Join us for the BIMA's thought leadership panel around AI in the advertising industry and gain insights from Noor Naseer.
09/26/2023
5:30pm - 7:30pm
Hill Holliday
Corean Reynold was recently appointed the Director of Nightlife Economy for the City of Boston, where she brings a wealth of experience and a passion for fostering an equitable and thriving nightlife ecosystem.
10/04/2023
6:00pm - 7:30pm
Roundhead Brewing Company
Don’t miss our upcoming Government Affairs Forum with Massachusetts State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg. Register now!
10/11/2023
9:45am - 11:00am
Bank of America
Designed for mid-level managers and supervisors, this new certificate program addresses workplace well-being through unique, innovative, and actionable methods.
Join our Transformational DEI Certificate! Our comprehensive learning & development offerings are designed to connect and grow strong leaders who lead both inside and out of the office.
Our Women’s Leadership Program enables you to take your leadership to the next level by arming you with the most in-demand leadership toolkit.
Our Boston’s Future Leaders (BFL) program provides emerging leaders with a socially conscious and civically engaged leadership toolkit, as well as the opportunity to apply their knowledge through experiential assignments.
Our Economic Inclusion Committee provides strategic support around research, policies, and programs that are focused on building equal opportunity.
We are developing an ecosystem of corporations and partners with the influence and buying power to transform economic inclusion for minority business enterprises (MBEs).
The Fierce Urgency of Now Festival brings Boston’s diverse young professionals together with business leaders, organizations and their peers to build connection, advance careers and ignite positive change.
09/12/2023 -
09/16/2023
Greater Boston
City Awake empowers young professionals in a variety of ways that encourages these rising leaders to stay invested in the region’s future success.
BIMA (the Boston Interactive Media Association) serves a vibrant community of like-minded professionals from agencies, brands, publishers, and ad-tech companies with business interests in the New England market.
For nearly 30 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
The Massachusetts Apprentice Network convenes employers, training providers, and talent sources interested in developing and implementing apprenticeship programs in occupations across industries and statewide in fields such as tech, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, and more.
We support small business through public policy initiatives, events designed to connect small businesses in Greater Boston to their peers and established business leaders, professional development offerings, and free small business advising.
Explore our mission and values to better understand how we are leading the business community forward.
Our member directory is your resource to discover, connect, and engage with Boston’s businesses from every industry and sector.
Weedmaps, one of the country’s larger and more established marijuana firms, is going all-in on Massachusetts and its new recreational pot market.
The California company, which sells software to licensed cannabis operators and publishes a popular online directory of dispensaries for consumers, is finalizing a lease for a downtown Boston office to accommodate its sales and lobbying team.
Its executives want to be right in close to the rollout of new rules for the nascent industry in Massachusetts and have the firm well-established locally by the time dispensaries open up next summer.
Weedmaps also just became the first marijuana-related company to join the venerable Boston Chamber of Commerce.
At first blush, the two organizations hardly seem like a natural fit. The chamber opposed Question 4, the ballot initiative that legalized marijuana, while Weedmaps supported the measure and has since lobbied the state to put fewer restrictions on the dispensaries and other licensed pot operations it hopes will buy its ads and services.
But Jim Rooney, the chamber’s president and chief executive, said that’s all in the past.
“The debate is over,” he said. “The vote making marijuana legal has taken place. And once something’s legal, it’s just a business. It’s part of our ecosystem, and it’s not for us to judge.”
The move isn’t a huge surprise. The chamber’s opposition to Question 4 consisted of little more than a statement, and Rooney even before the referendum said he would welcome cannabis companies to his group if it passed.
In fact, Rooney said, some business members of the chamber stand to make money working with cannabis companies, which are highly regulated and often require intensive legal, lobbying, financial, and real estate help — not to mention security, lighting, plumbing, transportation, software, and insurance, among numerous other goods and services.
“When a new industry is taking shape, there are all sorts of business opportunities embedded in that, in terms of support and suppliers,” Rooney said.
Weedmaps doesn’t deal directly in marijuana. It’s positioned more as a technology company, competing for talent with the likes of Google and Facebook. That might smooth the company’s integration into the chamber, which has been working to update its reputation as a stuffy, overly restrained group.
“We’re trying to show what the responsible actors in the industry look like,” Weedmaps president Chris Beals said, “and to lower any misperception or stigma associated with marijuana.”
Joining the chamber, he added, “is part of being a civically-minded organization.”
The company’s top lobbying priorities, Beals said, are ensuring there are enough pot stores in convenient locations for customers and that lab-testing standards are reasonable.
Its initial presence in Boston will be modest: about 10 people. Eventually, Weedmaps may recruit some of the Boston area’s copious programming and analytical talent to help advance an ambitious big-data project that seeks to match different cannabis strains with various subjective effects felt by users.
While many advocates and consumers fear the state will bungle its rollout of regulated marijuana firms, Beals said Weedmaps sees Massachusetts as a leader.
“It can’t be overstated how excited we are about the prospect that Massachusetts is on the right path to have the best policy on cannabis in the country,” he said. “We’ve actually had senior, senior officials in neighboring states ask us if they should copy Massachusetts.
“We said, ‘Absolutely.’ ”
Read the original article on BostonGlobe.com
Popular Resources