MainStem, B2B supply chain and integrated procurement platform for the cannabis industry — appointed Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT), field chief data officer for the West, Matthew Smith to its board.
"I am honored that MainStem has entrusted me with this role, and I believe it is a testament to our shared belief that businesses' desire for speed, transparency, trust and real time intelligent decision support are always top drivers of enterprise maturity," stated Matthew Smith.
Joining Thomas Harrison, senior operating partner at Merida Capital Holdings and MainStem chairman and CEO, Alen Nguyen, Smith will serve through 2024 to provide strategic guidance on data analytics innovation, giving MainStem's vast ecosystem of cannabis companies and global suppliers an aggregated market read that provides real-time visibility into cannabis supply chain trends and personalized business opportunities.
"It takes time to switch from making gut-based, reactive decisions to making decisions based on business data, and yet data-driven companies always have a strategic advantage over their competition including increased agility and communication around mergers and acquisitions; with M+A activity presently leading the game in cannabis, I'm personally very excited to be joining the board of a company so well poised to powerfully revolutionize it," added Smith.
Smith continued: "When various business groups produce their own versions of reports, the enterprise isn't talking the same language on the same set of numbers. That creates confusion, inaccuracy, and, more importantly, ill-informed and costly decisions that rapidly growing MSOs simply cannot afford. Instead, when everyone across a company's footprint comes together around one version of truth - with MainStem as a visible industry sponsor "letting the data tell the story," they have the same baseline for what's happening. MainStem already makes this possible for MSOs. My job will be to help create one version of truth, shape industry data consumption patterns and performance indicators for the global ecosystem at large."
