 Published by

Angela Pih knows how to market to consumers because she’s perceptive and sensitive to her audience’s unique needs. Coming from an advertising and fashion background, Pih understands that branding is all about understanding the consumer. She now works as the head of marketing for StateHouse Holdings, which may sound like the name of some sort of hedge fund but is actually one of California’s leading cannabis companies and home to such brands as Dime Bag, Kingpen, and Urbn Leaf. High Times sat down with Pih to talk about how she helped build some of The Golden State’s most recognizable brands.

So if you just want to talk about how you got into this field and how you got to where you are today.

My current trajectory came from two decades of being in the global advertising agency world, predominantly working on Fortune 500 tech brands. Brands have always been a part of my career in terms of what inspires me. I’m not sure if you are familiar with a woman by the name of Christina Wong of Fruit + Flower. She is a cannabis culinary writer and influencer. She and I were having breakfast one day before she was in cannabis, and she goes “There’s a job at Papa & Barkley and they’re looking for a CMO. Why don’t you go get that job and hire me because I really want to get into the cannabis industry?” And I remember saying to her, “What is it about this company that you really love and that you think that I should look at?” And she goes “Well, it’s one of the really well-respected companies. It’s education-first. And it creates and develops really wonderful products that have helped people.” And so that was my hook. I reached out directly and really fell in love with the brand story of helping those who you love the most with incredible products. Six weeks later, I was hired and then four weeks after that I hired Christina.

Being in the industry with a Chinese background and being a woman, do you feel accepted? Or do you feel like the industry still has a lot more work to do when it comes to treating people who just aren’t white men as equals in industry?

I’ve been pretty lucky that I’ve not experienced any level of discrimination from being a woman or being Asian. I do notice that BIPOC [are] not as well represented within the cannabis industry. A seat at a table to be a decision maker, to be a leader within the industry, should not [be] tied to what you look like and what the color of your skin and your origin [is]. It should be tied into what you contribute to that conversation.

One of the things we’re starting to feel here in Colorado is the boom busting with cannabis. Which can be scary, but I also know it’s inevitable as more places legalize and there’s not necessarily the same type of market for tourists. So what advice are you giving brands currently that you’re working with when it comes to this unprecedented time in cannabis?

You need to understand who your core customers are. Continue to make sure that you’re taking care of them. And really be able to look for affinities with underserved consumers who you may not have had conversations with or invited into certain events. Be able to speak to their needs so that you have a wider, addressable market. [Cannabis is] very much a boots-on-the-ground type of business. [It requires] conversations, education, understanding consumer behavior. 

I know another big thing that you advocate for is sustainability. So how do you work that in when you’re working with a brand and making sure that they’re successful, but also sustainable?

Here at StateHouse, since we’re fully vertical on our farms, we’ve switched over a lot of our power usage, working directly with PG&E in terms of using less electricity in our cultivation practices. Looking at packaging, which often is wasteful, how can we reduce that? And we’re looking at ways of being able to make sure that we are conscious in terms of how we’re making all of our products.

Do you have anything that you want to specifically make sure we highlight or talk about?

We have recently opened our West Hollywood Urbn Leaf dispensary right on the Sunset Strip. So someone was asking me, “Why are you so excited about having a cannabis store on the Sunset Strip?” It’s [a] prime location. First generation cannabis retailers have been in industrial areas and zoned in places [that are] hidden somewhere [and] kind of difficult to find and look a bit shady even though it’s a legal, properly licensed facility. Being right on the Sunset Strip, we’ve really come a long way. [The store has an] open shelf shopping experience, so you can just pick up a little basket and drop your products in and actually shop as if you were in a grocery store. I love the experience of self-select where you get guidance with a budtender and have one-on-one conversations, but more importantly, you can actually pick up a product, look at the label and not feel that you’re being rushed.

The post Angela Pih Is a Master of Brands appeared first on High Times.