At Glamour we talk to a lot of important women—astronauts, pro athletes, executives, and the occasional first lady. And while they span the professional spectrum and live all over the world, we’ve found that high-ranking women tend to have one thing in common: They’re truly excited to hold the door open for the women coming up behind them. In our Future Forward series—part of our College Women of the Year coverage—we asked some of those industry leaders to welcome the next generation to the table with their hard-earned life and career advice. Mary Pryor, a cofounder of Cannaclusive, shares hers below.
Mary Pryor didn’t like what she was seeing in the cannabis industry. She didn’t like that less than 3% of cannabis businesses were Black-owned. She didn’t like hearing conversations about cannabis that were more about privilege than wellness. And she hated when cannabis-business owners announced new programs to equalize the space, and then never followed through on their promises.
So she did something about it.
Pryor cofounded Cannaclusive, which works to amplify underrepresented voices in the cannabis world. (That work has included hosting workshops on cannabis education, creating a diverse stock photo series, and connecting founders with funding.) “There’s a lot of these really, really bad practices that are driving the need for accountability and supporting and coaching in the industry,” Pryor says. “We need to be supporting the brands that are already doing that work. And if they’re not, then people need to know.”
Even as a child, Pryor liked the idea of holding people accountable, and for a while she considered becoming a lawyer. She landed instead in an array of digital media and marketing jobs—with a client roster that included Sony Music Group, Viacom, and more—helping them reach multicultural audiences and raise the voices of diverse leaders. Her professional path from there hasn’t been conventionally linear; instead, it’s evolved in the same way her personal path has. “I believe that today’s modern women—between the ages of 30 to 45, I would say—are truly the multihyphenate,” she says. The podcast she’s launching in 2023, The Multi-Hyphenate Life, will consider just that.
Below, she shares her morning routine, her thoughts on the future of the cannabis industry, and the career advice she’s planning to pass on as a mentor to Kennedy Orr, a 2022 Glamour College Woman of the Year, who also hopes to make the cannabis space more inclusive.
Glamour: What is your typical morning routine?
Mary Pryor: Meditation, prayer. Stretching. A workout. Shower. Podcasts. I only listen to podcasts for news. I don’t watch TV for news, because it’s really triggering.
Does your current job align with your college major?
Not at all. My college major was in communications. I initially went to school to be an engineer, but I took organic chemistry, which was so hard, and I was like, I can’t pass this class. It made me go wild, and I thought that that meant I couldn’t be an engineer.
What was the moment you realized, “Okay, I might actually be successful….”
Twenty twenty turned me into a little bit of a workaholic. So I’m working myself back. But I’ve always wanted to be successful, which, to me, means financially free and respected, but that you’re not an asshole. I actually don’t know if that exists. But I feel like that would be great.
Is there a piece of career advice you wish you’d learned in college?
I wish I had learned more about setting up my financial future in college so that I would have less to worry about now. I wish those kinds of lessons were mandatory. College students really don’t learn the things that they all need to exist as adults after the collegiate system.
What’s the most valuable career lesson you’ve learned through experience?
The world is smaller than you think. You will see people again, no matter how far you’re trying to get away from them. Relationships are very important.
What’s the best life advice you’ve been given, not related to your career?
Your health: If you don’t make your first choice, you’re going to regret it as you get older.
What personal quality is nonnegotiable for success in your field?
The ability to adapt. No company remains the same three years, five years, 10 years later. You have to be willing to adapt and shift. You have to know how to be sustainable in business in the midst of good years and bad years.
How do you navigate the ups and downs?
You have to fight for balance, and if those boundaries are tested in unhealthy ways, then you have every right to move on to the next thing. You have to be able to make time to work out or meditate, and have access to the kind of food that makes you happy and sustains you.
If someone is just starting out in your field, how can she position herself for success?
Network enough, but don’t network all the time. There are only so many conferences you need to go to in order to figure out what you need to do in your life. If all you’re doing is going to conferences instead of putting to work what you’ve learned, then I don’t know if that’s successful.
What does the future of the cannabis industry look like?
The future of the industry is that it will be less inclusive if people don’t make inclusivity a priority in their business models and practices. Businesses are only going to follow through and prioritize inclusivity if their bottom line is affected by it—so customers and consumers have way more power than they think.
Name your go-to thank-you gift
Flowers, or gift card to like something that’s useful—nice and healthy, yet accessible.
If you weren’t in your current career, you’d be a ______.
I would be a chef.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jillian Kramer is a journalist who writes about health, wellness, science, and adventure. She taps into a broad network of experts to write in-depth articles for leading publications, including Glamour, The New York Times, Scientific American, Travel + Leisure, EatingWell, and Food & Wine.
