Dave Rendall, former vice president of strategic planning at Nortel and founder of Rendall and Associates, will be the first speaker this fall in the C. Ashton Newhall Lecture Series sponsored by the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Rendall’s talk, “The Accidental Entrepreneur: Transition from Corporate to Entrepreneurship,” takes place at 4 p.m. on Sept. 28 inside the LaRose Digital Theatre of the Koury Business Center.
Rendall started his career with Northern Telecom in Canada, where he held positions in engineering and marketing. He was one of the company’s initial executives in North Carolina. While at Nortel, Rendell served as vice president of systems engineering, vice president of product planning and vice president of strategic planning.
Rendall left Nortel in 1985 to open Rendall and Associates, a boutique consultancy working with telecom service providers and suppliers on strategy. He has worked with venture capitalists, new ventures, corporate executives and senior government officials worldwide. Rendall and Associates were well known as a catalyst for launching new businesses within the public telecom sector. They were known for their ability to forecast emerging areas of opportunity for clients in the telecommunications industry.
Gartner Consulting acquired the consulting company in 1999, and Rendall became group vice president and director of research for the firm. Rendall has a master’s of science in electrical engineering from the University of Pune, India.