peter roy the natural - stephanie huntstephaniehuntwrites.com/pdfs/profiles/peter_roy.pdf · 2011....
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Peter Roy would make an ideal
political candidate. With his
winning smile and Southern
charm, Roy af firms the all -American
notions that good ideas and hard
work pay of f, that r isk has rewards
and vision has power. His story fol-
lows the amazing arc that voters find
irresistible. Too bad he is more inclined to
hit the hiking trail than the campaign
trail.
Imagine this campaign video: The camera
starts rolling in that humble institution, the
corner grocery store, where a boyish, ener-
getic Roy emerges heroic—proof that a col-
lege dropout can start out stocking shelves
and bagging groceries and end up running
142 | C H A R L E S T O N
W R I T T E N B Y S T E P H A N I E H U N T
The cofounder of Whole Foods Market learns the true meaning of living well
the charleston profile
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The NaturalP E T E R R O Y
Globetrotter: Retired from Whole Foods since 1998, Roy
serves on the board of National Outdoor Leadership School
(NOLS), travelling to Africa and beyond with the organization.
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the store. There’s a wholesome appeal—the
store happens to sell health foods. And to
clinch any undecided voters, the video cul-
minates with his fledgling natural foods
enterprise being crowned king of the organ-
ic food industry. Which is where Whole
Foods Market, Inc., the retail green giant that
Roy cofounded, is today—a Wall Street dar-
ling with more than 180 stores and $5.7 bil-
lion in annual sales.
But Roy isn’t running for anything. Having
served as president of Whole Foods Market
for five years during a period of robust com-
pany growth, he is now content with his out-
of-the-limelight life on Pawleys Island, where
passions for golf, fine food, and spending
time with family and friends top his agenda.
“I love telling friends that I live in the ham-
mock capital of the world,” he says. Not run-
ning, but not retired, the 50-year-old Roy has
merely shifted priorities.
Since leaving Whole Foods in 1998, he
has remained a key player in the natural
food and healthy lifestyles industries and
has lent expertise to the boards of Stony-
field Farms, WhiteWave Foods (makers of
SILK soymilk products), Mountain Sun
juices, and Acirca (brand name Walnut
Acres), among others. He’s a strategic
advisor to North Castle Partners, a private
equity fund investing in healthy lifestyle
businesses, and he currently travels to
some 20 board meetings a year as a
director for Avalon Natural Products,
the Naked Juice Company, Traditional
Medicinals, and West Marine. “I’m
working as hard as I ever have,” says Roy.
The difference is that now he defines
how he does it.
An Incredible RunOf course, when he was 19 and bagging
groceries, Roy never imagined those bags
would one day hold a lucrative career and
a life mission. He was always passionate
about the personal and environmental
health benefits of organic and natural
foods, but he didn’t set out to be the Titan
of Tofu. (“Actually, I was never a big soy
eater,” he confesses.) “My dad was a suc-
cessful doctor, and that was what I was
expected to do,” says Roy, who grew up
with four sisters in a fifth-generation New
Orleans family.
Studying, however, was not his strong
suit. “My dad would say I’d lost my way in
high school,” admits Roy, who preferred out-
door pursuits like golf, backpacking, and
scuba diving. His grandmother dangled a
carrot: “She offered me $1,000 if I finished
high school. I did, and I spent it on a NOLS
(National Outdoor Leadership School)
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | 143
Outward Bound: After graduating high school, Roy thumbed it to Wyoming for a daunting wilderness course.
His love of the outdoors continues as he and wife Gillian go on adventures, like this camping trip with the NOLS
trustees in the mountains of Alaska in 1999.
•
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144 | C H A R L E S T O N
Pushing the Limit: “One
thing wilderness does is
push you beyond your
comfort zone,” says Roy,
who is quick to note that
his early NOLS experi-
ence gave him a new-
found confidence.
course—a buddy of mine had done one and
it sounded cool.” The money didn’t cover
both tuition and a plane ticket, so Roy hitch-
hiked to Wyoming for a challenging five-
week Wind River Wilderness course. He
arrived with no hiking boots and no real
sense of the challenges that lay ahead.
On day one, with huge blisters from
stiff new boots and an aching body from
lugging a 75-pound pack, Roy asked his
trip leader for more mosquito repellent.
The guy laughed. “I knew I was in over
my head,” he says. “One thing wilderness
does is push you beyond your comfort
zone, but the end result is that your com-
fort zone gets larger. My NOLS experi-
ence was a turning point. I left Wyoming
with a sense of accomplishment and
belief in myself that I didn’t have before.”
The experience also nudged him toward
environmentally oriented Prescott College
in Arizona, which used a wilderness-based
curriculum. It was a fateful choice: The
college ran into financial trouble and lost
its accreditation after Roy’s first year. Out
of school and without a plan, Roy returned
to New Orleans and began working at his
sister’s new natural food store, Whole Food
Company. Three years later, he was presi-
dent of what had become one of the
largest volume stores in the nascent natural
foods industry, and he had created the
Natural Foods Network, a trade association
linking together other natural food entre-
preneurs. “Basically, I bought my sister out
for $800 and woke up 25 years later,” Roy
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | 145
“Success is not about title or money or theletters behind your name. Living well canmean being able to choose what you do,
where you do it, and with whom. That’s real luxury. I’m so thankful I had
the courage to embrace that.”—Peter Roy
Humble Beginnings: The original Whole Foods
Market opened in 1980 in Austin, Texas. Eight
years later, the store merged with Roy’s Whole Food
Company, and the rumblings of an organic food
market revolution began.
