The Cannabis Control Commission marked its five-year anniversary last Thursday by welcoming its new chairperson — former state Treasurer Shannon O’Brien.
Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, who is responsible for appointing someone with a financial background to chair the marijuana industry regulatory body, announced last Tuesday that she would swear in O’Brien, who served as state treasurer from 1999 until 2003, as chair of the CCC on Thursday.
“I am confident that her financial background, experience in corporate governance, executive management, and business development, combined with outstanding leadership skills and an acute knowledge of the legislative process, will help the Massachusetts cannabis industry be fairly regulated, equitable, and successful,” Goldberg said of O’Brien, who follows interim Chair Sarah Kim and inaugural CCC Chair Steven Hoffman.
O’Brien, who served six years in the Massachusetts House and two years in the Massachusetts Senate in the late 1980s and 1990s, was the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor in 2002 but she lost the general election to Mitt Romney.
After leaving politics, O’Brien worked at Boston TV station WB 56, and then served three years as CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater Boston. She was appointed by New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to serve as chair of the state’s Pension Reform Commission from 2008 to 2010.
She serves as the chair of the Massachusetts Baby Bonds Task Force, but Goldberg’s office said O’Brien will not continue in that role. She has also worked with health care, clean energy, financial services and telecommunications companies through her O’Brien Advisory Group.
O’Brien said that she is eager to get to work implementing the new cannabis industry reform law that Gov. Baker signed earlier this month to give the CCC greater authority to regulate host community agreements and to provide a dedicated source of funding for equity and inclusion efforts among the cannabis industry.
