Greg Roth is a keynote speaker who teaches you to take risks. He delivers story-rich talks about crazy ideas, creative enthusiasm, and the culture of experiments we can design to improve our lives and work. He studies “challenges” as a way to change behavior, build skills, and achieve big breakthroughs and has shared over 300 case studies in his newsletter, The Idea Enthusiast Weekly.
How did he get here? His career has been one long experiment.
+ Along with friends Mike and Jason, won the Pen Argyl High School "Stock Market Game", placing 26th out of 800 teams in the Lehigh Valley and 166 out of 4000 in Pennsylvania, despite being 7th graders competing against juniors and seniors. The team's investment strategy was short selling three stocks: Washington Post, Exxon, and, ahem, Playboy. Honored at fancy coat and tie luncheon put on by Lehigh University.
+ Thanks to an inspired drum solo at regional jazz band competition, awarded a partial (very partial) scholarship to the Berkeley School of Music.
+ He held the school records for the 1600m and 3200m for 20+ years and made the state finals in cross country.
+ While serving as the sports editor of the student newspaper at Millersville University, he helped break a story about NCAA violations in the school's basketball program.
+ While still in college, he started freelancing as a music writer, interviewing such acts as Traffic, Kenny Wayne Shephard, Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Jayhawks, and Ween.
+ As a result, he got his first job, in the sports department at Lancaster Newspapers. (Actually, his first job was a summer-only position making crayons for Crayola).
+ Joining the startup world, he launched the One-on-One with Greg Norman video golf lesson product in the Philadelphia market.
+ While not as impressive as building your own backyard mini-golf course, he did get to play some of the nicest courses on the East Coast and met Evander Holyfield (who definitely needed some lessons).
+ As managing editor, executed redesign and transformation of Chamber Executive, the chamber of commerce industry’s
premier magazine, helping to grow revenue by 200%.
+ At the US Chamber of Commerce, he led When Work Works, a national effective workplaces initiative, delivering keynote addresses about leading companies in human capital strategies.
+ Speaking on the House floor in favor of the food stamps bill, CA Rep Jackie Speier delivered a speech in which she called out lawmakers who accept large stipends for travel meals, but vote3d against the SNAP program.
+ The speech dominated the day's news cycle, getting retweeted by leaders and celebrities, while racking up over 1 million views across 30+ media platforms in just 72 hours.
+ He eventually took over the speechwriting team at the National Association of Realtors, producing content for its leadership team. He also runs the Washington (DC) Speechwriters Roundtable.
+ Released 3 albums as a recording artist and performed in 25 states and Canada.
+ Performed stand up comedy at the DC Improv, Riot Act Comedy Theatre and other DC-area venues.
+ Won best acting award as part of the 72-Hour Film Festival, for the indie film "Ripped Off".
+Produced and starred in a commercial for Snap Fitness that finished as runner up in open-call national competition.
+ Founding member of the improv group Comedy Gears.
+ Fulfilled life long dream of mascot work, appearing as Cookie Monster, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Super Why at large-scale and private events.
When you add it all up, you have a speaker, facilitator, and coach who has over 20 years of experience producing great content, getting the most out of teams and collaborators, with a creative mind mixing strong ideas with adaptability. As a former speechwriter, he knows what makes a compelling message, while his performing side ensure he delivers an experience, not just a talk. He helps inspire audiences to seek out challenges and commit to trying new ideas.
In fact, he’s taken the Renaissance Man concept and applied it to his career: Greg has held over 100 jobs, big and small. Some of the more notable ones: journalist, campaign director, magazine publisher, videographer for a PGA professional, show producer, performer, sketch artist, rickshaw driver, tour guide, garbage man, rickshaw driver, crayon maker, and mascot. Because of this, his talks are peppered with analogies from all walks of life, translating “creative work” to any field.
