CBD Kratom
How a Growing Company Unified Its Leadership Team
When CBD Kratom's executives gathered for their first team session with Hogan Assessments, they were five talented individuals driving hard toward success, just not quite in the same direction. Now, they're a unified leadership team—a competitive advantage in any industry, but especially in retail's rapidly evolving hemp sector.
Founded in 2016, CBD Kratom now has 62 locations, making it the largest privately owned CBD retail chain in the United States. In this market, quick decisions and aligned leadership can make the difference between market dominance and irrelevance.
The leadership team comprises accomplished professionals with a diverse mix of experience, including cofounders David Palatnik, president and CEO, and Dafna Revah, chief strategy officer. Jason Brandl, COO, Allie Faver, JD, general counsel, and then-CFO Brian Jenkins, MBA, were also among the executives who participated in the team session.
But diversity of experience, while valuable, doesn't automatically translate into unified leadership.
The Formative Stage
The recognition of a need for change came when the team gained its fifth executive. This disrupted the existing dynamics and highlighted a fundamental challenge often faced by new organizations.
"We were in that forming stage still," said Brandl, referring to Tuckman's model of team development. "For us as a relatively new organization, a relatively new team, we don't have the benefit of learning things through assimilation."
For us as a relatively new organization, a relatively new team, we don't have the benefit of learning things through assimilation.
Jason Brandl | COO, CBD Kratom
CBD Kratom needed to build their leadership culture intentionally and quickly, as the symptoms of their disconnection were becoming increasingly visible. Each executive was driving hard for results within their own domain.
As Brandl candidly admitted, "It gets hard to trust other people, and you want to just drive the results and take it all on yourself."
This siloed approach created communication gaps among the team. Faver identified a key issue: the team hadn't figured out "how people receive information, how people give information." In an industry that demands agility, communication gaps among leadership can have significant implications for the broader organization, stalling decision-making and execution. The executive team's relentless pace and constant stream of new ideas were, in Brandl's words, "exhausting" for employees.
The team knew they needed help. According to Faver, they needed to learn "what works for different executives and also our teams downstream." So how could they transform from a group of individual achievers into a cohesive leadership team?
Turning a Group of Individuals into a Team
CBD Kratom's partnership with Hogan Assessments didn't begin with universal enthusiasm. "Going into it, we were aware that there were some skepticisms amongst the individuals in the team," recalled Cody Warren, MA, a senior consultant on Hogan's talent solutions team.
What changed the team's perspective was Hogan's approach to team development, which is rooted in data and relationships, not generic team-building exercises. For Brandl, who had moved from finance into HR specifically to make human resources more business-relevant, Hogan's data-driven methodology resonated immediately.
"It became really fascinating very quickly, which was a big relief for me," he said, noting how Hogan's approach made the team's development relevant to the business. "[Development] has to help us drive and achieve something."
They got to know us on a personal level, and we got to know them on a personal level. They really got to understand our business and how we wanted to lead the company.
Brian Jenkins, MBA | Former CFO, CBD Kratom
The relationship aspect proved equally important. As Jenkins noted, "What made working with the Hogan team special and unique was that it was the same group of folks from Hogan. We worked with the same people. They got to know us on a personal level, and we got to know them on a personal level. They really got to understand our business and how we wanted to lead the company."
The Hogan Development Program
In collaboration with CBD Kratom, Hogan designed a comprehensive development program that unfolded in several phases.
Phase 1: Individual Debriefs
Each executive completed Hogan assessments and participated in one-on-one debriefs. This personal approach helped build trust and familiarity with the process before diving into team dynamics.
Phase 2: Team Development Sessions
Two interactive half-day sessions brought the executives together to explore their collective strengths, gaps, and opportunities. During these sessions, the Human Histogram was a lightbulb moment. In this exercise, the teammates were asked to position themselves from one side of the room to the other relative to their percentile scores on a particular assessment scale. This created a striking visual at one point when four team members scored one way, and the fifth was an outlier.
[The Human Histogram] really opened our eyes to where the gaps are on our team. It showed us the value of [the team member who scored differently] and how we can do our best to move towards the middle to work together more effectively as a team.
Allie Faver, JD | General Counsel, CBD Kratom
The sessions also featured a pivotal question that forced the team to think differently: "What do you want to be known for as leaders?" For a group accustomed to focusing solely on results, this question sparked fundamental reflection about their approach and impact.
Phase 3: Accountability Session
A subsequent session measured progress and reinforced behavioral changes, ensuring the insights translated into sustained action.
Throughout the process, the Hogan team demonstrated what Faver described as "empathy, direct communication, and flexibility," adapting the approach based on what they learned about CBD Kratom's unique culture and challenges.
