Jeff Kay, CMO of Safe Harbor Financial – Interview Series

With federal cannabis reforms in America potentially on the horizon, it is understandable that new questions and concerns are emerging among cannabis business owners and professionals with every passing day and discussion. These concerns are numerous—ranging from which federal “three-letter” agencies will act as the national regulators, to how specific state markets will be impacted by federal rules over others, and, of course, the ongoing questions surrounding banking and financial reform for licensed businesses.

For a deeper look into the changes these potential federal reforms could bring, as well as the unique differences between state markets across the United States, mycannabis.com had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Kay, CMO of Safe Harbor Financial.

What subjects did you mainly study at the University of Maryland, and which courses ended up being the most worthwhile for someone working in the cannabis industry?

I was introduced early on to the “four P’s of marketing” by a professor at the University of Maryland, and for whatever reason it immediately clicked for me. But the real obsession started when I began understanding the difference between products and brands. Most products are ultimately just products. Branding is what creates emotional connection, differentiation, loyalty, and value. That became the common thread throughout my career, from CPG to entertainment marketing to cannabis. Looking back, a lot of those early marketing principles apply directly to cannabis today. The fundamentals really don’t change. Whether you’re selling packaged foods, financial services, or cannabis products, you still need to understand your customer better than the competition does and communicate your value honestly and consistently. Cannabis sometimes behaves like it invented branding and marketing from scratch. It didn’t. A lot of the industry is simply learning, in real time, lessons other mature industries learned decades ago.

Prior to entering the cannabis industry, what brands and companies did you provide marketing services for? Depending on the industry they work in, how did you have to change your services and duties?

My career started in entertainment marketing and product placement, which basically happened because I became fascinated with the Reese’s Pieces placement in the movie E.T.

While in college, I landed an internship with an entertainment marketing firm in Los Angeles breaking down movie scripts for product placement opportunities. I moved to LA shortly after graduation to pursue that further, which eventually evolved into agency work with brands like Kraft Foods, Nestlé, and Universal Studios. With Kraft and Nestlé, I learned the discipline of CPG marketing: analytics, retail strategy, shopper behavior, promotions, merchandising, positioning, and distribution. The less glamorous parts of marketing that actually determine whether a brand succeeds or dies on shelf. At Universal, I worked on commercial partnerships connecting entertainment properties with major consumer brands, which taught me a lot about attention, culture, storytelling, and brand activation. The industries changed, but the fundamentals rarely did. Every successful business eventually comes back to understanding human behavior, building trust, and creating meaningful differentiation in crowded markets.

What transferable marketing skills and strategies from your work with major food brands such as Kraft did you later use in the cannabis industry?

People love to act like cannabis is completely different from every other industry. In reality, a lot of cannabis is simply consumer packaged goods operating inside regulatory chaos. The biggest thing I brought from CPG into cannabis was discipline. Brand discipline. Customer discipline. Margin discipline. The understanding that branding is not a logo or package design. Branding is whether consumers trust you enough to try your product, and whether the experience is strong enough to bring them back. The cannabis industry is filled with companies convinced that having the “best” weed or flashy branding is enough. It’s not. Consumers eventually expect the same things they expect everywhere else: consistency, reliability, authenticity, and products that actually deliver on the promise being marketed. In other words, value. A lot of companies treated branding like aesthetics instead of operational credibility. The companies that survive long term usually understand the difference.

As someone who’s worked in both the Michigan cannabis industry and the Arizona industry, what would you say are the major differences between the two industries?

Michigan is one of the toughest cannabis markets in the country right now because of severe oversupply, price compression, and heavy taxation. There’s enormous consumer demand, especially near border regions where customers travel in from neighboring states for lower prices. You also have black market resellers and even some out-of-state shops sourcing products indirectly because pricing became so cheap. But demand still hasn’t kept pace with the amount of product flooding the market. When you combine oversupply with intense competition, hemp-derived products, heavy taxation, and a persistent illicit market, margins get crushed. There are operators producing genuinely strong products who still struggle to build sustainable businesses. A lot of companies in Michigan shifted into survival mode, prioritizing volume simply to keep cash moving and the lights on. Arizona experienced price compression too, but the market dynamics remained healthier overall. Operators generally had more room to build sustainable margins and stronger brands. One of the biggest lessons from both markets is that revenue can be a very misleading metric in cannabis. Companies can generate massive sales volume while quietly losing profitability underneath it all.

Given your experience with the Southwest cannabis markets, what advantages do you think that region of the American cannabis market holds over other regional markets?

