Head of Brand & Retail Marketing

About  makes fast-acting cannabis edibles and drink additives designed around one simple question:
How do you want to feel? We combine plant medicine, real science, and sharp brand building to create a smarter alternative to alcohol and pharmaceuticals. We believe brands are built by ideas, by retail, and by how consumers experience you in the real world. Not by dashboards alone.

Head of Brand & Retail Marketing — New York Metro Area (Hybrid) | ~25% Travel to Markets | $175,000 - $200,000 + Bonus

About 1906: 1906 started to make cannabis a trusted, normal part of daily wellness with products that are easy to understand and fit into daily life. The Wiley Act led to nearly a century of cannabis prohibition. We aim to make cannabis accessible and understandable for all—for the greater good (and the greater fun).

The Opportunity — This role reports to the CEO and serves as the brand steward of 1906 across 1,200+ dispensaries, liquor and brick-and-mortar retail (2 states today, 20+ by 2027), and all consumer-facing brand touchpoints. You will work in close partnership with our Head of Ecommerce & Growth. You own how the brand shows up. They own how traffic converts. Together, you make the machine work.

You will lead a small internal team, manage agencies and freelancers, and ensure 1906 shows up correctly everywhere consumers encounter us. This is not a role where you manage from a distance. This is a role for someone who wants to:

Who You Are

• You believe great ideas build brands
• You love retail. You walk stores for fun. You understand merchandising, education, and how things move off shelves.
• You care deeply about consumers and what they care about
• You understand data but use it directionally. You're not a slave to dashboards.
• You obsess over every touchpoint: packaging, POS, sampling, shelf, copy, displays
• You move fast. You test. You refine.
• You're passionate about cannabis, functional wellness, or the non-alc movement
• You're low ego, high output, and comfortable doing whatever needs doing

What You'll Do

• Define positioning, messaging hierarchy, and how 1906 shows up across all channels
• Translate our science into stories people remember
• Write briefs that inspire real creative
• Protect brand integrity across markets, retailers, and partners
• Ensure consistency from packaging to POS to digital to field marketing

• Build the playbook for what moves product: POS, education, merchandising, budtender engagement, promotions
• Partner with sales teams in each market to ensure programs execute in store
• Create scalable toolkits that work market to market
• Spend real time in stores observing shopper behavior and refining programs

This role defines not just how the category shows up in liquor stores, but how it sells. Success is measured by better shelves, better education, and faster sell-through.

• Define how THC beverages and drink additives should be merchandised, explained, and experienced at shelf
• Build retail programs designed to increase velocity, not just awareness
• Partner with alcohol/beverage distributors to win shelf placement, secondary displays, and retail visibility
• Build relationships with key accounts like Total Wine and regional chains to develop co-marketing programs
• Create the consumer education playbook for a category most liquor shoppers don t yet understand
• Identify which markets to prioritize based on retail readiness and commercial opportunity
• Build toolkits that scale market to market without losing effectiveness

• Partner with the Head of Ecommerce & Growth to ensure brand and performance inform each other
• Develop campaign moments that live across retail and digital
• Support creative testing with strong brand thinking
• Ensure DTC reflects the same brand standards as retail, without owning performance marketing

• Lead a small, high-output team and external partners
• Set clear priorities and define what great looks like
• Work cross-functionally with sales, product, ops, and ecommerce
• Build a team culture that is fast, creative, and accountable

• 12+ years building…