Article content continued

Photo by Handout

“Leaders [in the military] are expected to take responsibility for all activities that occur under their command,” he says. “In the end, we learn that we have to value country and our people above ourselves, which is delivering stakeholder value and subordinating your personal interests to what is important.”

There are four pillars to the company’s values: excellence, responsibility, compliance and delivery of stakeholder value. “We believe that if any one of our stakeholders is not being treated fairly and responsibly, then the company will not succeed,” Grieve says.

Currently Zenabis employs 700-plus people and has operations in Atholville, N.B.—its first licensed facility, which opened in 2017—and Stellarton, N.S. in Atlantic Canada, and Delta, Langley, Pitt Meadows, Aldergrove and Vancouver in B.C.

Having bicoastal representation isn’t a happy accident, Grieve points out. “While the company began in Western Canada, we saw a fantastic opportunity to increase our production capacity in the Maritimes,” he says. “We were drawn to establishing a presence on both ends of the country because, from a logistics perspective, it allows us the best chance to support our customers efficiently.”

Zenabis has set out to build a global cannabis business that gives anyone in the world (where cannabis is legal) the ability to buy high-quality product.

“We believe that everyone should have the right to consume a form of medicine that works for them, where legal, and to decide on their own recreational experience (again, where legal),” says Grieve.

That being the case, it makes sense that Grieve believes the cannabis industry’s greatest strengths are choice and the utility of the plant itself. His hope is that Zenabis can help create a future where people can easily access cannabis and that, over time, the “anecdotal experience of so many people will be translated into definite research outcomes.”