Entrepreneurial thinking and innovation will be critical strategic advantages to the American economy as the global economy increases competitive issues across industries. More and more companies and organizations are looking to hire students with this thought process.
Developing students from all disciplines as entrepreneurial thinking men and women is the core pedagogy of the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. A high level of integration of the entrepreneurial community, experiential and engaged learning, and personal growth and development are cornerstones of the center. In line with this philosophy, the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership is launching an entrepreneurship mentor network accessible to Elon students from all areas of study across our campus.
All Elon students will have the opportunity to meet with entrepreneurs, business people, lawyers, CFO’s, etc. to discuss their projects, studies and in how the entrepreneurial thought process can add value as well as giving our students a head start in building their professional network.
Our upcoming mentors:
David Rendall
Rendall is a former Nortel Networks executive and telecommunication industry analyst. He was one of the company’s initial executives in North Carolina. While at Nortel, Rendall 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. Gartner Consulting acquired the consulting company in 1999, and Rendall became group vice president and director of research for the firm.
David P. Carberry
Carberry is vice president of finance and CFO of Aldagen Inc., which he joined in March 2008. Since his arrival at Aldagen, Carberry has led the planning process and was intimately involved in drafting the S-1 in preparation for an IPO. With the collapse of the financial markets, he is leading efforts to raise another round of funding or to consummate a merger or acquisition deal.
Prior to joining Aldagen, Carberry spent 27 years with various divisions of Johnson & Johnson. Among the positions held, Carberry was vice president of finance for the J&J*Merck Joint Venture, vice president of finance for J&J Healthcare Systems, and vice president of finance for Independence Technology. He was a member of the Management Boards of all three of those companies. At Healthcare Systems, Carberry had responsibility for the Health & Fitness business and led the acquisition and divestiture process, managing six major transactions from 1997 to 2005.
Prior to these CFO roles, Carberry was group controller, Asia Pacific/Africa, Middle East for the Consumer Companies. In 1990, he was appointed Controller-Financial Operations at J&J Corporate where he drove the start-up of the Payroll and Accounts Payable Shared Service Company in the United States and the Common Financial Systems initiative. He supported the Operations Group worldwide and conducted seminars on Activity Based Management and performance measurement. Carberry joined J&J in 1981 at McNeil Pharmaceutical and advanced to various Financial Controller positions, rising to Group Controller of Operations and Business Development.
Jane Foreman
Foreman delights in delivering, measuring and improving on results for her clients. With more than 25 years of experience launching products and services in the consumer packaged goods, information technology, and e-commerce sectors, she has consistently delivered profitable results. Foreman has been a key figure in leading ventures that delivered significant results to their customers as well as investors. She is highly regarded for her marketing and branding advice and her passion for mentoring growing companies and entrepreneurs.
Foreman began her marketing career with Fortune 500 brand leader Sara Lee, where she managed new product launches in two direct marketing divisions. She then went on to launch new programs in a variety of successful new ventures including Art.com, Avesair, Accipiter, Engage and Intersolv. Her most recent experience was as director of marketing with the pioneering Web services venture, StrikeIron, recently named Cool Technology Vendor by Gartner Group and one of the top technologies to watch for 2008.
She has been a key executive on several new venture management teams. Foreman was a founding member of Avesair, where she developed the business plan that secured $16 million in funding from Nokia and New Things Ventures. Avesair was sold to Inphonic in 2004. She was also on the founding team of Accipiter, and spearheaded the marketing efforts which led to their becoming the leading online ad management system used by industry powerhouses like MSN and CNET. Accipiter was sold to CMGI in a deal that yielded investors a return of $500MM. At Engage, Foreman served as vice president of marketing for their Enabling Technologies group and contributed to their successful exit – an IPO in July 1999. Prior to Engage, Foreman managed marketing programs at Intersolv, where she directed the advertising, direct mail, collateral, and co-op channel programs yielding strong results – product revenues grew at an annual rate of 100% during her tenure.
Foreman holds a bachelor of science degree from St. Lawrence University and an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. She is a board member of the Triangle Community Foundation Entrepreneurs Partnership, Superintendent of Church School at White Memorial Presbyterian Church and devotes her extracurricular efforts toward serving her community.
Ron Wages
Wages is currently an equity partner and consultant with The Networks Group. He started his career with Texas Instruments after completing his BS in Electrical Engineering. At Texas Instruments he was the Digital Signal Processing Marketing Manager with Worldwide responsibility for Marketing Programs. During his tenure at TI he received his MBA from the University of Houston Executive MBA program. Wages then served as vice president of marketing at Spectrum Signal Processing in Vancouver, British Columbia. From there he served as vice president of business development for Virata Corp. Before he founded the Networks Group, Wages was president and general manager of Memscap Inc. He has experience in working with companies as small as 15 people to as large as 50,000 people.
Yonnie Butler
Yonnie Butler manages investments for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center through its various loan-based programs to support life science companies through inception, research and growth stages. In the role, Butler works closely with these companies to provide mentoring related to his expertise in entrepreneurship, business, operations, marketing and development. Butler has more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, contract research and consulting industries.
In his most recent role, Butler was business development executive and managing consultant in charge of several large North American pharmaceutical accounts for Tunnell Consulting headquartered in the Philadelphia area. He has also worked for Roche, LabCorp, Magellan Laboratories, Cardinal Health and PharmaDirections.
Butler received his undergraduate degree in biology from East Carolina University and holds an MBA from Elon University. He has served as a business plan reviewer for Duke University and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, has mentored MBA students from Duke University, Wake Forest University and North Carolina State University, lectured at the East Carolina University School of Business, and assisted several academic programs that foster entrepreneurship.
In addition, he has served as an adjunct instructor for several community colleges in North Carolina and provided training to several companies through the NC BioNetwork initiative. Butler routinely speaks on the subject of entrepreneurship at universities and conferences, and he has had several articles published related to the topics of outsourcing, project management, experiential learning and business development.
To schedule a meeting with a mentor, contact Kami Drake at kdrake3@elon.edu.