Napa Valley vintner Vanessa Robledo named for Latino Business Leadership Awards

Vanessa Robledo is one of North Bay Business Journal’s 2022 Latino Business Leadership Awards winners.

Here’s some information Robledo submitted:

About me

I was born into a multigenerational family of Mexican vineyard laborers that worked in Napa and Sonoma and built their reputation as master wine grape grafters in the wine industry. My parents were the first in our family to save enough money to buy land in the early 1980s to plant vineyards.

I first learned about leadership from the discipline my parents instilled in their nine children to work hard towards our goals. They often shared their stories of struggle and sacrifices they endured so we could have a roof over our heads and food on the table.

I grew up seeing the importance of entrepreneurship and business ownership through the example my parents set for us.

… Becoming the family translator at 5 years old after my first year in kindergarten helped me later grow my wine industry knowledge as my father's translator in business meetings. Being raised in a machista culture with seven brothers and a traditional father gave me the strength to excel in a male-dominated industry.

Some questions

What qualities do you think makes a strong leader, and how do you embody these qualities?

One of the qualities of a strong leader is adapting to change instead of resisting it. As a farmer, I am learning to adjust to the changing microclimates within our wine regions and how we will have to pull out vines that will no longer thrive in those growing conditions.

What do you see as your biggest accomplishment?

My biggest accomplishment was to accept and learn when I needed to make substantial changes in my career, even at the cost of losing everything.

As a successful professional, what were the biggest obstacles you faced and how did you overcome them?

The biggest obstacles I faced in my career were self-inflicted limitations because I believed I was not good enough.

Quotable

“When I visited my parents' pueblo in Mexico, I saw people put tamale stands outside their homes or even mobile fruit carts selling fruit. Like my parents, they find what they are good at and create a business.“