Pillars of Competitive Advantage: Beverage Guru Wields Brand Building Powers in Cannabis

Joe Bayern wants to make Curaleaf the “first truly national cannabis company in the U.S.” and with operations in 23 states, Curaleaf is getting there.   What did it take?   Bayern leveraged decades of experience in the beverage sector and other industries. Once at Curaleaf, he executed, taking it from 2,000 employees when he joined in 2019 to 5,500 today.  

Key insights he’s learned along the way include:  

Don’t underestimate the amount of change and the pace of the industry; be ready to make decisions very quickly.  Maintain a start-up mindset.  The greatest opportunities in cannabis are with brands.  Create competitive advantage by investing in research and development to create great brands and products.  Build a broad distribution platform to get those products to consumers.  Allocate your resources scrupulously. 

Guest 

Joe Bayern has been the CEO of Curaleaf, one of the biggest multistate operators in the cannabis industry, since 2019. Bayern is a beverage industry player specializing in business transformations. He spent six years in three C-suite posts at Snapple Beverage Group, four-plus years at Cadbury Schweppes in two C-suite posts, and eight years at Voss of Norway, where he was chief operating officer and group CEO. Bayern left Voss in 2019 to break into cannabis with Indus Holdings, from where he joined Curaleaf. He also played for lacrosse for his alma mater, Adelphi University, where he met his wife.