They're creating this experience for us, but it wasn't like sitting through a lecture. It wasn't them just telling us how to lead or how we should be running this business.
Jason Brandl | COO, CBD Kratom
Finding New Ways to Work Together
The changes began almost immediately. Brandl's initial skepticism transformed into genuine curiosity: "What was Allie's score? What was Brian's score? What does this look like for them?" The assessments had given them a new lens for understanding each other.
More importantly, they developed a shared language for addressing team dynamics in real-time. "We'll point out to each other, 'Oh, this is that dynamic when all of us are clustering to one specific behavior,'" Brandl explained. This vocabulary enabled crucial conversations: "Hey, that's your strength coming out here, but it might not be applicable. It might not be the best thing for the organization for you to flex that strength right now."
The practical effects were immediate and measurable. "Projects move a lot quicker because there's no stop time in communication," Faver reported. The team had learned to meet each other where they were.
But the transformation went deeper than improved processes. Brandl experienced a fundamental shift in how he viewed his role. "Having the reminder that a team is around me, that they're a trust and a safety net for me, and that I can rely on them . . . it really changed the weight of my role," he said.
It really changed the weight of my role.
Jason Brandl | COO, CBD Kratom
For Faver, the change was about learning to take "a step back, a pause, seeing how we can better react and leverage our teammates to come out of situations with a more concrete, actionable plan." This is strategic self-awareness in action.
Faver emphasized that these weren't "band-aids" or superficial changes. They represented a fundamental shift in how the executive team operated.
A Competitive Advantage
CBD Kratom's executive team points to their team development as a source of competitive advantage. "We came out of the Hogan assessments with a much more cohesive and unified vision," said Jenkins. "And when you have a leadership team that has a unified vision, then you're going to have a leadership team that has a competitive advantage. I don't think other companies in this industry are doing what CBD Kratom is doing."
This unified vision at the executive level created tangible changes throughout CBD Kratom. "The transparent conversations that we've been able to have now that we have a better understanding of ourselves and each other have rippled throughout the organization," Brandl observes. Direct reports have noticed the change, and conversations about pace, priorities, and approach have become more open and productive.
Looking forward, the team views their Hogan experience not as a one-time intervention but as a cornerstone of the team dynamic for CBD Kratom's future. They've adopted what Faver calls a mindset of continuous assessment: "It's going to be a continuous assessment of where we are, where our teams are, and how we move forward."
The Ongoing Journey
CBD Kratom's story offers valuable lessons for any leadership team, particularly those in fast-growing companies or emerging industries. Together, they chose to be intentional about aligning as leaders and developing new team norms.
Their journey from individual achievers to a unified leadership team wasn't always comfortable. It required vulnerability, even standing in a line to see how different they were from each other. It demanded honest self-reflection about what kind of leaders they wanted to be. And it necessitated ongoing commitment to apply their insights, even amid the pressure to drive for results.
But by embracing data-driven insights about their individual behavior and team dynamics, and by developing a shared language for continuous improvement, CBD Kratom's executive team transformed their individual strengths into collective power. In a saturated and highly regulated industry, they've built a foundation for sustainable growth.
As a team, we were really hoping to become closer, build trust, and identify gaps in communication to make achieving our company objectives cleaner and clearer. And Hogan delivered.
Allie Faver, JD | General Counsel, CBD Kratom
The question that sparked their transformation—"What do you want to be known for as leaders?"—proved more powerful than any prescriptive advice. It forced them to define success beyond just hitting numbers.
As they continue to grow and face new challenges, they have something many leadership teams lack: a shared understanding of how they work best together and the tools to course-correct when needed.
About Hogan
As an international authority in the science of personality, leadership, and job performance, Hogan specializes in helping organizations respond to complex talent management challenges with reliable, scientifically validated approaches.
Using data-driven talent insights, Hogan helps organizations around the globe align applicant skills and job roles, improve retention, develop leaders who will create and sustain high-performing teams, cultivate inclusive and equitable organizational cultures, and inspire people to do their best.
Hogan’s personality assessments are the industry standard for predicting future job performance among working adults across industries and around the world. We believe assessment has a practical job to do: improving overall business performance through people.
Grounded in more than 40 years of psychological research, Hogan’s comprehensive suite of talent acquisition and development solutions are based on three core personality assessments:
Hogan Personality Inventory
A measure of everyday personality characteristics that influence a leader’s ability to achieve career goals, build effective teams, and develop future leaders.
Hogan Development Survey
A measure of counterproductive personality characteristics that have the potential to derail the performance of otherwise effective and long-lasting leaders.
Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory
A measure of core values, motives, and unconscious biases that drive leaders’ behavior, thus determining the kind of culture they create for their teams.