Director of Compliance

Location: Cathedral City, California | Department: Compliance & Regulatory Affairs | Reports To: Chief Operating Officer | Classification: Full-Time, Exempt | Travel: Limited, occasional travel to regulatory agencies, hearings, and industry events

About the role

LiveHappy Inc is seeking a Director of Compliance to lead the company’s regulatory compliance program across cultivation, tissue culture, processing, packaging, distribution, and wholesale sales operations. This position is responsible for maintaining continuous audit readiness and ensuring compliance with the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC), METRC track-and-trace requirements, applicable federal licensing requirements, company license conditions, internal SOPs, and all applicable regulatory obligations. The Director of Compliance will serve as the company’s senior compliance leader, regulatory point of contact, METRC Administrator, and internal owner of compliance reporting, reconciliation, audits, SOPs, and training. This role works closely with Operations, Cultivation, Tissue Culture, Processing, Facilities, Security, HR, Finance, and executive leadership to translate complex regulatory requirements into clear procedures, verifiable controls, and consistent execution.

Responsibilities

• Regulatory Compliance Leadership
  • Serve as the company’s primary liaison with the California Department of Cannabis Control, federal regulatory authorities, and other applicable licensing or enforcement agencies.
  • Maintain state license authorizations, registrations, renewals, amendments, premises diagram updates, ownership disclosures, and related regulatory filings.
  • Monitor changes to DCC regulations, Title 4 CCR Division 19, METRC requirements, DEA guidance, and other applicable regulatory developments.
  • Lead regulatory inspections, audits, investigations, complaints, Notices of Violation, corrective action plans, and post-inspection follow-up.
  • Prepare and submit required regulatory filings, attestations, reports, fee remittances, disclosures, and supporting documentation.
  • Lead, coach, and develop the compliance team, including cultivation compliance, processing compliance, and compliance coordination staff.
• Cultivation and Tissue Culture Compliance
  • Ensure cultivation operations, including Mother, Clone, Veg, Flower, Dry, and related production areas, comply with applicable DCC cultivation standards.
  • Maintain required documentation for inputs, plant movement, batch records, chain of custody, destruction, waste, and reporting.
  • Ensure tissue culture laboratory operations comply with applicable nursery, propagation, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements.
  • Oversee genetic lineage tracking, mother-stock provenance, plantlet identification, lot coding, and chain-of-custody documentation from tissue culture through cultivation transfer.
  • Reconcile tissue culture outputs with METRC immature plant lot records and ensure required entries are completed within applicable timeframes.
• Processing, Packaging, and Product Compliance
  • Ensure post-harvest, drying, curing, trimming, bucking, sorting, packaging, and labeling operations comply with applicable DCC requirements and company SOPs.
  • Maintain weigh-in and weigh-out documentation, chain-of-custody records, shrinkage documentation, moisture loss records, waste records, and reconciliation support.
  • Oversee batch identification, lot coding, packaging, labeling, warning statements, universal symbol placement, cannabinoid disclosures, and traceability controls.
  • Coordinate regulatory laboratory testing, sampling protocols, retained samples, Certificates of Analysis, R&D testing, and COA retention.
  • Manage non-conforming product holds, destruction, remediation, retesting, witness documentation, and related regulatory notices when required.
• Distribution and Sales Compliance
  • Ensure wholesale transactions, transfers, manifests, vehicle and driver requirements, delivery records, and chain-of-custody documentation comply with DCC distribution standards.
  • Oversee compliance controls within sales and order platforms to support accurate transaction documentation, manifesting, reporting, and reconciliation.
  • Own new-client compliance onboarding, including license verification, license status review, expiration monitoring, seller’s permit verification, due diligence, and documented approval prior to commercial activity.
  • Maintain an audit-ready customer and vendor due diligence file.
  • Place non-compliant accounts on hold when licenses expire, become inactive, or otherwise fail compliance review.
  • Serve as the compliance point of contact for customer-facing documentation, manifest questions, rejected product, returns, remediation events, and transaction support.
• IntelliCrop, METRC, Reporting, and Reconciliation
  • Serve as the executive owner of compliance functionality in IntelliCrop and related internal systems.
  • Validate and improve data flows between IntelliCrop, METRC, scale data, inventory records, finance records, harvest records, package records, transfer records, lab results, and sales documentation.
  • Lead daily, weekly, and monthly reconciliation processes between METRC, IntelliCrop, production records, inventory records, and finance records.
  • Investigate discrepancies, document root causes, resolve variances, and ensure corrective action is completed within defined timelines.
  • Review and approve compliance-impacting system changes, workflows, reports, schemas, user manuals, and development specifications prior to deployment.
  • Maintain user access controls, segregation of duties, and audit trail integrity for compliance-sensitive transactions.
  • Develop compliance dashboards and executive reporting covering METRC reconciliation, license conditions, lab outcomes, open corrective actions, training completion, and regulatory KPIs.
• METRC Administration
  • Serve as the company’s METRC Administrator.
  • Manage METRC user accounts, permissions, RFID tag inventory, tag application, tag retirement, discrepancy resolution, and reporting controls.
  • Ensure immature plant lots, mature plants, harvest batches, packages, transfers, sales receipts, waste events, and destruction events are entered accurately and within required timeframes.
  • Oversee plant batch closures, package finalizations, waste destruction records, and documentation supporting METRC transactions.
• Audit Readiness and Internal Audit Program
  • Build and maintain a documented internal audit program covering cultivation, tissue culture, processing, distribution, security, video retention, visitor logs, transport, manifests, packaging, labeling, inventory, and records retention.
  • Maintain continuous audit readiness for unannounced regulatory inspections.
  • Conduct mock inspections and publish corrective action plans.
  • Manage external compliance audits, regulatory reviews, third-party audits, evidence collection, and formal responses.
  • Maintain the company’s compliance records-retention schedule, including DCC seven-year retention requirements and longer retention periods where applicable.
• SOPs, Policy, and Training
  • Own the master compliance SOP and policy library.
  • Ensure compliance SOPs are version-controlled, approved, trained, and supported by documented training records.
  • Develop and deliver role-based compliance training for new hires, annual refreshers, role changes, and event-driven regulatory updates.
  • Promote a strong compliance culture through clear communication, consistent enforcement, visible leadership, and timely escalation.
• Cross-Functional Leadership
  • Support corporate development, capital partner review, lender due diligence, strategic transactions, and compliance data room preparation.
  • Provide compliance guidance for new products, operational changes, expansion planning, and business initiatives.
  • Manage compliance department budgeting, vendor relationships, testing laboratory relationships, regulatory counsel coordination, and headcount planning.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in regulatory affairs, chemistry, biology, agriculture, law, public administration, business, or related field. Advanced degree such as JD, MBA, or MS preferred.
• Minimum 7 years of progressive compliance, regulatory affairs, quality, or related leadership experience.
• Minimum 4 years of California commercial cannabis compliance experience, preferably in cultivation, nursery, tissue culture, processing, distribution, or vertically integrated operations.
• Hands-on METRC experience as a system administrator or senior compliance user.
• Strong working knowledge of California cannabis regulations, including DCC requirements and Title 4 CCR Division 19.
• Experience leading regulatory inspections, audits, corrective action plans, and regulator-facing communications.
• Experience with ERP, inventory, track-and-trace, reconciliation, reporting, or compliance data systems.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and document management systems.