Sitara Hultman once thought that veganism was a fringe philosophy, but it now guides her personal and professional decisions. She became vegan in 2019 and has since co-owned Red Door Realty, a boutique real estate company that encouraged its agents to help communities in need. She now works at Bluefield Realty Group as a real estate agent and managing broker, using her commissions to sponsor vegan events and donate to vegan charities. Hultman recently spoke with me about her initial impressions of veganism, the challenges she faced during her transition, and her career-based advocacy. Below is our interview.

Dynestee Fields: When did you first learn about veganism, and what was your impression at that time?

Sitara Hultman: I had always been vaguely aware of veganism, but early on, I viewed it as something that the hippies did.

Just kind of like a niche thing that was on the fringe. I didn’t understand it as the ethical framework that I understand it as now. That impression [that veganism was on the fringe] began to shift about 13 years ago, when I read two books [that] had a very monumental effect on me, and that was Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran and Veganist by Kathy Freston. Those two books really challenged my current assumptions and introduced me to veganism as a more values-based, ethical thing.

From that point forward, I just started developing a real deep respect for the philosophy, and that really laid the groundwork for my own vegan journey.

Fields: Wow. How did you come into contact with these vegan thinkers and vegan authors? Did somebody give you the books, or were you just curious and picked them up?

Hultman: At the time, I was not a realtor. I had a corporate job, so I was in the corporate world for 17 years before I made this big transition, which coincided with my going vegan in 2019. But back in 2013, which was 13 years ago, when I first read these books, I had a job that had me commuting from Greenville to Spartanburg. If you know that commute, it’s not a fun one, and it’s a long commute down [Interstate] 85, and there’s always some sort of accident or incident, so it takes forever, and it’s very dangerous.

So I was miserable about the commute, talking to my friends, and they’re like, “Well. Why don’t you get some audiobooks?” I was like, “Oh. Okay.”

I was just kind of, “That’s a good idea.”

So I’m just scanning through the library audiobooks, and I’ve always been an animal lover. So I was like, “Oh. I wonder if there’s any books on animals or something,” and these two books just kind of sparked my interest because I’d always had a curiosity toward veganism, so I was like, “Well. Why don’t I learn some more about this stuff?”

So yeah. I started reading them on my drive to work and my drive home from work. There were times where I had to pull the car over because I was just bawling my eyes out. They really had a big impact on me.

Fields: I’m glad your friends recommended the audiobooks.

Hultman: Yes! Me too. Me too.

Fields: So when did you decide to go vegan, and was there a particular moment or experience that prompted this?

Hultman: So, dietarily, I transitioned to [being] vegan in January of 2019. I had gone to a plant-based retreat in Florida—whole foods, plant-based—so it was super healthy. It was no sugar, oil, or salt even. So it was really whole food, plant-based for the week.

I was an aspiring vegan at that point, but I was having trouble letting go of certain foods, like cheese and eggs.

But the retreat provided me with a chance to physically reset and cleanse my body of those ingredients, and it provided me the structure that I needed and the skills, cooking-wise, to commit fully. Then after that dietary shift, my understanding of veganism continued to deepen. Then as I learned more about the industries, like leather and fur, and then the animal testing, and cosmetics, and other consumer goods, my perspective just began to expand beyond food, and then it evolved into a full vegan lifestyle.

Fields: So how long did the process take to arrive at the full vegan lifestyle?

Hultman: Not long. It was by 6 months later, I was not buying any sort of animal products, in terms of leather, fur—none of that—suede. Changing all my cosmetics. Yeah. Within the next 6 months.

Fields: The 6 months after the retreat, or after you started in January?

Hultman: So, I went vegan dietarily in January. Yeah. Then within 6 months, all my cosmetics, and household goods, and clothing were all vegan as well.

Fields: That was very quick!

Were there any particular challenges that you encountered? You spoke about challenges earlier. Could you go a little more in depth about what these were and how you overcame them?

