Nancy Whiteman grew Wana Brands using a bold national strategy and sold it for a fortune—just before pot stocks crashed. Whiteman, 64, who cofounded the Boulder-based cannabis edibles company Wana Brands in 2010, was testing a new gummy her company had developed, and her product team asked her to identify what effects it had on her, specifically on her physical or mental energy. She took the edible shortly before a Pilates class and two hours later found herself captivated by the labels and products in her local King Soopers.

“I’m always the guinea pig,” says Whiteman, who tests every product Wana creates, including gummies engineered to make users feel calm, fall asleep or stay focused. “I wasn’t especially hungry,” she says of her grocery experience. “It wasn’t a munchies-driven thing; it was more cognitive. I said to myself: ‘Oh, my God, look at the packaging. Who knew that there is tuna fish in glass jars packed in extra virgin olive oil?’ But all of a sudden, this became very intriguing to me with this particular formulation.”

In a little more than a decade, Whiteman, who was dubbed the “queen of legal weed” in 2017, has built one of the most successful brands in the cannabis industry. She is not a household name, but she has quietly and methodically made Wana one of the largest cannabis-infused edibles companies in the world, with estimated 2022 revenue of $115 million. And after Whiteman, who owned 100% of the company, inked a deal in October 2021 to sell Wana at a $350 million valuation to cannabis business Canopy Growth Corporation, she has become one of the richest entrepreneurs in the $26 billion legal weed industry.

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