The Cultivist co-founder, Marlies VerhoevenMarlies Verhoeven is impressive. First there’s the stellar academic record – a European Studies undergrad, International Business masters and MBA at Maastricht University – then there’s her CV, which boasts stints in finance and United Nations before a six-year tenure at Sotheby’s. She arrived – with no prior experience in the art world mind you – in a marketing manager role and walked away as a Global Vice President. See, told you, impressive.

What’s most interesting, perhaps, is that she walked away from it all to start a business of her own, The Cultivist, a unique membership offering access to more than 70 museums across the world including the MoMA, Met, Louvre and Uffizi. She’s not afraid of taking risks when it comes to her career. In fact, she recommends changing careers every ten years. “It makes you develop different skill sets and ultimately grow as a human being,” she tells me. “If you work through things that feel intimidating, you gain a lot of knowledge and confidence in your abilities.”

If, like me, you’ve spent more time than you’d care to admit trying to get tickets to that summer block buster exhibition (hello, McQueen: Savage Beauty), you’ll know that it’s always worth booking well ahead. Leave it too late and there’s no way you’re getting weekend access to a big show for months and even then, you’re bound to be stuck in queues – that’s where The Cultivist comes in. Card members can breeze ahead of queues and take up to three guests with them without tickets and with nothing more to pay. Oh, and you get exclusive access to launch parties, out-of-hours openings, curator-led tours and studio visits with artists and the opportunity to visit collectors’ homes too. Not bad, right? To date, she’s worked her magic and negotiated partnerships with more than 100 of the world’s most prestigious museums. Marina Abramović was one of the first members. Enough said.

When we arrived at The Cultivist’s Manhattan HQ, she ushered us head to toe in new season Rosie Assoulin (she’s a woman after our own heart). Here she breaks down what you should think about before leaving your job for a passion project; the power of listening and how she juggles motherhood, marriage and being at the helm of an international start-up.  


I have a master degree in International Business Studies from Maastricht University in Holland. My track was mostly finance and in order to finish my degree, we had to complete a foreign internship which I did at a private equity firm in New York. While it brought me to the city I now call home, it also caused me to realize I didn’t want to have a career in finance. I decided to change careers and worked for the Belgian mission to the United Nations supporting the diplomat in charge of the 5th Committee for the General Assembly (the one that manages and approves the budgets for all humanitarian missions).  I had done a minor in European Studies, and international relations have always interested me. It was a great way to explore that in real life – very different from the text book version!

I changed course early on in my career and I viewed it more as an extended discovery phase after graduation. But indeed, my most recent dive into entrepreneurship has been a huge shift in my career. Many people will say you ‘just have to take the plunge’ but I slightly disagree.  The grass isn’t always greener on the other side and if you don’t want to have any regrets, I think you should always fully explore making your current job exactly what you want it to be.  Assuming you’ve done that, and have decided to leave your current role, make sure you have a plan. We spend more time at work, with our colleagues and our office routines than we do at home or with our families. And stepping away from this can be freeing, exciting and rewarding but also scary. Having a plan – even if that plan is to travel for a year and do some self-exploration – will provide a framework for the weeks following a shift that will likely make you question your identity and what you want to do.

If you do know what you want for the next step, start exploring it while you’re still in your existing role (that is assuming you’ve tried every possible route to transform your existing job into your dream job. Remember – no regrets!). It’s hard work but you’d be surprised how accommodating potential employers can be for people who are still employed elsewhere – evening meetings or quick lunchtime interviews. I do think shifting careers in a different direction is something everyone should do every decade or so. It makes you develop different skill sets and ultimately grow as a human being. If you work through things that feel intimidating, you gain a lot of knowledge and confidence in your abilities.


The Cultivist co-founder, Marlies VerhoevenAfter working for the United Nations, I moved to Sotheby’s. For me, Sotheby’s represented the best of both worlds: a large publicly listed company and also a ‘product’ I was passionate about. My mom used to take me to Musée d’Orsay in Paris and I remember being mesmorised by Van Goh’s bedroom painting. My tastes have evolved from then but the interest remains the same. It was a perfect fit for me and I came at the right time – my business & finance background gave me an edge in an environment that didn’t traditionally attract an MBA crowd (it does now). I started as a Marketing Manager in charge of a few ‘verticals’ – Jewellery, Old Master Paintings and Impressionist. A few years later I was promoted to VP of Marketing, effectively overseeing all marketing design, events and sponsorships for the North America auctions. When I left I was Global VP of Loyalty Marketing, overseeing all efforts for Sotheby’s very best clients with a team in New York, London and Hong Kong. Looking back Sotheby’s Preferred, the VIP program, was one of the things I’m proudest of. It was met with a lot of resistance when we started it but by the time I left it was a real competitive advantage and saw huge client engagement and retention. On a smaller scale, I remember working on the very first marketing video Sotheby’s produced, long before the current popularity of branded content online.

