Ted Zoller is T.W. Lewis Distinguished Clinical Scholar and Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Director of The Entrepreneurship Center at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Dr. Zoller also serves as senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation engaged in core strategies of the foundation in the area of entrepreneurship, where he previously served as Vice President.  Dr. Zoller is an active practicing entrepreneur.

 

Dr. Zoller’s research focuses on developing high-performance entrepreneurial ecosystems and entrepreneurial firm performance and private equity and venture capital dealmaking networks, and he collaborates actively with the Blackstone Foundation to implement these networks nationally through the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network which has research sites in both Research Triangle, North Carolina and Boulder, Colorado.  Dr. Zoller has been awarded Kenan-Flagler’s teaching award twice and recently received its highest honor, the Roy W. Holsten Award for service to the School.  He is innovator behind the Learn-Launch-Lead pedagogical model which includes novel programs such as the Startup-UNC venture development curricula, the Launch Chapel Hill Accelerator, the Adams Apprenticeship and the BLUE Live-Learn Entrepreneurship Community.   His longitudinal research project on entrepreneurial leadership – the Entrepreneur’s Genome – is the foundation for his Entrepreneur’s Lab course and the On the Heels of Innovation podcast.

 

Dr. Zoller is also Past President and previously served as Senior Vice-President for Finance of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (www.USASBE.org), the largest American association of academics and practitioners dedicated exclusively to entrepreneurship. His tenure at USASBE led to the organization establishing fiscal sustainability, and pursue new strategic funding to support its operations.  Dr. Zoller is founder of CommonWeal, a global business intelligence advisory firm; founder and Chairman of the Board of ROMR, a venture that facilitates public use of private lands; is an active angel investor; and serves on the boards of numerous entrepreneurial ventures and on the executive committees of the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers and the Council of Entrepreneurial Development.

 

Dr. Zoller has taught entrepreneurship courses in the MBA, BSBA, MBA for Executives, MBA@UNC, and UNC-Tsinghua programs at UNC Kenan-Flagler since 1998; oversees the Center's teaching and outreach programs; and is the primary liaison for the business school to UNC’s university-wide Innovate@Carolina initiative and to partners in the Research Triangle Park entrepreneurial community.  He holds a PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill, master’s degrees from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and the University of Virginia focusing on entrepreneurship and economic development, and a dual bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary. ​