Paul Epstein
Former NFL & NBA executive and bestselling author inspiring leaders to build winning cultures and make better decisions faster.
Why book Paul Epstein for your next event
- Former NFL and NBA executive who helped teams rise from the bottom of the league to top revenue performance.
- Bestselling author of The Power of Playing Offense and Better Decisions Faster delivering practical leadership tools.
- Trusted by organizations like Amazon, Disney, NASA, the LA Lakers and Dallas Cowboys to strengthen culture and leadership.
Non-binding request for Paul Epstein
Winning Monday: Leadership, culture and decisions that drive performance
Paul Epstein is a bestselling author, former NFL and NBA executive, and one of today’s most engaging voices on leadership, culture, and performance. After nearly 15 years in the world of professional sports, he now helps organizations apply the mindset and systems behind championship teams. Through powerful storytelling and actionable insights, Paul shows leaders how to build cultures that win consistently, starting with what he calls Winning Monday. His keynotes inspire audiences to lead with purpose, make better decisions faster, and create momentum that drives results.
Paul Epstein – Keynote Speaker
Book keynote speaker Paul Epstein to inspire leaders and teams with proven strategies for leadership, culture, and high performance. Drawing from nearly 15 years in professional sports and his work with global organizations, Paul delivers keynote experiences that energize audiences and equip them with practical tools to win in business and in leadership.
Paul’s career began in the high-stakes world of professional sports, where performance is measured every day and culture defines success. Over the course of his career, he held executive roles across multiple NFL and NBA organizations, gaining first-hand insight into what separates winning teams from those that struggle to perform.
His work behind the scenes helped drive extraordinary business outcomes. Paul played a role in helping NBA teams climb from the bottom of the league in revenue to the top two. While working at the NFL league office, he helped break every premium sales revenue metric in Super Bowl history. He also helped launch a billion-dollar stadium and founded the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy, where he earned the nickname “The Why Coach” for his ability to connect people to purpose and performance.
Today, organizations across industries invite Paul Epstein to translate the mindset of championship teams into practical leadership strategies for business.
Winning Monday
Paul Epstein is widely known for his powerful keynote theme: Winning Monday.
The concept is simple yet transformative. While many people live for the weekend, high-performing teams prepare to win the week before it even begins. Winning Monday represents the discipline, clarity, and mindset required to start strong, create momentum, and sustain performance over time.
In his keynote presentations, Paul challenges audiences to rethink how they approach leadership, decision-making, and team culture. Instead of reacting to challenges, leaders learn how to play offense—setting the tone, creating alignment, and empowering teams to execute with confidence.
Audiences leave with practical frameworks they can apply immediately to strengthen accountability, build stronger cultures, and improve results.
Bestselling Author and Thought Leader
Paul is the bestselling author of The Power of Playing Offense and Better Decisions Faster, two books that explore how leaders can unlock performance through purpose, clarity, and disciplined action.
His insights on leadership and decision-making have positioned him as a respected voice in the world of business and performance. SUCCESS Magazine named him one of the top thought leaders who get results, alongside influential figures such as Tony Robbins, Brené Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Mel Robbins.
His work and ideas have also been featured across major media outlets including ESPN, NBC, Fox Business, and USA Today.
These platforms have highlighted Paul’s ability to connect elite sports principles with the challenges faced by modern organizations.
From Championship Teams to Global Organizations
After building his leadership career in professional sports, Paul expanded his work to help organizations across industries develop stronger leaders and cultures.
Today he delivers keynote presentations and leadership development programs for companies, teams, and institutions around the world.
Organizations that have trusted Paul to inspire and develop their people include:
Amazon
Disney
Johnson & Johnson
NASA
Los Angeles Lakers
Dallas Cowboys
His sessions combine powerful storytelling from professional sports with clear leadership frameworks that resonate with audiences in business, technology, healthcare, and beyond.
The result is an experience that motivates people while equipping them with tools they can apply immediately.
A Speaker Who Moves Audiences to Action
Paul Epstein is known for delivering keynote presentations that are energetic, relatable, and deeply practical. His style blends high-impact storytelling from the world of elite sports with actionable leadership insights.
Audiences appreciate the clarity of his message and the authenticity behind his story. Having worked inside high-pressure environments where results matter every day, Paul brings credibility and real-world perspective to every stage.
Event organizers often highlight how his keynotes spark conversations long after the event ends, creating momentum for leadership growth and cultural transformation.
Life Beyond the Stage
When Paul Epstein is not speaking on stages around the world, he spends time with his family. He is the proud father of PJ and Lucca and shares life with his wife, whom he married on the field of Levi’s Stadium.
Outside of work and family life, Paul is known for one small personal obsession: bacon. Just not too crispy.
This authenticity and sense of humor are part of what makes him such a relatable speaker. Audiences connect with his message because it comes from real experiences, meaningful lessons, and a genuine passion for helping others succeed.
Book Paul Epstein for Your Event
If you are looking for a keynote speaker who can energize your audience while delivering practical leadership strategies, Paul Epstein brings a rare blend of experience from elite sports and global business.
Through his powerful message around Winning Monday, he helps organizations build cultures of accountability, purpose, and performance that last far beyond the event itself.
Keynotes
Keynote by speaker Paul Epstein:
Playing Offense in Defensive Environments: How to Lead with Courage while Navigating Uncertainty
In today’s business environment, competitive threats, unrelenting change, rising customer expectations, and economic uncertainty have us all playing defense.
The result? Confidence gaps are created that drive defensive mindsets and actions in organizations across the world.
