Protecting investment. Strengthening organizations. Building the workforce infrastructure for sustainable growth.

Cannabis businesses operate at the intersection of rapid growth, regulatory complexity, evolving markets, and significant workforce challenges. For investors, these conditions can create human capital risks that may not become apparent until after an investment or acquisition has been completed.

Cooper Gilmore Consulting provides specialized human capital advisory services to cannabis investors and their portfolio companies.

We help investors and operators identify workforce risks, strengthen organizational infrastructure, and build scalable people practices that support growth, integration, restructuring, and long-term value creation.

Our approach combines strategic human resources expertise with an understanding of the unique operational, regulatory, and cultural dynamics of the cannabis industry.

Pre-Acquisition Human Capital Due Diligence

Understanding workforce risk before the transaction.

Financial and operational due diligence may not fully reveal organizational and workforce vulnerabilities. Cooper Gilmore evaluates the human capital infrastructure behind the business to identify potential risks and areas requiring investment.

Assessments may include:

• Organizational structure and staffing
• Compensation practices and internal equity
• Position classification
• HR policies and compliance
• Wage and hour practices
• Leadership and management infrastructure
• HR systems and processes
• Employee relations risks
• Key-person dependencies
• Workforce scalability
• Position documentation
• Organizational capacity

The result is a clearer picture of the organization’s human capital strengths, vulnerabilities, and potential post-transaction priorities.

Turning Due Diligence Findings Into Action

The period immediately following an investment or acquisition creates an opportunity to establish stronger organizational infrastructure.

Cooper Gilmore works with investors and portfolio company leadership to prioritize human capital initiatives without overwhelming the organization.

Our work may include:

• Organizational assessment
• HR infrastructure review
• Leadership and reporting structure
• Compensation and internal equity analysis
• Policy and compliance review
• Position clarification
• Management practices
• HR technology and process assessment
• Workforce planning
• Prioritized implementation roadmap

The objective is straightforward: identify what needs immediate attention, what can wait, and what will be required to support the next stage of growth.

A Focused Assessment for Investors and Operators

The Cannabis Portfolio Human Capital Diagnostic is a targeted assessment designed to identify workforce risks and organizational opportunities within a cannabis portfolio company.
The diagnostic evaluates key areas of the organization’s human capital infrastructure, including:

Organizational Structure
Are responsibilities, reporting relationships, and decision-making authority appropriately structured?

Compensation & Internal Equity
Are compensation practices competitive, internally equitable, sustainable, and defensible?

Positions & Job Architecture
Are positions appropriately defined, classified, documented, and aligned with organizational needs?

HR Infrastructure
Can current HR processes, systems, policies, and staffing support the organization’s growth?

Compliance & Workforce Risk
Are there employment practices that could create regulatory, financial, or employee-relations exposure?

Leadership & Management Infrastructure
Do managers have the structure, authority, processes, and capabilities necessary to effectively lead the workforce?

Workforce Scalability
Can the current organizational model support expansion, new locations, acquisitions, or entry into additional markets?

The Deliverable

Investors and portfolio company leadership receive an Executive Human Capital Value Creation Report identifying:

RED — Immediate Risk
Issues requiring timely attention because of potential compliance, financial, operational, or workforce consequences.

YELLOW — Value Creation Opportunity
Areas where improvement could strengthen organizational performance, scalability, or workforce effectiveness.

GREEN — Organizational Strength
Practices and infrastructure that are functioning effectively and can support continued growth.

The assessment concludes with a prioritized Human Capital Value Creation Roadmap outlining recommended actions for the next 12 months.

Building Infrastructure Before Growth Outpaces the Organization

Cannabis organizations can grow rapidly through new licenses, locations, product lines, acquisitions, and geographic expansion.

The workforce infrastructure supporting that growth must evolve as well.

