Brendan McKee

Banking access remains one of the cannabis industry's hardest constraints, and it shapes nearly all growth decisions operators make. Despite years of legislative momentum, most cannabis businesses still run cash-heavy operations, struggle to secure traditional lending, and watch investors hesitate at the door. The result is a market full of demand but starved for accessible capital. This session examines the current state of cannabis banking and the specific pain points around capital access, from limited credit lines to the compliance burdens that make institutions wary. For owners and finance leaders, these aren't abstract policy debates, they directly limit expansion, inventory, and hiring. 

This session moves past the problem to deliver practical answers. You'll learn strategies for navigating financial constraints, identifying alternative capital sources, and unlocking marijuana business funding pathways that work in today's environment. Industry experts will break down the latest cannabis market trends, assess the outlook for investment, and show how disciplined finance teams turn cannabis industry opportunities into durable cannabis business growth strategies.  

Cannabis technology used to mean one thing: staying compliant. That era is over. The operators pulling ahead now treat their tech stack as a growth engine, not a regulatory checkbox, and the gap between those two mindsets is widening fast. 

This session shows you how to close it. We'll break down how integrated systems, point of sale, payments, e-commerce, and loyalty programs, work together to streamline operations and lift revenue across every transaction. When these tools talk to each other, manual work drops, data sharpens, and your team spends less time fixing problems and more time serving customers. 

This session connects practical cannabis retail strategies to measurable outcomes you can track. Expect a results-oriented look at what a modern stack delivers and how to build one without ripping out what already works.