Luxury marketing is a bit of a niche skill and more intuitive than data driven. But I have a strong personal affinity for excel sheets and data analysis so I was able to move up the ladder from marketing manager to Global VP in the space of six years. All my roles were in the larger marketing division, a department were new strategic plans were often tested and developed with the executive team. I’m immensely grateful for my time there. Beyond the incredible people I met, and the network I was able to build, I learned invaluable skills from the corporate environment like how to work in complex teams, influence large groups of people and how to balance a budget.

Rapidly climbing the ladder in any business boils down to three things. First, hard work is never to be underestimated. Volunteer for projects or proactively find ones. It gives you great exposure throughout the business. Second, ask for promotions, but not before you’ve put in a solid year or two of hard work. Woman in particular are not as aggressive in this as men, so be aware of that and just work through your discomfort. You can even start off that conversation via email if you’re too intimidated at first. And finally, build relationships with a long term view, not a short gain focus.


To my husband’s entertainment, I would come up with a new business idea that I was passionate about every year. But it was never really good enough to make me want to leave Sotheby’s. When we got to The Cultivist, I could not think of anything else and there was not a single shred of doubt in my mind that I wanted to pursue it. The Cultivist is a global arts club for collectors and art enthusiasts who want easy and exclusive access to museums, art fairs, artist studios as well as art travel itineraries around the world. The art world can be intimidating. With The Cultivist, we focus on the experience of art, not the commercial side of it. This means that once you’re a member, you’re never being sold to and you’re free to just learn about art through museum tours, studio visits and travel. While we have a lot of members that are have been collecting for years, we also have members that are just starting out. We’ve created an atmosphere where members feel comfortable sharing their experience and beyond that, we make everything really easy. I don’t think we’re the ultimate solution but at least we try to do our piece.

A genuine interest in people, companies and other projects is something I learned from my old boss early on in my career. I think it’s the base for any strong relationship. No matter what your next move is, you’ll need people to help you – sometimes from very unexpected places.  It helped to have a partner who was just as passionate and whom I had worked it for more than 6 years. Change will always involve risk. But preparing your move as much as possible can help reduce it. You also have to be willing to continuously adapt and change direction. When we started The Cultivist we never could have guessed how popular our art itineraries would become and have had to redirect more resources there as a result. The great thing about start-ups is that you can move as fast as you want – there are no office politics or corporate objectives in your way. But the danger is that you cast the net so wide that you don’t achieve anything. We quickly adapted to this new reality and actively try to remain laser focussed on our strategic objectives and building a solid business operation.


The Cultivist co-founder, Marlies VerhoevenAs a kid I always wanted to organise groups of people and ‘get things done’ – and I definitely pushed my school administration’s boundaries! But I also had to learn so many skills along the way, listening being one of the most important. And by this, I mean truly listening to people’s perspective. Not the kind where you pretend to listen and in your head you have the solution already baked. My instincts have never let me down. But listening to other people’s opinions and experiences can also open your mind and give you new perspectives.

I try to get in the office early so I can address emails and issues before everyone else starts.  It gives me a calmer start to the day. My role is trying to connect all the dots for everyone and our global teams, making sure we stay on strategy or adapt where necessary. Balancing is a challenge. I can’t do it all. This sounds so cliché but between being a mom of two, wife and new business owner, there simply hasn’t been much ‘me’ time in the past 18 months. Maybe that ‘me’ time transforms into ‘we’ time. I am not bothered by it; I guess I feel so passionate about the business right now that I’m comfortable with the trade-off. I have an incredible husband who shares the responsibilities equally and we’ve figured out a routine that works for us. I grew up with a working mom that has always inspired me professionally and I hope my daughters will see the same in me. Being your own boss, like everything else, has upsides and downsides. I have a lot of flexibility and can always be there for my kids but my mind never stops thinking about work so I have to make sure to find that balance.

In my experience, if you find great people that you trust, delegating is easy. So investing time and effort in the hiring process up front is always going to pay off.  And finding a system that works for you is important – in my case, I have status meetings with each team member every week.  It’s a half hour where they can get my input but I also can get comfortable on their progress and positions.

There’s still so much on my checklist that I want to achieve. I’ve always joked that I wanted a corporate, entrepreneurial and political career so I’m really only a third of the way there. And beyond that, I have a continuously-growing list in my phone of all the things I still want to learn. Who knows what’s next?