Managing Director - European Cannabis Industry

Managing Director

Cannabis Industry - Dutch Controlled Cannabis Supply Chain Experiment

Location: Southern Netherlands

Working Model: Flexible hybrid, ideally 3-4 days a week on site, with occasional travel to Germany

Fluent Dutch is essential for this role, and you must have worked at a company that grows a crop at large commercial scale, for example in greenhouse horticulture, arable farming or licensed cannabis cultivation. If you do not meet both of these, please do not apply as we will not consider your application.

Company Description:

Our client is one of just ten growers licensed under the Netherlands' Controlled Cannabis Supply Chain Experiment, the government's regulated pilot for legal recreational cannabis cultivation and supply. It is one of the most closely watched cannabis programmes in Europe, and the licence itself is genuinely rare.

Founded in 2017, the company cultivates from a purpose-built indoor facility in the south of the Netherlands with capacity for more than 7 tonnes a year. It supplies the majority of the 80+ coffeeshops taking part in the experiment nationally, across dozens of varieties, making it one of the largest legal suppliers in the market.

Around 120 people work in the business. The cultivation team came up through the industry itself, and production and quality are strongly established.

The company has grown fast and now has the licence, the facility, the customer base and the product to build something significant. The company is now bringing in a Managing Director to lead the next phase.

This is a mandate to take a proven cultivation business and build the commercial and financial engine to match it. Sharpening financial oversight and reporting, bringing capability in-house that currently sits with external advisers, and building the internal structure that turns strong production into further, scalable profitability.

It is a rare opportunity: a licensed position in a market almost nobody can enter, a business that already works, and a genuine mandate to shape what it becomes next.

Role Description:

You will be employed directly by the operating business as Managing Director, reporting directly to the shareholder group. The structure is deliberate. It makes your authority in the business unambiguous from day one, and you have the shareholders' full backing to make changes.

The current Managing Director stays in the business and moves towards sales, account management and the coffeeshop relationships, which is where their strengths lie. You start alongside them and take over operational leadership of the company, with that reporting line moving to you over time. This is the most important thing to understand about the role. You are joining a business that already has a founder-figure in it, so this role needs someone who leads comfortably in that situation.

Production and quality are covered, and both the Head of Production and the GMP lead report to you. Your focus is business strategy, the numbers and the operating structure. You need to be financially literate: read a balance sheet and a P&L, draw the right conclusions, and spot when something is wrong. You will not do the bookkeeping. Two part-time accountants handle that, and an external consultant currently supports reporting two days a week, which the shareholders want to phase out.

There is no full organigram of the business today. Mapping the team, working out what the company actually needs, and building your own team around you is part of the job.

Responsibilities:

• Take over day-to-day operational leadership of the Dutch business
• Own the P&L and make decisions based on the numbers
• Set the financial reporting framework and make sure the shareholders get accurate figures on time
• Report to the shareholder group and present at shareholder meetings
• Build the business strategy, including a clear view of where margin actually comes from
• Lead the Head of Production and the GMP lead, and keep cultivation and quality performing
• Get a full picture of the customer base and the commercial relationships
• Map the existing team and structure, and assess the HR situation
• Build out your own team and put the missing structure in place
• Reduce the company's reliance on external advisers and bring work in-house where it makes sense
• Bring the sales and coffeeshop side into one commercial plan for the business
• Meet the governance and reporting requirements of the shareholder group
• Make sure the business meets the requirements of the Controlled Cannabis Supply Chain Experiment

Preferred Qualifications and Skills:

• Proven experience running a business or a production site with full P&L responsibility
• Background in production: cannabis, horticulture or agriculture
• Fluent Dutch and English. Both are essential. Board-level communication runs in English with German-speaking shareholders, so Dutch without strong English does not work in this role
• Strong preference for spoken German. You should be able to follow a conversation in German and be understood by the German-speaking shareholders. Written German is not needed, and this is a preference rather than a requirement
• Financially literate: able to read and interpret a balance sheet and a P&L and act on what they tell you
• Direct experience reporting to shareholders, investors or a supervisory board
• Entrepreneurial background, and the personality to hold your ground with a founder-figure and a demanding shareholder group
• Bonus points for cannabis industry experience. It is not required
• Bonus points for having taken a business through a turnaround or professionalisation under investor ownership
• Bonus points for experience in a regulated production environment, such as GMP, pharma or food safety

In return, our client is offering:

• Base salary of €150.000 - €200.000, depending on experience
• Performance bonus starting at 30% of base
• All legal Dutch benefits
• Full backing from the shareholder group to make the changes the business needs

If you'd like to explore this opportunity further, you're welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at eric.spelten@luminorecruit.com and we can book a call.

We welcome referrals for this position and offer a referral incentive for successful placements. If you know someone who would be a great fit, please feel free to share this opportunity with them.