Hultman: The most significant challenge that I encountered during my transition was the emotional weight of becoming fully aware of the immense suffering inflicted on innocent, helpless animals. So, that awareness was overwhelming, and it came along with a strong sense of responsibility to do something meaningful about it.

I learned fairly quickly that I could not carry that weight alone. It was really scary. I felt myself getting very depressed. I felt isolated.

So I understood fairly quickly that I needed to find my tribe, so to speak, and so I began connecting with other vegans in my community and getting involved with vegan organizations.

That provided both support and a sense of purpose now. So, building that community helped me process the emotional impact in a healthy way and transformed feelings of despair and overwhelm into more action and connection with others.

Fields: How did you locate that community?

Hultman: I was all over Facebook and the Greenville Vegan Society on Facebook.

There were potlucks that were happening once a month that I found out about. So I started joining the potlucks once a month, and I just met people. I’m extroverted anyway, thankfully, so I meet people easily. I became fast friends with a lot of the folks that I’m still friends with today, and we still do these group dinners and such, like the Tahini thing [a Greenville Vegan Society event that we both attended in September]. And, last night [January 16], we all went to—it was a very informal thing; there was no event posted—but we all went to the Afghan restaurant, Aryana Afghan Cuisine, in downtown Greenville [South Carolina].

So there were about 15 of us that went there last night, and a couple of them I’ve known from the very beginning, back from 2019, when we would do the potlucks. I just started attending, and hanging out with them all, and establishing a real community for myself.

    Hultman during a group dinner at the 07

Fields: I noticed, within the Greenville Vegan Society, you’re a core member who’s always bringing in new people and organizing events.

Hultman: Yeah! I love it.

Fields: Wonderful!

Looking back, is there a milestone in your vegan journey that you’re particularly proud of?

Hultman: There’s so many milestones, so it’s hard to name just one because there’s so many special people that I’ve met along the way that are just my heroes.

I guess if I had to pick one, it would be working alongside Ingrid Newkirk at the PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. That was an amazing opportunity.

When I went vegan, I quit my job, basically, 6 months later. So I went vegan in January of ‘19, right? Of course, my awareness just started to deepen, and deepen, and deepen, so I got more and more connected to it [veganism] as the months progressed.

In June of 2019, I ended up leaving my corporate career. So, my 17-year corporate career. I just became so disenfranchised with everything, my whole world turned upside down. I was looking at everything completely differently with a new set of eyes, it felt like.

So, I was looking for work in the vegan community, directly with the activists or with some organization, like Vegan Outreach, or a food company, like Daiya or Violife.

I was looking for work in those communities, and Ingrid had posted that she was looking for an assistant on some job board. It was some vegan job board. So I replied to the post, not thinking she would reply to me. But she emailed me back, and she was like, “Hey, [I] would love to meet you and see if there’s a fit for you at PETA. Would you come up here and work with me for a week, and we’ll see what happens?”

I was like, “Are you freaking kidding me? Yes!” So I went up to Norfolk, Virginia, [and] stayed in PETA’s guest house, which is a couple blocks away from their offices. I was literally up on the top floor because her [Newkirk’s] office up there is, like, complete lockdown. You cannot get up there unless you have special keys, and codes, and all this stuff, right? But I was up there on that top floor in her office with her, and we worked together for a week. We were trying to find a fit for me.

After that week, I went home, and we still worked together a little bit. But at the end of the day, that wasn’t the right fit. So, I kind of just kept developing and kept moving through my journey. Witnessing her leadership and dedication up close just reinforced my commitment to the movement. I was so in awe, and she really had a lasting impression on me.

Fields: What was one of your primary takeaways from that experience?

Hultman: One of my primary takeaways was that PETA gets a bad rap. Even folks in the vegan community, they get upset with PETA for things.