Cooper Gilmore helps portfolio companies build scalable organizational structures through services including:

• Organizational design
• Job architecture
• Position classification
• Career frameworks
• Compensation structures
• Workforce planning
• Position control
• HR process improvement
• HR technology strategy
• Management infrastructure
• Policy development
• Professionalization of HR operations

Our goal is to help organizations move from entrepreneurial infrastructure to scalable organizational infrastructure without unnecessarily bureaucratizing the business.

Bringing Organizations—and People—Together

Acquisitions can create overlapping positions, inconsistent compensation practices, conflicting policies, different organizational cultures, and uncertainty among employees.

Cooper Gilmore supports investors and management teams through the human capital components of integration.

Services may include:

• Organizational structure analysis
• Role and position duplication analysis
• Position consolidation
• Compensation harmonization
• Job architecture integration
• Policy alignment
• Workforce restructuring
• Organizational communication
• Change management
• HR process integration
• Management structure review

The objective is to create a unified workforce structure while reducing disruption to the business.

Making Difficult Workforce Decisions More Structured and Defensible

Changing market conditions may require cannabis organizations to rethink their workforce structures.

Cooper Gilmore provides objective analysis to help leadership evaluate positions, organizational layers, staffing models, and workforce costs against business priorities.

Our approach focuses on the positions and organizational structure required by the business, helping leadership establish a consistent and defensible framework for workforce decisions.

Strengthening Human Capital Infrastructure Before the Next Transaction

Workforce issues discovered during buyer due diligence can create unnecessary questions, delays, and risk.

Cooper Gilmore helps portfolio companies prepare their human capital infrastructure for future investment, recapitalization, or sale.

Exit-readiness assessments may address:

• Organizational documentation
• Position descriptions
• Compensation practices
• Classification
• HR policies
• Compliance documentation
• Workforce structure
• HR systems and processes
• Management infrastructure
• Outstanding human capital risks

The goal is to enter the next transaction with a more organized, documented, and defensible workforce infrastructure.

Why Cannabis Experience Matters

Cannabis is not simply another consumer products, agricultural, manufacturing, or retail industry.

Organizations operate within an evolving regulatory environment while managing many of the same workforce challenges facing traditional businesses—often while growing or restructuring much faster.

Effective human capital advisory work in this environment requires an understanding of both organizational strategy and the realities of the cannabis workplace.

Cooper Gilmore brings together expertise in:

Human Capital Strategy | Organizational Design | Compensation | Classification | Compliance | Workforce Restructuring | HR Operations | Leadership Infrastructure | Cannabis Industry Workforce Issues

This combination allows us to approach human capital not simply as an HR function, but as part of the organization’s broader operational and investment strategy.

A Resource for Investors. A Partner for Portfolio Companies.

Cooper Gilmore can work directly with investors, operating partners, boards, executives, and portfolio company leadership.

Engagements can range from targeted assessments to comprehensive organizational initiatives and ongoing strategic advisory support.

Whether evaluating an investment, integrating an acquisition, preparing an organization for growth, restructuring operations, or positioning a company for its next transaction, we help leadership answer a critical question:

Does the organization’s human capital infrastructure support where the business is going?

Let’s start the conversation.

Contact Cooper Gilmore Consulting to discuss human capital advisory support for your cannabis investments and portfolio companies.

There are three things I especially like about this version.

First, it doesn’t make cannabis sound like a compliance problem. It treats cannabis companies as sophisticated businesses with investment, growth, organizational and workforce challenges.

Second, your Human Capital Diagnostic becomes the entry product. An investor doesn’t have to figure out which of ten consulting services it needs; there is a defined place to start.

Third, I deliberately included the phrase “entrepreneurial infrastructure to scalable organizational infrastructure.” That gets at something I think could become part of your niche: helping founder-led cannabis businesses professionalize as institutional capital enters without destroying what made the company successful in the first place.

I would also eventually add a small “For Investors / For Operators” pathway near the top of the webpage so a PE/VC partner sees immediately that this page was built for them, while a cannabis CEO can still recognize that Cooper Gilmore can work directly with the company.