David Roberts
Professor of the Practice of Marketing
Dave Roberts has spent more than 35 years helping organizations improve their performance in sales, sales consulting and general management.
He joined UNC Kenan-Flagler in 2008 to build a sales discipline curriculum for the School, which is one of the few top business schools to offer sales as an area of study.
Professor Roberts teaches extensively through UNC Executive Development for managers and executives across large corporate and government clients, mostly in the areas of influence (especially without formal authority), the modern leader and organizational strategy alignment and execution. He served as its president from 2019 to 2021.
He has taught the MBA Programs and the Undergraduate Business Program, which honored him with a Weatherspoon Award for Teaching Excellence in 2014.
He spent 16 years with boutique consulting companies. He was managing partner with The Sales Consultancy, vice president at OnTarget and senior director with The TAS Group. He served as a vice president of the sales effectiveness business unit in Siebel Systems Inc., now a part of Oracle, for six years.
Professor Roberts has worked with leading organizations in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America to help his clients more effectively achieve top-line growth, implement strategy, improve negotiation approaches and achieve business results.
He worked at Hewlett-Packard, Ltd. for 11 years as a sales professional and later as the global account manager for one of HP’s largest accounts. He created a development curriculum for senior sales, support and management staff for the company.
A native of the United Kingdom, he is an enthusiastic pilot and holds a U.S. commercial license.
He received his degrees in electronic engineering from the University of Hull in the U.K.
