Meet Trailblazer Madison Kendall

Today we’d like to introduce you to Madison Kendall.

Madison, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona with two brothers and two phenomenal parents: Doug and Darla. I graduated high school at 16 years old and immediately started working as a hostess at a busy sushi restaurant. When I was 18 years old, I started serving and bartending, thus launching a 10-year career in nightlife and hospitality. I graduated from Arizona State at 23 years old and by that time, I was the General Manager of a nightclub in Scottsdale. From there, I continued to learn, grow and flourish in the Scottsdale nightlife scene but by mid-2017, I began to feel as though I needed a change. I started feeling paralyzed looking into a pool of seemingly endless options and directions that I could take my professional career so finally, I asked myself the question, “What do you really care about?” and almost instantly, I realized that I just want to make a difference and help people. With this in hand, I started considering fields in healthcare, psychology, you name it – but I kept coming back to one field in particular: Cannabis. Cannabis has always been a positive part of my life and was particularly interesting to me because of the (seemingly unjustified) negative stigmatization surrounding it as well as the endless possibilities of what this field will continue to develop into over the next 5, 10, 20 years. I started researching Arizona-based cannabis companies, fell head-over-heels in love with (my now employer) Sunday Goods, and the rest is history.

Has it been a smooth road?
I can’t help but chuckle at the notion of a start-up business in a nascent industry being a “smooth road”. In short, the answer is no. Of course, not. But worth-while things rarely come easily. Being a female General Manager of nightclubs in Scottsdale was difficult, being a female Chief of Staff in the cannabis industry is difficult, being a woman of authority in any role is difficult. However, challenges shouldn’t carry a negative connotation. As long as you work hard, stay focused, make sacrifices and conduct yourself gracefully and respectfully, you will be successful. Some of the best advice I received from a friend in college was, “You don’t have to be smarter than anyone else, you just have to work harder than everyone else” and that really stuck with me for a few reasons. Firstly, I think sometimes when faced with challenges or adversity, we as women can give up too easily. We tend to think, “That person knows more than me; that person has it all figured out” which is – pardon my French- absolute BS. Nobody has anything figured out, we’re all just people, living in a subjective world and trying to pretend like we know what we’re doing. If you don’t know something, figure it out. The second reason that advice really resonated with me is that it made me realize that with hard work, anything is possible. If you’re truly working hard, not only externally but internally, you will be successful. However, I should mention that with hard work, comes sacrifice. This doesn’t mean locking yourself in a hole and focusing on nothing but work for the next ten years, but sometimes you won’t get to see your friends as much as you’d like, sometimes you have to go in early and stay late, even when it’s not expected of you. However, the secret is if you find a career that you truly love, these sacrifices are welcomed and celebrated.

We’d love to hear more about Sunday Goods.
I am Chief of Staff for a vertically-integrated cannabis company called Sunday Goods. We were founded in Arizona in 2013 and are now operational in both Arizona and California. Chief of Staff can be a somewhat ambiguous title but basically, I manage the CEO, serving as a conduit between him and the majority of business functions, and help out with all facets of the business that need assistance. As is true with any start-up, we all have to wear multiple hats so my job is to make sure that everything is running as smoothly as possible and we’re all aligned in the same direction. My job, in particular, is very dynamic. At times I am traveling for weeks at a time, sometimes I am spending time in our California office or down in Willcox at our cultivation facility and sometimes I am needed at our HQ based in sunny Scottsdale, AZ. Being vertically-integrated means that, in Arizona, we do everything from cultivating, process, wholesale, have a consumer-facing brand and brick & mortar retail stores (opening later this year). That being said, this is a multi-faced company that is running at full speed to be one of the best, most positive influences on the growing cannabis industry and we aim to provide all of our consumers with respectful, responsible cannabis in whichever way makes them feel good.

Which women have inspired you in your life?
I was hoping I’d be asked this question. When thinking of women that inspire me, of course, first and foremost would be my mother, Darla. To know her is to love her. She is one of the most inspirational, fun-loving, wildly supportive women I’ve ever met. She raised me to be fearless and respectful and to do what I love. She is my best friend and by a long shot has been the most influential woman in my life. Two others, Randee Thomas and Kiri Morresey, became my friends in my early 20s and taught the value of being unapologetically myself. The early 20s in any woman’s life can be a tumultuous time of self-discovery and uneasiness but these two women, in particular, showed me that as long as you’re true to yourself, everything else will form around you exactly as it should. Meagan Haugo is my friend that I mentioned earlier who told me that I didn’t have to be smarter than anyone else, I just had to work harder. She is now an aerospace engineer working for Boeing and building some of the most impressive aircrafts in the world; looks like she took a page out of her own book! My friends Kate, Taylor, Erica, Ari, Hayley, and Melissa have all shown me the value of unconditional love and loyalty no matter the circumstances and for that, I am forever grateful. People, in general, are so wholly inspiring and I challenge everyone to constantly seek out the positives in everyone and every situation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sundaygoods.com/
• Instagram: @madisonkendall1 @sundaygoods
• Other: https://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenbobrow/2019/03/15/sunday-goods-cosmically-intellectual-luxury-cannabis-products

Image Credit:
Professional photos by: King Lawrence

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.