Dan Roda has built his career on solving problems others tend to overlook. From stabilizing banking for cannabis operators to navigating complex regulations, his work has consistently bridged gaps in industries where financial and legal uncertainty run deep. Now, as the chief strategy officer for Natural State Medicinals, Roda is shifting his focus from fintech to hands-on cannabis operations, helping one of Arkansas’s top cultivators refine its product offerings and grow its footprint in a competitive market.

A Villanova University-trained attorney with a business degree from Tulane University, Roda initially moved to Arkansas for personal reasons: his wife, Elizabeth Michael. Roda said it was also Michael who issued the challenge that pushed him to join the cannabis discussion in Arkansas. “You’re not going to just sit here and watch the cannabis industry come to Arkansas and not find a way to get involved, are you?” she asked over dinner one evening in 2016, as The Natural State prepared to roll out its medical marijuana program.

Roda’s interest in cannabis reform started long before that dinner conversation. In 1995, he wrote a school paper supporting California’s Proposition 215, the first medical marijuana law in the U.S. “I remember getting a few raised eyebrows from my teachers at my small private high school in Pennsylvania,” he said with a laugh. “But even then, I recognized that this was a plant with incredible potential — one that could do far more good than harm.”

When Arkansas voted to legalize medical cannabis in 2016, Roda was in solo legal practice at the Little Rock Technology Park, specializing in business formation and capital fundraising for startups. The energy of the startup world resonated with him, and it wasn’t long before he became involved in shaping the early cannabis market. He co-founded the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Association, later merging it with the Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association to create a unified trade organization. His legal work also introduced him to a major challenge the industry faced: banking.

Seeing an opportunity, Roda co-founded Abaca, a fintech company that provided cannabis businesses with compliant banking solutions. 

The North Little Rock-based company helped cannabis operators move beyond a cash-only model by building a secure, compliant framework for banking access in a federally restricted industry. Through partnerships with state-chartered banks and credit unions and its innovative fintech platform, Abaca offered services like FDIC-insured checking accounts, electronic payment processing and treasury management. Its financial system integrated sales data with customer due diligence tools, ensuring every dollar could be traced to a legal transaction. This enabled operators to conduct secure and electronic retail and wholesale transactions from the first days of Arkansas’s medical cannabis program, and the transparency allowed financial institutions to meet federal requirements and gave cannabis businesses access to the financial infrastructure most industries take for granted. 

“People don’t realize how critical that was,” Roda said. “In other states, cannabis operators had to deal entirely in cash, patients had to transact solely in cash and operators were even having to pay their state and local taxes in cash.” 

In Arkansas, Abaca helped the state’s operators avoid many of those pitfalls.

Over the next few years, Abaca grew into a multistate banking leader, ensuring cannabis operators had access to legitimate financial services from day one. In 2022, the company was acquired by Safe Harbor Financial, where Roda led a nationwide cannabis lending program, rolling out new underwriting standards and helping deploy more than $50 million in loans to cannabis, hemp, CBD and ancillary businesses across a dozen markets.

Even as he worked nationally, he remained committed to Arkansas. So when the opportunity arose to step into an executive role at Natural State Medicinals, located in White Hall, he took it.

“After spending the last seven years supporting the industry with banking services and innovation, it’s great to be able to tackle new challenges and to work directly with the plant,” Roda said. 

Roda’s new role at NSM places him at the center of Arkansas’s medical cannabis market. His immediate priority? Learning.

“There’s still so much I don’t know about the art and science of cannabis cultivation, extraction and confection,” he admitted. “In some areas, I’ve been able to jump right in and add value. But, in other areas, it’s amazing how much I don’t know.” 

Roda said that learning is part of the fun, and he enjoys being able to directly influence product strategy — from selecting cultivars to perfecting new flavors of chocolate. “I don’t think it’s necessary to be a cannabis consumer to be a cannabis executive, but I do think it helps,” he said. “And it makes life more fun if you truly enjoy what you do and you feel good about what you produce and create.” 

NSM has built a reputation for high-quality, craft cannabis products, from hand-trimmed flower to small-batch, locally sourced edibles. Under Roda’s leadership, the company aims to build on that foundation while also exploring new product categories.

“We’ll continue focusing on quality while adding new products that surprise and delight Arkansas patients,” he said.

One area he is particularly excited about? Cannabis beverages.

“The category is getting bigger, the products are getting better and the beverage format — especially with the right combination of low dosage and fast activation — lends itself to consumer acceptance and adoption in a way that most other cannabis products don’t,” Roda said. 

Beyond product innovation, Roda is also focused on patient access and education, which he sees as one of the biggest hurdles to market expansion. While Arkansas now has about 110,000 registered medical cannabis cardholders, he believes there is still room for growth.

“It still remains a challenge educating patients, getting certified and enrolled and into a dispensary, especially in the more rural parts of the state,” he said.

Roda’s move from fintech to cultivation comes at a pivotal time for the cannabis industry. With federal rescheduling discussions gaining momentum, many are wondering how impending policy changes will affect state markets.

“Federal rescheduling would be a big deal for many aspects of the industry, but in Arkansas, it wouldn’t change much overnight,” he said. “We would still operate within the confines of state law. That said, access to capital could improve significantly, and that would create new opportunities.”

One of the biggest regulatory hurdles he would like to see addressed is 280E — the federal tax code that prevents cannabis businesses from deducting normal business expenses.

“Eliminating 280E would instantly improve cash flow for cannabis businesses across the country,” he explained. “And from a banking perspective, it would make businesses more bankable, more investable and more financially stable.”

Reflecting on his career so far, Roda is proud of the role he has played in molding Arkansas’s cannabis industry.

“We ensured that, from day one, operators had access to stable banking services,” he said. “That might not seem exciting, but it prevented so many of the issues that other states experienced.”

Now, he’s excited to make an impact in a new way.

“I love this industry because it brings joy and healing to people,” he said. “And now, I get to be part of the process from seed to sale. That’s incredibly rewarding.”