•
146 | C H A R L E S T O N
says. “It’s been an incredible run.”
The Luxury of ChoiceIn 1988 when Roy merged his Whole
Food Company with Whole Foods Market,
the organics sector was still small beans.
Hoping to expand, he and partners John
Mackey and Craig Weller approached ven-
ture capital firms. “They thought we were
crazy, that health foods were a fad, but we
knew it was a trend,” says Roy, who time
and again has had prescient business
instincts—like three years ago when he
“took a leap” and invested in some crazy
rubber shoes called Crocs that some
friends in Boulder were pushing. (“Lucky
me,” Roy says, a rubber-soled understate-
ment.) In 1989, Roy, his wife Gillian, and
young daughters Emma and Molly moved
to California to expand the Whole Foods
concept into the Bay area. In 1993, Roy
became president of Whole Foods, and by
1998, the Austin, Texas-based company
had opened 100 stores in 20 states and
was doing more than $1 billion in annual
sales. But such rapid growth had a price.
“I had gone from wearing an apron to
work every day for my first 10 years to
spending most of my time doing investor
relations on Wall Street. I wasn’t having
much fun anymore.”
This is where that imagined campaign
video would zoom in, the music getting
intense—Peter Roy’s pivotal moment. He
was 45 and had recently lost his father, his
youngest daughter was leaving the nest,
and while driving into New York City to
meet with yet more financial analysts, Roy
Family Man: Roy with his wife, Gillian, and daugh-
ters Molly (left) and Emma.
•
Southern Brew: A fifth-generation New Orleanian, Roy gets back to his roots every year with an annual crawfish
boil, transforming the terrace of his Louisiana-inspired house on Pawleys Island into Cajun-central.
•
“Peter connects people and ideas
better than anybody I know... [He] has a
way of movingthrough the world
with grace and graciousness and a
sense of integrity andfun. People like
working with him.”—Lex Alexander
had what felt like a heart attack. He
reevaluated; he resigned. He stepped
away from the power, prestige, and pay-
check that came with being top dog in
one of the country’s top retailers.
Roy writes about this definitive deci-
sion in his forthcoming The Book of Hard
Choices, coauthored with James Autry and
due out in December. “Interviewing peo-
ple for the book, we found that the diffi-
cult issues are rarely about money or the
bottom line, they’re about relationships,”
he says. Roy had built his career on giving
consumers healthy options, and now his
own hard choice involved “defining what
success meant to me—it’s not about title
or money or the letters behind your
name,” Roy realized. “Living well can mean
being able to choose what you do, where
you do it, and with whom. That’s real lux-
ury. I’m so thankful I had the courage to
embrace that.”
Roy understands the relationship busi-
ness. The Whole Foods ethic affirms the
interrelatedness of healthy food supplies
and healthy communities; its manage-
ment strategy, extending from executives
to grocery baggers, is team-based, and the
148 | C H A R L E S T O N
Lessons Learned: Roy and coauthor James Autry
interviewed leaders for The Book of Hard Choices, which
explores methods for tackling the tough ethical dilemmas
that businesspeople face during their careers.
•
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company’s early expansion stemmed
from the ties Roy developed with his Nat-
ural Foods Network. “Peter connects peo-
ple and ideas better than anybody I
know,” says his friend and former Whole
Foods colleague Lex Alexander, who sold
his North Carolina-based Wellspring Gro-
cery stores to Whole Foods largely
because Roy was part of the organiza-
tion. “Peter has a way of moving through
the world with grace and graciousness
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | 149
At 45, Roy reevaluated and
resigned. He steppedout of the limelightand away from thepower, prestige, andpaycheck that came
with being top dog in one of the country’s
top retailers.
To Your Health! Roy in Berlin for his 44th birthday•
150 | C H A R L E S T O N
and a sense of integrity and fun. People
like working with him,” Alexander adds.
Living near the coast along the pristine
Waccamaw River, giving time and energy
back to NOLS as a two-term board mem-
ber and former board chairman, and trav-
eling to Africa and beyond on NOLS-relat-
ed expeditions are part of the gracious, no-
regrets Lowcountry lifestyle that Peter and
Gillian now enjoy.
Their daughters live and work in Austin
but come home often, especially for
Peter’s annual New Orleans crawfish boil,
when the brick terrace of their Louisiana-
inspired home is transformed to Cajun-
central. Gillian, a former dancer with the
National Ballet of Canada, is now, thanks to
several NOLS trips, “an absolute born-again
sea kayaker” and passionate environmen-
talist, serving on the Board of the Coastal
Conservation League and championing
local land-use issues. “In the business com-
munity, she was always Mrs. Peter Roy.
Around here, I’m Mr. Gillian Roy,” her
proud husband says.
Relaxed and comfortable in his tan
Crocs, eating a salad topped with his all-
time favorite whole food, fresh shrimp,
Peter Roy looks like a man content with
his choices—which is exactly what
Life Is Good: Although Peter and Gillian now
make their home on Pawleys Island, both contribute
their boundless energies to environmental organiza-
tions; Peter maintains his involvement with NOLS,
and Gillian serves on the board of the Coastal
Conservation League.
•
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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | 151
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