Meet Courtney White, former President of the Food Network, who’s launching Butternut, a lifestyle & entertainment media company and joint venture with Wheelhouse. White gave us the scoop on her new company and how she’ll run the business from her family’s farm in Southport as well as The Village, Wheelhouse’s large-scale campus in Stamford, CT.

You’ve had a twenty-year-plus career in TV, leading the Food Network and as general manager/EVP of HGTV. Why did you decide to branch out on your own?

From my network seat, I wanted to see more female-owned production companies dedicated to lifestyle content with an emphasis on the food and home genres. I decided to build the company that I, as a buyer, wished existed in the marketplace.

Tell us more about Butternut. What will it look like and what kind of content will you create?

Butternut is a lifestyle and entertainment media company creating premium, unscripted content for all screens. Our mission is to connect viewers to personalities and places that inspire, inform and delight. We tell the stories of lives lived to the fullest, unlikely paths forged, creativity unleashed and talent unlocked. We are committed to authenticity, dedicated to inclusion, and driven by innovation. Our content is smart, fun, beautiful, delicious, compelling, welcoming and broadly appealing!

How will you utilize The Village in Stamford?

Wheelhouse is my partner company, led by CEO Brent Montgomery, and they have built an impressive deep bench of creative TV talent based at The Village. The teams there span across all facets of production. In TV, the most critical work we do is gathering creative people together to form new ideas, and The Village is where that idea magic will happen. Though Butternut will operate from my family farm in Southport, the Stamford location will serve as our true creative hub.

What do you love most about your new work digs?

I love the creative re-imagination of industrial spaces in The Village. Developer Courtney Montgomery’s incredible vision that she brought to life in building this campus is—to me—the most exciting example of that. Artists and creatives who flock here for work and play inspire me and spread innovation and new ideas throughout this area, and it’s a thrill to experience those dynamics right in the very building in which I work. I’m so excited to be a part of it all.