Highly Kosher Professionals: Laurie Parfitt, Founder, LKP Impact Consulting

JIW: What subjects did you mainly study at Michigan State University? Which courses became most useful while working in the cannabis industry?

Laurie: I started at Michigan State in the James Madison College studying Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy with the intention of going pre-law. I have always been interested in systems, policy, people, and how decisions get made, so that path made sense for me at the time.

But I ultimately moved into merchandising because I realized I loved retail, consumer behavior, and working closer to the customer. Over the summers, I worked for Nordstrom and found myself inspired and engaged by retail. I was drawn to understanding what people buy, why they buy it, how products show up on shelf, and how brands earn loyalty.

That shift has served me incredibly well in cannabis. I started my cannabis career running marketing and customer experience for Mission Dispensaries, and it brought everything full circle. Cannabis is retail, CPG, policy, education, compliance, and customer experience all at once. My merchandising background gave me the foundation to understand assortment, pricing, promotions, store experience, and the importance of meeting the customer where they are. My early studies in political theory also helped because cannabis is so deeply tied to regulation, social change, and public perception.

The most useful courses were really the ones that taught me how to think critically, understand consumers, and connect big-picture strategy to what actually happens at the store level.

JIW: Prior to working with cannabis brands, what companies did you work with when strengthening your brand strategy and management skills? What were the most transferable skills you picked up during your early years?

Laurie: Before cannabis, I spent more than 17 years in consumer packaged goods, retail, and brand strategy, working with companies including Kraft, Mizkan with brands like Ragu and Bertolli, Beam Suntory, Walgreens, and Topco.

My experience at Kraft and Mizkan gave me a strong foundation in traditional CPG and branding, but it also went much deeper than marketing. My background has always stretched across finance and accounting, operations, sales, category management, trade marketing, national account management, and brand strategy. That cross-functional foundation has been one of the most valuable parts of my career because I do not look at marketing in a vacuum. I look at how a brand actually grows, how it performs at retail, how it drives revenue, and how it fits into the larger business.

Topco was really where so much of that experience came together. I served as the GM and head of multiple business units with more than $1 billion in P&L responsibility, and I also helped start their brand strategy function. That experience taught me how to run businesses with very limited resources, how to prioritize what actually matters, and how to make decisions that balance brand, customer, operations, finance, and sales.

Those skills have been incredibly transferable to cannabis. Cannabis companies often have big ambitions, limited budgets, complex operations, and very real constraints. Additionally, because cannabis has limited resources, people are expected to wear multiple hats and not stay in their lane. My background taught me how to build brands that are creative, but also commercially sound. It taught me how to connect strategy to execution and how to make marketing accountable to the business.

JIW: How does your Jewish identity play a role in your personal and professional life?

Laurie: My Jewish identity is a very important part of who I am, both personally and professionally. What I am most proud of is being Jewish outside of just my family. I believe being Jewish is special and a true blessing, and it is something I carry with tremendous pride.

I have always supported the Jewish people and I will continue to. That does not mean at the exclusion of others. It means that I see the Jewish people as part of my extended family, and I feel a responsibility to show up, support, advocate, and create community where I can. I care deeply for people I have never met simply because they are Jewish.

October 7th affected me deeply as a person and as a member of the Jewish community. It was a stark reminder that hatred toward our people is still very much alive. In many ways, I thought we were past that, and it became a wake-up call for many of us as we tried to navigate our personal feelings, our sense of safety, our community responsibilities, and our professional goals all at the same time.

It also clarified something for me. I do not believe we should only say that we stand with Israel. I believe we need to be Israel. When we say we stand with someone or somewhere, we can unintentionally separate ourselves from them. For me, being Jewish means understanding that connection as part of my own identity, not as something outside of me. Being Jewish is something that I am so incredibly proud of, and it will always be central to how I move through the world.

JIW: What caught your professional interest about joining the Illinois cannabis industry? How is marketing and brand building in the cannabis industry different from other industries?

Laurie: My entry into cannabis really came through one of my mentors from my CPG and Topco days. He brought me into the industry, and my first foray was with an MSO that had one dispensary in Illinois, although my role was much more national in scope.

That first experience showed me how much opportunity there was to bring real brand discipline, retail strategy, customer experience, and operational thinking into cannabis. It was not just about marketing a product. It was about helping shape an emerging industry, educating consumers, building trust, and creating experiences that made people feel comfortable engaging with cannabis.

After I left the MSO and started my own practice, I became much more deeply involved in the Illinois cannabis industry. I hosted regular education and networking events with Tony P and Illinois Women in Cannabis, and through that work I got to know the Illinois market extremely well. I became a regular speaker, moderator, and thought leader in the state, and those relationships helped me understand the industry from many different angles,  operators, brands, retailers, advocates, regulators, entrepreneurs, and service providers.

Today, my work is much more national and international, but Illinois was an important foundation. It gave me a front-row seat to what happens when a market moves from medical to adult use, and it helped me understand how important education, access, community, and responsible brand building are in cannabis.

JIW: How does LKP Impact Consulting assist cannabis brands in their own brand building and expansion endeavors? What is so unique about doing those duties for cannabis brands as opposed to other brands that LKP Impact Consulting works with such as food brands?

Laurie: LKP Impact Consulting helps cannabis brands build stronger, smarter, and more scalable marketing strategies. We work across brand strategy, positioning, messaging, PR, content, social media, events, retail activation, sales support, and overall go-to-market planning. A lot of the work is helping companies connect the dots between who they are, who they are trying to reach, and how they actually grow.

For cannabis brands, we often help bring structure and discipline to fast-moving businesses. That can mean clarifying the brand story, building a content strategy, supporting a product launch, creating a retail or trade marketing plan, developing thought leadership, or helping leadership teams prioritize what will actually move the business forward.

What is unique about cannabis is that you are building brands inside a highly regulated, fragmented, and still-evolving industry. A food brand may have retailer challenges, consumer competition, and margin pressure, but cannabis adds layers of compliance, stigma, state-by-state complexity, limited marketing channels, and education barriers.

That said, my food and CPG background is still incredibly valuable. Cannabis brands need the same fundamentals that food brands need: clear positioning, strong consumer insight, disciplined execution, retail strategy, and a reason for people to come back. The difference is that in cannabis, you have to do all of that with more constraints and often with fewer traditional tools. That is where experience matters.

JIW: How do you envision cannabis marketing and advertising evolving as the American cannabis industry expands?

Laurie: I think cannabis marketing is going to become more sophisticated, more data-driven, and more consumer-led. The industry has spent a lot of time talking to itself. As cannabis expands, the brands that win will be the ones that know how to talk to real consumers in a way that feels approachable, trustworthy, and relevant.

We will see more segmentation, more occasion-based marketing, and more emphasis on product formats that fit into people’s existing lives, beverages, low-dose products, wellness-oriented products, and products designed for specific need states or experiences. I also think retail will continue to be a major brand-building channel. Because traditional advertising is still limited, the dispensary experience, budtender education, menu presence, events, and local community relationships will remain incredibly important.

As regulations evolve, cannabis advertising will likely start to look more like other regulated adult-use categories, but I do not think brands should wait for that to happen. The best brands are already building trust through education, content, PR, partnerships, and customer experience.

The next phase of cannabis marketing will be less about trying to be loud and more about being clear, credible, and consistent. Cannabis has to move from novelty to normalcy, and marketing will play a huge role in helping that happen.

Laurie Parfitt, a seasoned executive and coach with 20+ years of experience, leads LKP Impact Consulting, specializing in cannabis brand strategy and marketing. She’s a sought-after speaker and advisory board member, known for her innovative and results-driven approach.