But what if you had a playbook for playing offense — proactively pursuing and achieving meaningful goals and breakthrough performance — while everyone else is sheltering in place?
This is exactly what Paul delivers in this flagship keynote inspired by 15 years of leading sales teams in the NFL and NBA and his bestselling book, The Power of Playing Offense.
Every audience member will walk away with a 5-pillar Playing Offense framework and WIN MONDAY™ playbook, curated for universal insights and actionable takeaways to implement in any industry or organization.
Actionable Outcomes:
Navigate change and uncertainty with enduring confidence
Drive peak performance in challenging market conditions
Maximize team-wide trust, connection, and alignment
Build cultures of grit and resilience to battle through storms as one team
Empower organizational decisiveness and bias to action
Audience Takeaway: 52-Week Action Plan to WIN MONDAY™
Ideal Audience:
- Leadership audiences looking to inspire positive change across their teams, culture, and organization.
- Sales teams aiming to sell with confidence, whether they’re an underdog striving to gain market share or a market leader working to maintain momentum and avoid complacency.
Keynote by Paul Epstein:
Winning Customers: Attracting and Retaining Fans for Life
How did Paul lead his teams to consistently sell out billion dollar NFL stadiums with 70,000 fans in historically losing markets? Or transform an NBA team’s revenue performance from 28th to 2nd in the league – despite being labeled by ESPN as “the worst brand in sports”?
The answer lies in a powerful, scalable belief system that can be applied to any sales or service environment: Every seat has a story.
This shift from blanket ‘catch all’ campaigns to a dynamic customer-to-customer approach driven by customization, care, and championship service, led to sold-out stadiums and record-breaking revenue, that didn’t hinge on wins or losses.
In the sports industry, every seat and fan had a story. In your case, every client has a story. The question is: “Will you get to know it?”
Achieving customer success doesn’t depend on perfect market conditions – it depends on consistently making each customer feel valued and seen.
This keynote is HOW to do it, one story at a time.
Actionable Outcomes:
Learn a playbook for transforming customers into raving fans
Discover four key traits that build trust in the short game and long game
Use a listening strategy that elevates clients, encouraging them to invest deeply in the relationship
Explore synergies between sales and service teams that unlock future growth potential
Know the exact questions to ask when it matters most, so touchpoints turn into transformation points
Audience Takeaway: 52-Week Action Plan to WIN MONDAY™
Ideal Audience:
Tailored for all customer-facing or influencing roles, including sales, sales enablement/ops, service, customer experience, and marketing/strategy. The focus will vary depending on the audience – whether it's about driving customer acquisition (sales), enhancing customer satisfaction (service/experience), or developing strategies to attract more customers (marketing/strategy)
Keynote by Paul Epstein:
Making Better Decisions Faster: Overcoming Paralysis and Inspiring Action
Even the most elite performers can rush to bad judgements, become paralyzed by indecision, or get worn down by decision fatigue.
In this keynote, Paul reveals the streamlined three-step process he used to turn around major sports franchises — from the locker room to the boardroom. Avoid decision traps, move forward with clarity and confidence, and make the best out of your MVDs: Most Valuable Decisions.
Discover the key to making fast and effective decisions for the questions that keep you up at night:
Should I choose strategy A or B?
Which candidate should I hire?
What should I spend my time on?
Do I take this deal, or call it off?
What are my goals for next year?
The secret? The Head-Heart-Hands equation: a simple and repeatable process that taps into the power of our three most basic human tools for making better decisions faster.
Actionable Outcomes:
- Flip fear and uncertainty into clarity and confidence
- Empower leaders and talent to become highly decisive, aware, and intentional in their actions
- Acquire an operating framework designed for speed, efficiency, and winning time back
- Build high-trust teams through heightened authenticity and collaboration
- Walk away with a clear playbook that defines what to prioritize and what to decline.
- Audience Takeaway: 52-Week Action Plan to WIN MONDAY™
Ideal Audience:
Leaders looking to approach key business decisions – strategy, talent, goals, planning, priorities, resources, and investments – with confidence
Keynote by Paul Epstein:
Scaling Championship Culture: Standards of Excellence to Build a Win Monday™ Organization
Culture can only scale when EVERY person in it takes full ownership, accountability, pride, and a commitment to daily excellence.
That’s the spirit of a championship culture (when done right) – and can be your ultimate competitive advantage.
This keynote is inspired by Paul’s 15 years as a culture building practitioner in the NFL and NBA – including multiple national awards for his work as Founder of the San Fracisco 49ers Talent Academy. Through extensive testing in his training and consulting practice, he has identified what unites the world’s most remarkable cultures.
The biggest needle-moving insights are revealed in this presentation, centered around a foundational battle cry to WIN MONDAY™.
This is not your average ‘top down’ approach to culture – rather, the program introduces a framework that empowers every individual to take ownership of their local culture while ensuring they feel seen, valued, and appreciated.
As a result, individuals become more engaged, perform at their best, and make meaningful contributions that resonate throughout your organization.
Actionable Outcomes:
Foster a culture of excellence and a winning mindset that resonates and scales across the entire organization.
Learn the nuances of culture building for a team of 50 vs a team of 50,000
Drive growth and collaboration across teams that are aligned and unified
Learn a framework to shift mission, vision, and values into transformational action
Build a championship environment that attracts, engages, and retains your star talent
Audience Takeaway: 52-Week Action Plan to WIN MONDAY™
Ideal Audience:
Company and association leaders, as well as HR professionals, focused on creating and growing a championship culture through a consistent standard of excellence across the entire team.
2026 Speaking Preview Video for Paul Epstein
Watch Paul Epstein in action!
