Meet the team behind newly launched marketing firm Cultivate Create LLC
Cultivate has a story to tell, and it could be yours.
The recently launched Central Valley, Calif.-based marketing firm is rooted in what it says is a unique and winning combination of brand savvy and agricultural industry understanding.
Cultivate’s four-person, all-female team is composed of founders Angela Hernandez, president; Michele Visser, vice president of business development; Jane Olvera Majors, vice president of strategy; and Brianne Adams, co-founder and vice president of operations.
What is Cultivate?
“We are in the business of cultivating agriculture-based brands. We help you get from the farm to the shelf,” Hernandez said. “If your product grows in the ground, we want to work with you.”
The four founders grew up in California’s Central Valley and worked in agriculture as young people. Hernandez remembers working summers at Sun Valley Packing as a teenager, doing whatever jobs were required from hauling boxes to working in the packinghouse. Sun Valley’s owners, the Jones family, are what she calls her “chosen family,” having known them most of her life.
Visser also grew up working alongside her farmer father in the field, in the packinghouse and in other aspects of the family’s agricultural business.
“What makes us different is that we have lived in this space. We know the ins and outs of agriculture, and that’s what makes us different than any other marketing agency in the industry,” Hernandez said. “We've lived it. We’ve breathed it. We understand not only the marketing side, but all the moving pieces of a grower-packer-shipper from field to table.
“We want to work with people who grow things from the ground up, to help them get their products — their ideas to fruition,” Hernandez continued. “We want to take our collective experience and our successes working with agriculture-based companies and bring that expertise to the industry.”
Cultivate says it also understands today’s consumer and what motivates them to buy. But at the same time, says Hernandez, it can be overwhelming for grower-shipper-packers to embark on a marketing plan.
“For some companies, the question is, ‘Where do we even begin?’ At Cultivate we understand that the process can be scary,” Hernandez said. “We’re here to lean into creative ideas and partner on innovation. That’s what we're really excited about.”
The Cultivate team
President and founder Angela Hernandez: For Hernandez, marketing in the agriculture space is a passion. With over 15 years of experience in the ag industry, she has used her marketing expertise and shopper understanding to offer brands a strategic vision for moving products from farm to store shelves, she says. Most recently the marketing director for Trinity Fruit Co. in Fresno, Calif., Hernandez strives to help farmers bring their own vision to life through products that not only taste delicious, but also speak to the shopper with the goal of generating a fun and engaging grocery shopping experience.
Vice President Business Development and founder Michele Visser: Born and raised on a family farm, where she worked alongside her father in all aspects from planting to cultivating to harvesting to delivering product to the end user, Visser’s experience also bridges the gap between agriculture and business. She earned a degree in ag business marketing from Cal Poly and went on to work as a financial analyst in an investment banking company in San Francisco until the pull to return to her agricultural roots in Fresno triumphed. Visser brings a strong consultative background to her role at Cultivate, where she focuses on developing solutions that help clients meet their goals and objectives, she says.
Vice President of Strategy and founder Jane Olvera Majors: Ask Olvera Majors to describe the most rewarding work of her 30-plus years in the marketing business, and she points to the brands that are owned and operated by multigenerational families. As the owner of JP Marketing, navigating brand evolution, consumer research, packaging, public relations and advertising campaigns for ag businesses with many family members involved has long been her favorite kind of strategic project. She says her role is often as much brand strategist as it is family counselor, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Vice President Operations and co-founder Brianne Adams: With more than 18 years of experience in account and operations management, Adams oversees the day-to-day business operations and financial functions of Cultivate. Her attention to detail and reliability helps to ensure everything behind the scenes runs smoothly, say her fellow Cultivate team members. Adams earned her bachelor's degree in business administration with a marketing option from California State University, Fresno.
