Story

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Yolanda Ramirez, President and CEO, of Valley Girl Sales and Marketing, grew up in the produce industry. Her father was a grower, packer, shipper of Stone Fruit in the San Joaquin Valley, CA. From the very young of 9 years old, Yolanda loved spending her summer vacations in the Peach and Nectarine Orchards with her dad. By the age of 16 she was responsible for her dads packing operation. 

After college she began her career in produce sales, where she spent the next 10 years working in the sales offices of several top-rated Produce Marketing companies. Her most memorable experiences include traveling to Costa Rica to help develop a Banana Company, working on the Los Angeles Terminal Market, Working the “Nogales Deal” in Arizona and breaking onto the Sales Desk as a woman. By 1996 she was the Sales Manager for a very large Strawberry and Vegetable Growing operation on the Central Coast, selling to the top retailers in the nation. 

In 2001, she started her own Produce company, Ramirez Produce Sales and Y. Ramirez Farming. She continued to farm and sell her own produce, as well as grow her outside grower base which included some of the best farmers in the Santa Maria Valley. In 2007, she merged her company with a larger farming operation and became the Director of Sales and Marketing for that entity.

In 2010 Walmart, Inc. approached Yolanda about joining the Retail giant as their Berry an Stone Fruit buyer. Having done everything one can think of regarding the sales and farming aspect of produce Yolanda decided to come full circle by joining the largest retailer in the world and became the world’s largest berry and stone fruit buyer. 

She continued to successfully lead Walmart’s Berry and Stone Fruit team, for the next 7 years, increasing their yearly sales, profits and market share. Her experience in produce proved to be exactly what Walmart needed to help improve their customer perception of fresh, particular berries and stone fruit.

In October of 2017, Yolanda had to make the difficult decision of leaving Walmart in order to care for her parents and thus decided to put all of her vast experience in produce to use by once again starting her own company, but this time she brought on board 2 partners. She moved back to the Santa Maria Valley and founded Valley Girl Sales & Marketing. Along with her partners, the company’s main objective is to provide the customers in all retail avenues with the best tasting, best quality and freshest produce, these ladies grow on their farms and those of their trusted grower base.