President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, VERRA MOBILITY CORP
Focus, Clarity & Accountability in the C-Suite #Leadership #Executiveland
What separates great executives from the rest? David Roberts, CEO of Verra Mobility, shares the three essential traits every ...
About David Roberts
David Roberts, President, CEO, and Director of Verra Mobility, appeared on the podcast "Higher Learning" on July 20, 2026, to discuss his career and impact on sports broadcasting. During the interview, Roberts stated that he has "always operated with the understanding that diversity means to me making sure that the playing field is level," adding that a level playing field requires that those in decision-making roles, such as producers, "represent the markets that we cover." He also said he was "always unafraid to challenge within the organization" and expressed frustration when told that "we don't mix politics with sports," arguing that covering certain issues should not be considered crossing a boundary between politics and sports.
Transcript (2 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
What else would you say are really the core skills that you see are in most need, particularly at that suite level?
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David Roberts0:06
Well, the good news is I have an acronym for that. It is FCA: focus, clarity, and accountability. There are executives that struggle with focus. They either focus too much on the thing that they're good at and not enough on the things that they're missing, or they lose the music somehow and they just aren't pursuing the objective in a way. They get clouded by whatever it is. Clarity is just because you had the meeting doesn't mean that everybody's clear. There is this constant drumbeat of does everyone know what's important now? And the repeating of that and the repeating of that and the repeating of that. And then accountability. It still surprises me that executives make it to a certain level without the ability to have crucial conversations or direct conversations around accountability. They let stuff go too.