Healy declined an advisory role and immediately walked away after buyout
Cameron Healy · Kettle Chips: Cameron Healy. The Wild Bet That Made a Brand · Mar 2, 2026 · at 55:46
Cameron Healy describes leaving Kettle Foods immediately after its acquisition rather than remaining in a subordinate advisory position.
0:00 / 0:45exact quote · 45.3s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Yeah, I didn't you know, we were, Tim and I were given a small incentive to be advisors for a year, but we both sat in on the first conference call with the Operator that Lion Capital had brought in to oversee the company, a Scotsman, very dynamic, forceful individual, and sat in on the first management call, which, you know, I, I've never done. I've always been in charge. And after that first call, both Tim and I said, well, we're not doing that. We didn't do all this to sit in the back of the bus. And, you know, we declined on that opportunity. So I basically walked away when it sold.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Cameron Healy
Healy capitalized his early business by speculating on peanut contracts
“I had a broker. I was buying all my peanuts through, and he tipped me off that there was gonna be a big crop failure that year because of drought, and so I went very bullish. I speculated, which was, Really crazy. And I contracted way, way more nuts than I act…”
Healy was fired without severance from the communal businesses he founded
“I was the progenitor of all the businesses in this community. I was always coming up with the next vision and next products, and I think that I was just a threat to kind of what was a movement to slow it down and make it a little more conservative, so I was, S…”
Healy secured a $10,000 bank loan by offering Mount Bachelor ski passes
“I got to know a local banker in Salem who happened to be a avid skier at, in Mount Bachelor, and so I talked him into Giving me a 10,000 dollar working capital loan, and I sweetened the pot with a bunch of free passes to Mount Batchelor.”
Healy: Russet Burbank potatoes yield higher caramelization and flavor in chips
“We chose the Russet Burbank potato because it's, it produces the highest natural sugars, it wants to caramelize with the temperatures, and you get a darker colored product, but there's more flavor.”