5. Bruce Linton
- Company: Canopy Growth
- Website: https://www.canopygrowth.com
Back in 2012, Bruce Linton read a newspaper article about the Canadian government’s plan to establish a regulated system for medical marijuana. The article sparked an interest in establishing one of Canada’s first medical marijuana production companies.
“As I started digging in, it was going to be governed in a way that you could create platform companies that could also do medical research and really turn this into something,” says Linton.
“You’ve got to be early, otherwise you’re chasing and that’s not usually a winning approach.”
Linton and his business partner, Chuck Rifici took over an abandoned Hershey chocolate factory to set up Canopy Growth, which has grown into a billion dollar conglomerate comprising of 32 distinct corporations operating in six countries.