Stevie Palmateer recognized for role in cannabis technology

Stevie Palmateer, chief technology officer at LeafLink, was honored at the Green Market Report Women in Cannabis Awards in New York last month for her leadership in cannabis technology. Palmateer’s work at LeafLink has been instrumental in advancing payment solutions and engineering class in the industry.

Palmateer, a 15-year veteran in technology and computer science, joined the wholesale cannabis platform in late 2020, drawn by the opportunity to contribute to social and cultural change through technology, she said.

“I wanted to move into an industry that was focused on helping people,” Palmateer told Green Market Report. “I have a lot of personal experience around the medicinal transformation from plant medicine and also wanted to be part of helping undo the wrongs from the War on Drugs.”

At LeafLink, Palmateer oversees a team of 50 full-time employees and manages enterprise, platform, and product engineering and IT operations. One of her proudest accomplishments was the rollout of the company’s Flex and Direct Pay payment products.

“It was an aggressive timeline to build a team and product to meet our go-to-market plan for six months, with limited access to third parties we could accelerate with such as Stripe,” she explained.

Palmateer’s focus on engineering excellence has also led to other notable improvements in LeafLink’s operations.

“We have seen improvement in our (net promoter score), change failure rate, and cycle time while also driving our road map for exciting improvements to Direct Pay and introducing new payment programs,” she said.

However, Palmateer’s journey hasn’t been without challenges. Like many in the tech and cannabis sectors, LeafLink faced economic headwinds that called for difficult decisions.

“What makes a good leader is the ability to say no and make hard decisions,” Palmateer reflected. “The rough patch has enabled us to be a stronger LeafLink 2.0.”

Palmateer is optimistic about the industry’s future, particularly regarding potential cannabis rescheduling.

“I am extremely interested to see what rescheduling does to the industry in practice vs. theory,” she said. While acknowledging that rescheduling alone won’t solve all industry challenges, Palmateer hopes it will catalyze further reforms, particularly around access to capital.