Professional Summary

As the Founder and CEO of CannaCoverage Insurance Services, Nichelle Santos is an entrepreneur, business development executive in the insurance industry, practicing risk mitigation from the CannaBusiness industry, to healthcare; environmental health and safety, public policy. She has practiced as a Safety Engineer & Risk Manager in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry, protecting employees and the surrounding community through Process Safety Management, Behavior Based Safety, remediation of hazardous waste sites, and regulatory compliance.

Nichelle now brings her insurance and regulatory expertise to the CannaBusiness industry to create customized risk management consulting with insurance solutions, designed to protect businesses from failure. She believes with increased efficiencies and profitability of cannabusinesses, can build and cultivate sustainability for the communities in which cannabusinesses operate. Corporate Social Responsibility to maintain public safety & health; provide social justice in action; to impact and uplift the community and the environment is critical to the cannabis industry.

Nichelle earned her B.S. at Rutgers University, Environmental Health and Occupational Safety, and has recently continued studies at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Harvard Kennedy School, in Healthcare, Evidence, Leadership and Public Policy.

She has led political campaigns with effective strategies to rebuild, as communities recover from the worst public health crisis of our lifetime; and now consults with legislators, who are Canna-friendly for planning with innovation to preserve and protect public health and safety for sustainable canna-communities with effective risk management, GMPs, and industry standards.

Nichelle advocates for public policy impacting women and girls, serving as Commissioner, on the Somerset County Commission on the Status of Women and a member of the United Nations Women, NGO Official, Commission on the Status of Women. She actively supports the goal to increase gender & racial diversity of elected officials, as a Founding Board Member of EMERGE NJ, whose mission is to prepare women to run. She brings the same energy and passion to help women maintain success in the cannabis industry.
Recently, Nichelle addressed cannabis policy with City and County Managers at the National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA – NJ) 2022 Virtual Summit, offering examples of cost saving strategies and a roadmap for risk management & insurance services to protect the community. She looks to bring the same strategies to the Oklahoma Cannabis market.