Exclusive: Vangst Launches Executive Talent Service For Cannabis Industry

Cannabis-focused talent platform Vangst is expanding its offering, adding an executive talent search service, Benzinga has learned exclusively.

To spearhead this initiative, 20-year veteran headhunter Jennifer Bedford will join the company as vice president of executive talent.

"I've had my eye on Vangst since its inception and knew that [founder Karson Humiston] was in a unique class of founders ready-made for this explosive consumer sector,” Bedford says. “With the coming hyper-verticalization of labor-marketplaces, I knew Vangst would be the one to watch in the cannabis industry. It’s such a privilege to join this killer team and complement Vangst with a recruiting-offering at the executive level.”

According to Humiston, founder and CEO of Vangst, Bedford recently helped the company find a new vice president of revenue.

“It was hands down the best experience I've ever had with an executive recruiter,” Humiston says. 

“She connected us with leaders at Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Vettery, Linkedin, and all the major tech-hiring companies and presented us with so many "unicorn" candidates that it was honestly hard to make a decision around who to hire. She was extremely thorough and included backdoor reference checks and performance assessments; I felt like I had the full picture on each candidate.”