Beyond Certification: What Living B Corp Values Actually Looks Like (w/ Rooney Castle)

Rooney Castle is the President and CEO of Rhino Foods, a Burlington, Vermont-based food manufacturer that has spent more than four decades building a business rooted in the belief that how you treat people matters as much as the product you make. In this episode, Ryan Honeyman and Emmy Allison explore what leadership looks like when values are not a framed statement on a wall but a lived, daily practice.

Rooney joined Rhino Foods in 2011 as a batter maker on the production floor and stepped into the CEO role in 2023 after a five-year transition with his father and company founder Ted Castle. He talks openly about not arriving through a traditional merit-based path, about imposter syndrome, and about why his job is less about leading from the front and more about staying proximate to employees, listening carefully, and using his position to elevate the voices of others.

The conversation is grounded in specific examples: late-night third shift visits, a personalized onboarding program called the Crash Course, formalized inclusive hiring practices, and a response to employee feedback around workplace safety that led to focus groups rather than surveillance. Together they add up to an honest look at what making values durable inside an organization actually requires.

What You’ll Learn:

• Discover what it means to live B Corp values as a leader in practice, not just aspiration, through the lens of Rooney Castle's experience at Rhino Foods
• Understand how small, consistent gestures, such as learning employees' names, showing up on the third shift, and shoveling a snowy walkway, can shape organizational culture more durably than sweeping initiatives
• Explore how Rhino Foods approaches shared decision-making and distributed leadership in a way that does not depend on any single person, including the CEO
• Learn how Rhino Foods navigated sensitive workplace challenges, including formalized inclusive hiring and supporting employees in recovery, through trust-building and employee-led focus groups
• Delve into what a successful generational leadership transition looks like in a family business, and why Ted Castle's willingness to step back was as important as Rooney's willingness to step forward
• Hear about the influence of open-book management, a coaching background, and Rooney's involvement with White Men for Racial Justice on how he thinks about leadership, equity, and his own ongoing development
• Understand how employees at any level of an organization can help embody values through proximity, consistency, patience, and the slow work of building trust

"I don't see myself as the tip of the spear here. I really see myself as part of the organization and trying to think about how do we just help make sure that it keeps doing what it's doing." — Rooney Castle

"You can feel it. It doesn't matter if it's hung up on our wall or you can read the plaques that say this is our mission, this is our values. If in that first 30 minutes or hour you don't sort of get a feeling like this feels different, then I don't think I'm doing my job." — Rooney Castle

"My door is always open. And then somebody said to me, I don't want to come to your office. I want you to come back here. And I was like, damn. Heard." — Rooney Castle

"I don't care how big we are. I just care how good we are." — Ted Castle, as quoted by Rooney Castle

"Be confident, it's okay, it's a reality. All you can do is step into it and make it your own and be aware of that and be humble about it. But use it for good." — Rooney Castle

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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B Corp Consultant

Interested in certifying, recertifying, or maximizing the value of your B Corp certification? Learn more about our B Corp consulting services at LIFT Economy: https://www.lifteconomy.com/secrets-of-b-corp-consulting

Next Economy Leadership

Most companies have a gap between their mission statement and how their company actually operates. Next Economy Leadership is a 6 part series that helps B Corp and social enterprise leaders build the structures and skills to truly live their values. https://go.lifteconomy.com/next-economy-leadership

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Gratitude

Thank you to Corey Lien, Nozomii Torii, and Kirsten G. Bryant for being our monthly contributors at Beyond the B!