Women in Weed

Today is International Women’s Day and to celebrate, we want to feature some of the women that make Fire & Flower tick. These ladies are super badass cannabis industry professionals that have helped shape Fire & Flower into what it is today.

This year’s theme for Women’s Day is about celebrating mentors and fostering the next generation of women. We wanted to highlight these women’s influential mentors and to speak a bit about how they have been a mentor themselves. 

Nadira Farooqui

What is your position at Fire & Flower?

VP, Planning & Analysis

Who is your biggest career inspiration? How have they inspired you?

Malala Yousafzai. Malala’s inspirational value to me spans both career and personal life. As a Canadian-Muslim-Pakistani female, I have benefitted from the educational equalities she has had to fight for (for herself and others). She has inspired me to take this message of equality and extend it beyond education to career, beyond female to all.

What do you feel is the greatest achievement you’ve had in your career so far?

Realizing that I cannot distinguish myself differently in the office and outside of it. This has given me the freedom to be authentic and forced me to reshape the aspects of myself that I consider edges.  

Who is/was an important mentor to you and why?

It is unfair to call out just one. What I will say is that the mentors that have been the most important to me have provided me with the feedback that is most difficult to hear.

What do you do to lead or mentor the next generation of women?

I listen, I relate, I share and I help guide.

Suzanne Langier

What is your position at Fire & Flower?

Vice-President of Information Technology, People & Culture

Who is your biggest career inspiration? How have they inspired you?

My mom. She was one of the very first females graduates, perhaps even the very first, of NAIT’s Journeyman Carpenter program decades ago in an era where there were but very few. She went on as an entrepreneur together with my dad to start a successful home-building business in Alberta. When the bust that was the 80’s crushed their business and dreams, she packed us up and we moved provinces to start over. She took on the role of full-time ‘mom’ to myself and many siblings, including a sister with limited mobility issues while my dad grew an organic farming business. That was years ago now and fast forward to today she is in her sixties and has not slowed down. In recent years she has had another career as a business owner and successful health practitioner focused on natural remedies and at the age of 65 became a certified massage therapist, completing her courses in half the time normally taken. Her work ethic, perseverance, an amazing approach to life and resolve to remain positive no matter what life has thrown her way have been such an inspiration to me.

What do you feel is the greatest achievement you’ve had in your career so far?

Easy – staying grounded and sane! Balancing a demanding career in which I strive to be the best business and people leader I can be all the wh