Ted Zoller

Entrepreneurship is the focus of Ted Zoller’s teaching and research.

An award-winning teacher, Dr. Zoller has helped develop entrepreneurs and the firms the ventures they initiated in his classes. His research focuses on developing high-performance entrepreneurial and investor networks and ecosystems and strategies that enhance the founding and growth performance of entrepreneurial firms.

He is a liaison for the Business School to UNC’s Innovate@Carolina initiative and the Research Triangle entrepreneurial community.

Dr. Zoller served as director of the Entrepreneurship Center at UNC Kenan-Flagler for 15 years and innovated the Learn-Launch-Lead pedagogical model which includes novel programs such as the Startup-UNC venture development program, Launch Chapel Hill Accelerator, Adams Apprenticeship and the BLUE Live-Learn Entrepreneurship Community. He received the School’s Roy W. Holsten Exceptional Service Award.

Dr. Zoller’s 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. His venture development model, the 6M Venture Circuit© has been standardized across UNC Kenan-Flagler’s venture creation programs and used as a basis of accelerator programs internationally.

He specializes in private equity and venture capital deal-making syndication and networks, and has collaborated with the Blackstone Foundation to implement them networks nationally through the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network.

Dr. Zoller is the founder of CommonWeal, a global business intelligence advisory firm, and founder and chairman of the board of AMBit, which facilitates public use of private lands.

He is senior fellow at the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils, a senior consultant to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and on the executive committee of the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers. He served as president and senior VP for finance of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which recognized him as a Justin T. Longnecker Fellow. He received the Legacy Award from the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers and the Entrepreneurship and the Outstanding Contributions to Advancing Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award from the Deshpande Foundation.

He received his PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill, his master’s degrees from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and the University of Virginia, and a dual bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary.

Areas of Expertise

• entrepreneurship
• family business
• global business
• intellectual property
• technology - venturing
• venture capital
• social entrepreneurship
• small business