Short Biography

Carol Roth is a content creator, “recovering” investment banker, author of The War on Small Business, entrepreneur, TV pundit and host, and New York Times bestselling author of The Entrepreneur Equation.

She has worked in a variety of capacities across industries, including currently as an outsourced CCO, as a director on public and private company boards and as a strategic advisor. She advocates for small business, small government and big hair.

More on Carol

Carol Roth’s experience overlaps content creation, on-camera and in-person hosting, finance, business, economics, pop culture and even comedy.

On the content side, Carol is a national media personality, with more than a dozen years of on-camera expertise. Formerly, she has been a judge on the Mark Burnett-produced technology competition series, America’s Greatest Makers, on TBS and the Host of Microsoft’s Office Small Business Academy show, as well as a panelist on Fox Business’s Bulls & Bears and CNBC’s Closing Bell.

Carol is also developing content across a range of formats, from historical fiction to game shows.

Carol can currently be seen weekly on a variety of networks and shows. Her multimedia commentary covers big and small business and the economy, current events, politics and pop culture topics. She hosts the podcast The Roth Effect and was formerly a radio host on WGN in Chicago. Her avid defense of capitalism, free markets and reason finds her op-eds published in a variety of outlets. Carol has also been seen weekly on a variety of national television outlets over the years including Fox Business, CNN, HBO, Fox News and MSNBC. She has also appeared in several financial/economic documentaries, including one about the auto bailouts.

Carol has created the legacy planning system Future File, with both analog and software version of the product.

Carol has worked with hundreds of companies, ranging from a single entrepreneur with an idea to Fortune 500 businesses, on all aspects of business and financial strategy. Collectively, she has helped her clients complete more than $2 billion in deal transactions, including capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, and high-profile licensing and partnership deals, as well as create 7-figure brand loyalty programs.

Carol also acts as a brand spokesperson, ambassador and influencer for a number of companies and brands that are seeking to reach a broader audience, with a focus on those looking to reach small business owners and entrepreneurs, professional women and retail investors. Previous and current brand clients include Microsoft, Bank of America, MasterCard and Nextiva, among others.  She also creates proprietary and licensed content across a variety of formats for companies.

Carol Roth has more than 25 years of business advisory experience, which began at investment banking firm Montgomery Securities in San Francisco (subsequently Banc of America Securities), where she rapidly rose internally to become one of the youngest officers of the company by age 25. Her experience has encompassed a wide variety of products and services, including initial public offerings (IPOs), secondary offerings, private equity placements, private debt placements, buy-side M&A, sell-side M&A, LBOs/MBOs, recapitalizations, valuations, fairness opinions, licensing, marketing services, franchise work, start-up advisory and general strategic advisory work. She has completed licenses and joint ventures between her clients and a variety of high profiles companies including Paramount, Disney, Fox, Hasbro and even the pop singer Katy Perry.

Through her firm, Carol also invests in/holds equity positions in a limited number of private companies. Some of her current holdings include  Project M/REVOLVER (metal-music focused lifestyle media brand) and Tinysponsor (Micro to mega influencer platform). Her preferred investments are in established brands and companies looking for bridge or later stage growth capital. Ms. Roth also has public company board member experience as a former Director of Travelzoo (NASD:TZOO), is a board member of Tinysponsor and is an advisory board member for TRO Investment Group, which has a number of diversified portfolios of private alternative investments.

Carol has been an emcee, keynote speaker and event moderator for a number of high profile events, including The New York Times Small Business Summit, The Chicago Cubs Convention, Microsoft, Virgin Atlantic/Richard Branson and The Inc.500 Conference, among many others. Carol was also named a Top 100 Small Business Influencer for 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, & 2015 by Small Biz Trends.

Ms. Roth holds a B.S. Degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. To supplement her active media participation, Carol has completed media and improv training with The Second City, the leading improvisational comedy school in the US.

Carol has coined a number of terms and phrases ranging from “Cirque-du-So-Lame” (something that is beyond pathetic and pitiful) to “jobbie” (a hobby disguised as a job, career or business) to “business beer goggling,” and deemed Harvard to be a hedge fund with a university attached to it.  She also is known for her proprietary Customer Loyalty 3.0 methodology to engage business senders and spenders. She is well versed on popular culture and consumer trends and has attracted quite a bit of attention for her Twitter exchanges.

Ms. Roth splits her time between both coasts, but maintains her primary residence in Chicago with her husband, who is also a recovering investment banker (and her former business partner). They have no children, pets or plants and are avid sports fans (particularly of NFL football and the Chicago Blackhawks). Ms. Roth is also a recovering toy collector, trading in a portion of her collection for a more sophisticated toy (a Simpsons pinball machine).  She also has her own fashion doll / action figure made in her likeness.

Twitter: @CarolJSRoth