My big takeaway was, “Wow, these folks are really doing a lot for the vegan movement. For the animal rights movement, which is even bigger.”

I mean, they have scientists in labs, and they have this whole division of their organization that works on alternatives to animal testing because Ingrid herself is super passionate about vivisection, so animal testing. That’s her prime passion.

She wants to get all the monkeys out of the labs and the bunnies out of the cages, and all this. So she’s got scientists, and doctors, and PhDs, and MDs, and all this stuff all around the world in these little satellite labs that are doing alternatives to the animal testing.

I could go on and on, but I just feel like people don’t know the amount of impact that they have on the movement, and they just get a bad rap. They don’t get enough credit.

Fields: I can definitely believe that. Have you ever heard of the Good Food Institute?

Hultman: Yeah.

Fields: After researching cell-cultured meat, I could not believe that the man who founded that company, Bruce Friedrich, actually worked at PETA. Their reach is all over the place.

Hultman: Yeah. It’s amazing, and she’s been around since the beginning of time. She knows a lot of people, and she was connected with Peter Singer back in the day. She was just one of the originals.

So her dedication to the movement, and just her passion, it’s never-ending. She’s just so incredibly passionate. She never gets tired.

I’m like, “Don’t you just get burned out by this?” She’s like, “Nope. This is my mission. This is my mission.”

She sees some grueling things, right? Every day. So, she is an amazing, amazing woman.

Fields: She’s very remarkable.

Hultman: And so is that organization. Yeah.

Fields: Oh. Yes.

Hultman: Yep.

Fields: In what ways have you engaged with the vegan community, and more broadly, the animal rights movement? You’ve been involved with PETA, but your own history, apart from PETA, is very layered.

Hultman: It’s very layered. Yeah.

It certainly evolved over time. Early on—so this was back in 2019—I was deeply involved in the frontline activism. I call it the frontlines.

So I participated in protests, bearing witness outside slaughterhouses to expose the realities of animal agriculture.

Those experiences were profoundly impactful, but they were emotionally super intense and traumatic. I don’t know that I have the emotional makeup to do that regularly. I shifted gears a little bit. I still support—like, Trey Morrow and other activists. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Trey. I support his organization [Animal Activism Collective].

He basically trains people how to be activists, if they want to be. I donate to his organization and support him a lot. But I was working alongside quite a few activist, protest things. I kind of moved away from that.

I also attended the Animal Rights Conference in Washington, D.C., which they don’t have anymore, unfortunately, because that was an amazing experience.

Then I continued to support the movement through fundraising. Fundraising, sponsorships, financial contributions to animal rights and rescue organizations. So, I’ve participated in hands-on events at local sanctuaries. Supporting both the animals and the people.

Professionally, I’ve integrated the advocacy into my work by dedicating a portion of my commissions. So this is how I tie real estate with my advocacy. I allocate a portion of my commissions to animal rights and rescue efforts.

What that looks like is I’ll periodically run matching fundraisers. Like, on Facebook, you’ll see, if you scroll back through the years, I’ve done these matching fundraisers where if everybody can donate up to $500, I’ll match the $500, and it becomes $1,000 for one of the local sanctuaries. I did it for Speak for Animals once. 

Like I mentioned, I sponsored Speak for Animals’ annual event and the Vegan Chef Challenge, I was a sponsor for, so I’m always looking for opportunities to sponsor vegan events. So this allows me to, right, contribute in an impactful way that’s aligned with my skills and resources.

So I’m still contributing, but I’m not in that emotional dungeon where I felt like I was with the frontline activism. That was just torture, for me, and it’s already torture for the animals. This is my form of activism now, and I completely resonate with it.

Fields: If it’s not too painful for you, is there a particular moment in your frontline activism where you said, “Okay. Based on this moment, I know that this is not for me”?

Hultman: Oh. Yeah. I was at a cow slaughterhouse in Georgia, and…Yeah. That’s not something I can really talk about very well, but hearing the screams from the animals was… is burned in my brain.