I don’t really think cannabis is a regional story nearly as much as it’s a state policy story. States effectively control supply and demand through licensing and enforcement, and that decision shapes almost everything downstream from pricing to profitability to competitive intensity. Some states create relatively balanced ecosystems. Others flood the market with licenses and create conditions where it becomes incredibly difficult for operators to survive. New Mexico is a good example. It’s effectively an open-license environment, so you end up with a small group of strong operators performing well while hundreds of businesses struggle to keep the lights on. In markets like that, price itself becomes the dominant brand. That’s one of the biggest misconceptions about cannabis. People think consumer demand alone determines market health. It doesn’t. Policy decisions and enforcement, or lack thereof, have enormous influence over who survives and who doesn’t.

While working in marketing roles for cannabis companies, how did Meta and Google’s very anti-cannabis policies get in the way of you being able to successfully advertise those brands/companies?

I spent a fair amount of time in what I jokingly call “Facebook Jail.” Cannabis companies would spend years building audiences on platforms like Facebook and Instagram only to wake up one morning and find accounts suspended or removed with little warning and virtually no recourse. I remember entire groups of operators in certain states getting wiped out simultaneously. What it taught me very quickly was that building your business entirely on rented land is dangerous. The irony is those platforms actually worked extremely well for cannabis when companies were allowed to operate normally. Engagement was strong. Traffic was strong. Consumer dialogue was strong. But the rules changed constantly and inconsistently, which made long-term strategy almost impossible at times. Cannabis branding itself is also harder than many people want to admit. Most products still are not meaningfully differentiated yet. A lot of branding today is aesthetics and storytelling layered over products consumers often perceive as fairly interchangeable. The industry is still evolving toward true brand maturity.

What caught your professional attention about joining the Safe Harbor Financial team? From your experience in the cannabis industry, what was it doing as a company that was unique?

What drew me to Safe Harbor was the opportunity to help solve problems an entire industry has been struggling with for years, including many I experienced firsthand while on the operator side. I understood the pain points because I lived them. Cannabis operators face enormous operational and financial issues every day, much of it created by regulation, limited banking access, compliance complexity, and inconsistent infrastructure. Safe Harbor had already spent more than a decade operating in the middle of that environment and surviving it, which immediately stood out to me. In cannabis, longevity is not accidental. What I also saw was a company with capabilities that extended far beyond how people traditionally think about cannabis banking. Most people think about checking accounts. In reality, operators are dealing with much bigger challenges: cash management, payments, forecasting, capital access, compliance workflows, and basic visibility into the true health of their business. Most people enter cannabis because they love the plant, the product, or the opportunity. Very few enter it because they love operational finance and compliance infrastructure. But those are often the things that determine whether a business survives. What became exciting to me was the opportunity to help build infrastructure around those pain points and help operators run healthier, more sustainable businesses. To me, that’s where the industry ultimately matures.

How does your professional experience in various state industries give you a better understanding of your role with Safe Harbor and the financial needs of cannabis companies?

I don’t think I could do this job effectively without having operated inside the industry first. When you’ve personally dealt with 280E, cash flow pressure, compliance headaches, banking limitations, price compression, and constantly shifting regulations, you stop talking about operator pain points academically. You understand them because you’ve lived them. That changes the conversation completely and, honestly, it gives you a healthy amount of empathy that goes a long way in this industry. A lot of operators are exhausted. They’re trying to build real businesses inside a system that was never really designed for them to operate like normal businesses. Every state is different. Every market behaves differently. And the rules are constantly moving. Having worked across multiple state markets gives me a much more grounded understanding of what operators are actually facing day to day, not just financially, but operationally and emotionally as well. That experience shapes how we position Safe Harbor, the problems we focus on solving, and the kinds of solutions we prioritize building. Operators are not simply looking for a financial institution. They’re looking for people who genuinely understand the business they’re in and can help them navigate it intelligently.

With federal cannabis rescheduling actually becoming a reality, how do you envision such a huge change impacting Safe Harbor Financial and its operations? Simultaneously, how will that major reform impact your role as Chief Marketing Officer?

Any movement toward rescheduling or broader reform is positive because uncertainty is incredibly expensive for businesses. If operators receive relief from 280E, they retain more cash, improve profitability, and operate with greater stability. Healthier operators ultimately create healthier banking relationships and healthier financial ecosystems overall. But the larger impact is confidence. As regulation evolves, more financial institutions will become comfortable participating in cannabis banking. That’s where Safe Harbor becomes particularly interesting because we’ve spent more than a decade helping financial institutions actually operationalize cannabis banking programs. When more banks and credit unions decide they want exposure to cannabis, they’ll have choices. They can attempt to build everything internally from scratch, piece together multiple vendors, or work with a company that already understands the workflows, compliance expectations, operational realities, and infrastructure requirements of the industry. As regulation matures, more financial institutions will become comfortable entering the space, and the need for experienced infrastructure and operational support will grow alongside it.

Thank you for joining us, Jeff! For more information on Safe Harbor Financial, please visit its website.