Wanda James is a nationally recognized entrepreneur, veteran, public policy leader, and elected official serving as a Regent of the University of Colorado. She was the first Black woman commissioned through the Naval ROTC Battalion at the University of Colorado, beginning a career defined by public service, leadership, and breaking barriers.
Her work has spanned corporate leadership, political strategy, cannabis reform, public policy, and business ownership. For more than 17 years, she has challenged the stigma surrounding cannabis while bringing national attention to racial inequities within the industry, mass incarceration, and the use of prison labor resulting from convictions for personal possession.
Wanda is the founder and CEO of Simply Pure Dispensary in Denver. Together with her husband, chef Scott Durrah, they made history as the first Black people in America legally licensed to own a dispensary.
“Things like ‘first’ and ‘only’ just motivate me to want to open up the floodgates”
