Resume wording
"Cultivated" is the single most common filler verb in relationship bullets, and recruiters read it as "had meetings". It describes tending rather than achieving, so it never carries an outcome.
These are not interchangeable. Picking the wrong one is how a bullet ends up claiming something you did not do, so the second column matters more than the first.
Before
Cultivated relationships with key vendors.
After
Renegotiated terms with 4 core vendors, cutting annual spend 18% while shortening lead times by a week.
The verb is the smaller half of that change. What actually makes the second version work is the number, and no synonym can supply one for you.
Keep "cultivated" in agriculture, research and horticulture contexts, where it is the literal and correct verb.
Rewriting one bullet is easy. Rewriting forty against a specific job posting is the part people give up on. Tailor CV rewrites your resume against the posting you are actually applying to, and you edit what it gives back.