I’ll never forget that. It was just awful. I ran, and screamed, and ran because I could not hear those cows anymore, just screaming as they were skinned alive.

Then seeing the skins come by in the conveyor belt after they’re skinned alive. Words can’t even describe how that felt. Everything I do is for them, though. Their screams are not falling on deaf ears, I can say that.

Fields: I’m glad that you found an area within animal rights activism where you’re comfortable, and you can contribute in your own way.

Doing these interviews, I’ve noticed how everybody’s carving out a space for themselves based on their own interests and talents. So that’s important to know that you don’t have to force yourself to go into an area that’s not aligned with your own personality.

Hultman: Exactly. Exactly.

Fields: How did you come to see real estate as a meaningful vehicle for advancing animal rights values, or vegan values?

Do you have a specific story where you came to this realization?

Hultman: There’s a short, short story, I guess. Like I said, 2019, it was kind of like an evolution of me experiencing all different types of advocacy. From activism to volunteer work, whatever. The end of the year was coming around: December, Christmas, the holidays, and stuff, and I’m coming into January. I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m just not finding my right fit. Where’s my fit here?”

Just kind of pondering it. And, a light bulb went off, and I said, “Real estate.”

Then I said, “Real estate? Like, how are you gonna tie real estate to your veganism?”

Well. I was a realtor back in my 20s before I had my corporate career.

I’m from Connecticut originally, so I was a realtor in my 20s back in Connecticut, but I was too young for it. I couldn’t relate to these major transactions and all these big finances, and families, and kids, and schools, and what was important to people.

I was 20-something years old. I didn’t have any life skills. So it didn’t last long. I was in it for, like, a year.

Then I personally, over the years, have invested in real estate, and I love real estate. I’ve moved a bunch. I’ve lived all over. I’ve even lived in London, England for 6 years. I’ve lived in Connecticut, South Carolina, New York, Texas, Chicago. I’ve lived all over the place.

So I’ve bought and sold houses plenty of times, and I’ve invested, personally.

So, in January of the next year, 2020, [the] light bulb went off, and I was like, “Real estate.” I said, “What I’ll do is I’ll tie my commissions to financially support the vegan movement. I’ll participate in the [vegan] events and stuff and get a community, and I’ll help vegans in my area as my clients, so that I can help the people that are helping the movement.”

That’s exactly what has transpired. Now it’s 6 years later.

Fields: That was a very strategic goal.

Hultman: Yeah.

Fields: How are you targeting the vegans in the area? How do they know to go to you as their vegan realtor?

Hultman: Well. As you noted a few minutes ago, I’m all over the Greenville Vegan Society, organizing events, or participating in events.

You know Kim [Giovacco]. You interviewed Kim from Veg Jaunts and Journeys. She does a lot of the event organizing, and Frank, Vegan Frank. He’s Forthwright Frances. He’s the one who organized the Tahini event.

Fields: I’ve met him. Yes.

Hultman: You know Frank.

They do a lot of the actual, like, organizing of events. But I’m right with them. They’re two very good friends of mine, and everybody knows that I’m a real estate agent. I’m actually a realtor, and I’m a managing broker now. But, everybody knows my real estate life.

So, it’s just word of mouth. Everybody wants to support the vegan, if they can, and when it comes to business, people call me.

Fields: That’s nice.

So you’re the realtor in the Greenville Vegan Society, so whenever people are changing homes, they’re like, “Oh. Okay. We can contact you.”

Hultman: Yeah. The Greenville Vegan Society is where I started making those connections, but now they’re personal connections. We have these in-person events and stuff together, and so everybody just kind of knows me: that I’m vegan and that I’m a realtor.

Hultman attending a vegan tea at Sun Belly Cafe 

If it’s not them, it’s their mom, or sister, or brother that they’re saying, “Yeah. Call Sitara. She’s a realtor here.”

