Guadalajara, Jalisco. Although historically it has been a sector dominated by the male gender, the tequila industry has an increasing number of women in its different areas, whether in the field work as jimadoras, in the beverage production process, in the marketing and as directors and owners of tequila houses.
Leticia Hermosillo Ravelero, founder and owner of Tequila Cava de Oro, is an example of this. Because her family was dedicated to the production of agave, the businesswoman knew this industry since she was a child, and she learned and practiced each of the trades in the production chain until she created her own distillery.
“I am growing and I am learning what the process is like from the beginning; the plantation, the growth of the agave, the jima, when it is introduced to the company; I introduced agave to Cuervo in the 1990s and when our harvest could not be sold because large companies had their own plantations, we decided to transform it into tequila and that is how we started in the industry”, says Leticia Hermosillo in a conversation with The Economist.
Although she received the support of her husband at all times, the businesswoman faced difficult times to develop the business and, at the same time, take care of her children, whom she took with her to the agave fields or slept in the car while she watched the oven or the distillation process overnight.
“I feel proud because I did have the strength, I had the courage to move forward together with them,” says Hermosillo, who studied law alongside his eldest son.
Although personally she has always had the support of institutions related to the union such as the National Chamber of the Tequila Industry (CNIT), Leticia Hermosillo considers that it is time for the organization to have a special section for women in the industry promote gender issues.
“It is important to ask the camera to give us a space and a place where we can participate with them. If they travel on a work mission, so do women; if they sign checks, we also sign them; We also make decisions. It is necessary that the Chamber of the Tequila Industry give women a space to participate together with them”, she asserted.