Yogi Roth
Most organisations talk about culture and miss the part that actually moves performance: whether people in the room are aligned on what to compete for, and willing to do it together. Strategy decks rarely change that. Stories, repeated by leaders who believe them, do. The gap between stated values and the behaviour a team rewards under pressure is where engagement quietly collapses.
Yogi Roth is an Emmy-winning broadcaster, filmmaker and co-author of Win Forever with Pete Carroll who helps organisations turn culture statements into the daily competitive habits that make teams perform.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Yogi Roth
- Co-authorship with Pete Carroll of Win Forever, a New York Times bestseller, gives him direct authority on the “Always Compete” philosophy now used widely in sport and corporate culture programmes.
- Two decades inside elite football locker rooms, first as a USC quarterbacks coach, then as a Big Ten, Pac-12, ESPN and Fox analyst, gives him a first-hand evidence base most culture speakers do not have.
- He brings a filmmaker’s command of narrative into the room. As producer and narrator of The Drive on the Pac-12 Networks since 2013, he has spent his career studying what actually makes high-performing cultures cohere on camera.
- Track record speaking for Nike, World Surf League, Capital One, Dignity Health and JCPenney, alongside major college athletic programmes, means he reads both commercial audiences and team-led organisations without recalibration.
Biography highlights
- Co-author with Pete Carroll of Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play Like a Champion, which reached number seven on the New York Times bestseller list.
- Los Angeles Emmy winner in 2020 for Fight On: A Jackson Family, produced for the Pac-12 Networks.
- College football analyst across the Big Ten Network, Pac-12 Networks, Fox, ESPN and NFL Network, joining Big Ten Network in 2024.
- USC football quarterbacks coach under Pete Carroll, 2005 to 2009, following a playing career as a wide receiver at the University of Pittsburgh.
- Master’s degree in Communication Management from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, graduating magna cum laude.
- Elite 11 quarterback coach and host since 2009; producer and narrator of the documentary series The Drive on Pac-12 Networks since 2013.
Biography
Pete Carroll’s Win Forever philosophy did not stay inside USC’s football programme. The book that codified it, co-written with Yogi Roth in 2010, reached number seven on the New York Times bestseller list and has since travelled through corporate culture programmes, athletic departments and leadership offsites. Roth is the storyteller who shaped how that philosophy reads on the page and how its central idea, “Always Compete,” lands in a room.
His route to that work was unusual. He walked on as a wide receiver at the University of Pittsburgh, earned a full athletic scholarship, then moved into coaching at USC under Carroll from 2005 to 2009. He studied alongside that work, completing a master’s in Communication Management at the USC Annenberg School. Coaching gave him the inside view of how an elite competitive culture actually behaves. Annenberg gave him the craft to translate it.
The translation has been a 20-year career across broadcast and film. He has been an on-air college football analyst for the Big Ten Network, Pac-12 Networks, Fox, ESPN and NFL Network, and has produced and narrated The Drive since 2013, the long-running documentary series on the Pac-12 Networks. In 2020 he won a Los Angeles Emmy for Fight On: A Jackson Family. He also coaches and hosts the Elite 11, the country’s premier high school quarterback competition.
That body of work is the substance behind his keynote practice. He has spoken for Nike, World Surf League, Capital One, Dignity Health and JCPenney, applying the same idea: organisations perform when leaders make what matters specific, repeat it relentlessly, and reward the behaviours that show people are competing for it together. The Latin root of compete, he points out, is “to strive together.” Most culture programmes forget that part.
Key speaking topics
- Culture and the “Always Compete” philosophy
- Storytelling as a leadership tool
- High-performance team dynamics
- Personal brand and authentic communication
- Coaching and feedback in competitive cultures
- Purpose, clarity and discipline in winning organisations
Ideal for
- Sales leaders and commercial teams running culture or kickoff events
- HR and people leaders building engagement programmes around purpose and team behaviour
- Athletic departments, sports organisations and performance-led businesses
- Marketing leaders and brand teams working on internal storytelling and identity
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of what their team is actually competing for, beyond the stated mission
- Specific stories they can carry back into their own teams to make values concrete
- A clearer sense of where culture is real in their organisation and where it is decoration
- Renewed conviction that the behaviours leaders model in small moments are what shape a winning culture
Talks
A keynote on how leaders and high-performing cultures build the clarity, confidence and discipline to align an organisation around what genuinely matters.
Key takeaways:
- How to translate stated values into the specific competitive habits a team rewards day to day
- Lessons from elite performers and leaders in over 30 countries on what alignment looks like in practice
- A storytelling framework for making purpose concrete inside the organisation
A keynote drawn from the Win Forever philosophy co-developed with Pete Carroll, reframing competition through its Latin root, “to strive together.”
Key takeaways:
- Why competition inside a team builds rather than erodes culture when framed correctly
- How USC, and the leaders Roth has covered for two decades, sustain a competitive standard without breaking trust
- Practical applications of Win Forever principles to commercial and sales-led organisations
A keynote on personal brand and authentic communication in a saturated media environment.
Key takeaways:
- How to find the through line in a personal or organisational story that audiences actually retain
- Why authenticity beats polish when the goal is influence inside an organisation
- Lessons from 20 years of broadcasting on what makes a story land