Ines Martinez

I attribute my success to resilience, curiosity, integrity, and more than 18 years of experience in the fresh produce industry. As a trained biologist from Colombia, I found a fulfilling path in produce, where I have been able to connect my understanding of agriculture and natural systems with business strategy, sales, sourcing, and category management.

Throughout my career, I have worked closely with growers, retailers, and supply chain partners, learning how to bridge farm-level realities with customer expectations and market needs. I believe one of my strengths is the ability to understand both sides of the business — the grower side and the retail side — and create alignment through communication, negotiation, collaboration, and trust.

I also attribute my success to the people who have mentored me, challenged me, and trusted me along the way. Success is never built alone. Beyond business results, I define success by the relationships I build, the trust I create, and the opportunity to mentor others, especially women in leadership, helping them grow in confidence and step into their full potential.

The best advice I’ve received is to stay resilient, remain open to reinvention, and never stop learning. Growth does not always happen in a straight line, and sometimes the most challenging moments become the ones that shape us the most.

This belief was shaped by my family. My father was a brilliant forestry engineer who spent his life learning and teaching. Since I was little, I spent countless hours walking through the rainforest with him, observing nature and learning from the way he saw the world. From him, I inherited my curiosity, my passion for learning, and my analytical mind.

I also learned resilience and service from my mother, who faced age and gender barriers in Colombia but chose to dedicate her energy to helping others. Through her volunteer work with the Red Cross, she has touched countless lives in underprivileged communities, offering support, compassion, and hope to people who needed it most. Her example taught me that purpose is not only found in titles or positions, but in the impact we make in the lives of others.

Together, my parents taught me that reinvention is not failure — it is courage, adaptability, and growth. As a Latina in a male-dominated industry, building my career while strengthening my English, this advice continues to guide me. It reminds me to keep learning, seek mentorship, and use challenges as stepping stones toward purpose and success.

My advice to young women entering this industry is to be proud of your growth, but always remember that relationships are just as important as results. Fresh produce is a fast-moving, demanding, and highly relationship-driven industry.

Success is built not only through knowledge and execution, but also through trust, integrity, and the way you connect with people.

As you build your career, invest in relationships with growers, customers, colleagues, interns, mentors, and team members at every level. Everyone brings a different perspective, and everyone has something valuable to teach you. One of the biggest mistakes we can make is believing that experience alone means we always know more than those around us. In reality, growth requires humility, curiosity, and the willingness to keep learning.

I learned this early in my career, and it has shaped some of my strongest and most meaningful professional relationships — many of which have grown into genuine friendships. Those relationships have opened doors, expanded my perspective, and helped me grow in ways I could not have achieved alone.

Ultimately, your experience and results are important, but they are not the only things that define you. Your integrity, your openness to others, your willingness to mentor and be mentored, and the way people remember working with you will become an equally important part of your legacy.

One of the biggest challenges and opportunities in fresh produce right now is creating more space for women to lead, advocate for themselves, and build influence in an industry that has traditionally been very male-dominated.

I have learned that advocating for others often comes naturally to me. I can speak with passion when I am advocating for the business, my team, a customer, or someone whose growth I believe in. But advocating for myself has been a different kind of challenge. Like many women, I have had to work through moments of self-doubt and learn how to speak about my own value with the same confidence I use when supporting others.

Fresh produce is a relationship-driven industry, and historically, many of those relationships have been built in spaces where women may not always feel the same level of access or comfort. That can make it more difficult at times to connect, be seen, or have the same informal opportunities to build trust. But I also see that as a major opportunity. The industry is evolving, and there is room to build relationships in more authentic, inclusive, and professional ways.

For me, the opportunity is to help redefine what leadership looks like in this industry. Strong leadership is not only about being the loudest voice in the room. It is about integrity, consistency, collaboration, execution, and building trust. I believe the future of fresh produce will benefit from more diverse voices, more women in leadership, and more mentorship for the next generation entering the industry.

The values most important to me are family, integrity, resilience, sustainability, service, and helping the next generation move forward.

My family is my foundation and my greatest priority. One of the most important things for me is helping my children understand that we are our own strongest advocates. I know they are watching me, and I believe I teach them more through my actions than through my words, so I take that responsibility very seriously. I want them to see that integrity, resilience, and loving what you do are important, but that success also requires balance and a commitment to doing things that positively impact not only your own life, but the lives of others.

Many of these values come from my parents. My father was a forestry engineer, and much of my childhood in Colombia was spent walking through the rainforest and learning from the way he saw nature. Through him, I developed a deep respect for conservation, curiosity, and continuous learning. My mother has been a Red Cross volunteer for more than 40 years, and through her example, I learned the importance of giving back, mentoring others, and serving communities with compassion.

Today, those values are part of my own family. We love hiking and diving together, and we volunteer in sea turtle conservation where we live. In both my work and personal life, I believe success is measured not only by results, but by the impact we make, the people we support, and the example we leave for the next generation. For me, paying it forward is part of living with purpose.