I’m also good at what I do, too, if I may say so. Even if you’re not vegan. People are calling me based on referrals from other people.

Fields: Wonderful.

Are there other people in real estate who are doing something similar to you? Not necessarily matching and donating to vegan fundraisers but to their own causes?

Hultman: Yeah. So I owned my own brokerage for 3 years called Red Door Realty. But we closed it down last summer.

This was our goal—to recruit agents who had a passion for some cause. It didn’t have to be veganism, of course. My business partner wasn’t vegan, but my business partner has a son who’s autistic.

So her passion is supporting the autistic community, and research, and fundraising, or all the things that are involved in that community.

So each of us had our passions, and mine is veganism, and animal rights, and rescue.

Our agents—like, one of them was children, and impoverished children, or impoverished communities. But helping the children in particular. So she was very involved with the fostering community, or there’s an organization that she works for, the name is escaping me now, but that raises funds for the children who are in impoverished areas. That gets them clothing and so forth like that. So that’s something she’s passionate about.

So we kind of ran the brokerage, as such, to encourage our agents to be involved in the communities that are aligned with their passions and go ahead and connect with those people in those communities and help them [the people]. Donate—support those communities through your real estate business.

So we kind of had a little business model around it.

Fields: Is this something that’s also occurring at your current real estate business?

Hultman: We do have some agents that have their passions that they support and donate to, or they help those communities that they’re passionate about.

Yeah.

Fields: Thank you for sharing that.

Hultman: Sure.

Fields: Is there a particular moment or experience that captures the impact of your work as a vegan realtor?

Hultman: The annual sponsorships, those are the big ones. Because Speak for Animals, their annual event is a big event, so it’s a big sponsorship in terms of monetarily. I volunteer at it as well.

Hultman volunteering in Speak for Animals’ Fix-a-Feline program

The Vegan Chef Challenge, I just love being a sponsor of the Vegan Chef Challenge.

Fields: Could you explain your role with the Vegan Chef Challenge?

Hultman: As a sponsor, that means I’m paying for the sponsorship. That supports all of the printed materials that they need for the event and Austin [organizer] getting paid whatever, maybe, small salary that he gets paid. So sponsorship involves me giving them money.

        Hultman poses with a Greenville Vegan Chef Challenge flyer

But also, all the table tents that had to go out to the restaurants, Austin sends them to me. There’s about 50 restaurants that they all need to go to, and each one needs to get 50 of them. So there’s a lot of table tents, and buttons, and flyers.

So he sends that stuff to me, and I divvy it up between whoever else wants to help volunteer. Kim helped this past year, because Kim just moved to Greenville, so she helped this past year. Nikki. Our friend Nikki helped. Frank helped.

So we distributed them all to the restaurants.

But, backing up, it’s even getting restaurants on board in the first place. When they first get going, with the Challenge each year, they need to reach out to all the restaurants to see who wants to participate that year.

Austin relies heavily on us volunteers to help him with that because he’s not here in person. It’s much more impactful when you can walk in and speak to the manager or the owner, so we’re doing that kind of thing, too, trying to recruit restaurants to be involved in the Vegan Chef Challenge.

Fields: Especially with all of your collective work: going to the restaurants and organizing Greenville Vegan Society events. You all know all of the restaurant owners.

Hultman: Yeah.

Fields: I can see how you’re invaluable to that process.

Hultman: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Fields: What milestones stand out in your career as a vegan realtor?

Hultman: So several milestones stand out, and they relate to both advocacy and community building.

I’ve organized the multiple matching fundraisers for the local animal sanctuaries, which we talked about. The most recent one that I did was $500 matching for Wild Pines Sanctuary. That was maybe 4 or 5 months ago or so, just before Thanksgiving.

Beyond fundraising, I actively engage in the local vegan community through gatherings, like the potlucks or eating out to support vegan-friendly restaurants. We’ve also started a book club, which is fun.

