LinkedIn Editor Got Start at Atherton

Dan Roth heads world's largest business publication

By Mark Hebert 

It was one of his teachers, Richard Allen, who convinced Dan Roth to join the staff of Atherton High School’s student newspaper. Roth had always been interested in business - his grandfather and father were both successful businessmen - but he had never really thought about journalism. When Mr. Allen’s suggestion came along, the lightbulb went off in Roth’s mind.

“I realized I could ask anybody any question I wanted,” Roth said. “I said, ’this is the best!’”

And that was the beginning of Roth’s 30+ years love affair tying business and journalism together.

Dan Roth photo

For the past 11 years, the 1991 graduate of Atherton has been the editor of the world’s largest business publication - LinkedIn. While the site’s 875 million users find connections to jobs and companies on LinkedIn, Roth heads a team of 200 people who write, record, curate, and post business news on different platforms for those same users. One of LinkedIn’s publications, the Daily Rundown, boasts 210 million readers each day.

After graduating from Northwestern University with a journalism degree, Roth landed his first business reporting job at the Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh, North Carolina. As legacy  newspapers and business journals began to struggle and online publications began to grow, Roth took his talents to the web-based versions of the popular, respected business news outlets Fortune, Wired and Forbes, becoming the editor at Forbes.com. Then LinkedIn called with the chance to lead a group of journalists and podcasters who bring business news to people in 200 countries. His jobs have allowed Roth to interview and rub elbows with some of the top business and political leaders in the world. 

Roth credits some of his success to the foundation laid in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS). He was a student at Hawthorne and Byck Elementary Schools and Highland and Johnson Middle Schools. Roth was bused to the two West Louisville schools, Byck and Johnson, and says the experience of having a lot of Black students and students of color as classmates prepared him to be a successful reporter and manager.

Dan Roth Senior Picture - Atherton High School 1991
“I was surrounded by a very diverse community and it gave me a sense of how people think and what people are going through that was beyond the world that I was living in (a predominantly white, middle class neighborhood in the Highlands area),” Roth says. “I was in schools where I was by far the minority and I’m glad I had that experience.”

At Atherton, Roth was involved in several clubs and organizations as well as President of the Student Council and Homecoming King his senior year. He was the active, bright student whom teachers wouldn’t let slide through his classes.

“I wasn’t coddled at Atherton,” Roth said. “I was challenged to think a lot. I had teachers who pushed me beyond my comfort zone. There were certain teachers who wouldn’t let me just submit papers as is and said ‘you’ve got to do better than this.’” 

Dan Roth Hall of Fame plaque at Atherton High School

Roth looks at his successful career and says his independence, compassion, and talent all started with his family and his learning experiences in JCPS. 

Roth currently lives in Brooklyn and works from home. He has a wife of 20 years, who he met at Northwestern, along with three children. He is a member of Atherton High School’s Hall of Fame.

You can find stories about other JCPS graduates on the JCPS Great Grads web page