So, it’s a bunch of us ladies. No men have really been invited, but we didn’t mean to necessarily be exclusive, but it’s just a bunch of us ladies. So there’s probably, like, 10 or 15 of us in the book club. Not all of us attend every month. But then we connect, and it’s nice to connect over shared interests and values, and we pick a different book every month. It’s been nice.

There’s a lot of us now, and we’re really kind of a tight-knit little bunch.

[The local vegan community] it’s not all about food. We do all kinds of different things. We’ll hike together even.

So we do different things other than eat.

Fields: If somebody wanted to get involved with this book club, or a hiking event, how would they be able to contact you or whoever’s in charge?

Hultman: Well. The book club, they can just reach out to me, and we can add them.

The other stuff that we do, like, we’ll go to maybe volunteer at an animal sanctuary or something, a lot of it’s just not formal. We end up on a group text, a bunch of us.

I don’t want people to feel left out at all. So I, or some of us, could probably do a better job posting that stuff on the Greenville Vegan Society, and say, “If you’re looking for things to do, we’re going to post them as events on the Greenville Vegan Society.”

Maybe that’s a target for me in 2026, to do a better job at that.

Yeah.

Fields: What do you wish more people understood about the relationship between veganism and a person’s professional life?

Hultman: I thought about this hard, and I wish more people understood that veganism doesn’t have to be separate from a person’s professional life.

So they can complement each other very nicely, and it’s like when I said, “Real estate,” and I’m like, “Real estate? Like, what in the world does that have to do with anything about animals or veganism?”

It doesn’t have to be separate, though, so I’m just thinking the movement grows stronger when vegans are visible in mainstream professions because representation matters. Normalization happens when people regularly interact with vegans in everyday professional settings. For example, I’m a managing broker at Bluefield. So not only am I a real estate agent, like the other 220 of them, but I’m also their managing broker. So they come to me for guidance through certain deals. Or if they’re not sure if they’re doing something in compliance, they’ll come to me and ask. So I coach them, I answer general questions, and I also do trainings. 

    Hultman’s Bluefield Realty Group profile picture

I’ve only been there, like, 6 months now, but pretty much all of them now know that I’m vegan and know about my advocacy through my real estate work and how I kind of blend it in with veganism.

It’s normalized. Sometimes when people first ask, or first learn about it, they’ll be like, “So where do you get your protein?” I’ll get those kinds of questions.

But then, they start to see me eating, and they see my posts, or they’ll see my lifestyle, and they’re like, “Oh. Okay. I get it.” So it kind of normalizes it when you really show up in your profession authentically and don’t hide the veganism.

Not that anybody’s hiding it, but I’m just saying, like, “The more vegans we can get in the mainstream professions, the better.”

[Being visibly vegan in your profession] just gives you an opportunity to lead by example, and then introduce new perspectives that feel accessible to people, rather than confrontational. That’s why the frontline activism doesn’t really resonate with me because I’m not a confrontational person. I’d rather meet people where they are, and not make people feel bad about themselves, and that kind of thing. So I want it to be a more inclusive way to show them how to live this beautiful lifestyle, and how rewarding it can be and make them want to be closer to it, rather than, “Ah! Yikes. You’re scaring me. Or, you’re making me feel like a bad person.”

I wish vegans understood that everybody can blend together and have, I feel, more impact that way, and, [in a] more sustainable, inclusive way.

Fields: That’s some wonderful advice.

Hultman: Yeah. [Laughs]

Fields: Is there anything that I should have asked but didn’t?

Hultman: I’m sure we could talk about stuff. Go down different rabbit holes. But I think that probably sums it up.

Fields: Thank you so much for agreeing to this meeting, and I can’t wait to put your ideas out in front of everybody else.

Hultman: Thank you so much for doing this! I’m so excited that you’re spreading the word about everybody and exposing everybody. I love it.