JJ Rendón

Early life and education

Rendón was born in 1964 in Caracas, Venezuela at the Military Hospital in the parish of San Juan. His parents were local organizers for Acción Democrática (Democratic Action), a political party that promoted democracy and helped end the reign of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958.

Later, Rendón studied psychology at universities in Venezuela, Andrés Bello Catholic University and Central University of Venezuela, and Italy before starting his career at an advertising agency in his early 20s. He obtained a postgraduate degree in Ontopsychology in Associazione Internazionale, the Italian university founded by Antonio Meneghetti, as well as specializations in Psychology of Mass Communication, Strategic Planning, and Publicity and Marketing Management.

Entry into politics

At the age of 24, Rendón volunteered for Carlos Andrés Pérez's second presidential run, where he initially worked as a driver before assisting American political consultant Joseph Napolitan, encouraging young people to vote.

Rendón founded an advertising company, Chiripa Publicidad, in Caracas, Venezuela. Some of his first clients was the former Venezuelan president Rafael Caldera (1969-1974), who was elected president for his second term in a narrow victory in 1993, minister of Defence Italo del Valle Alliegro and Secretary-General Enrique Ochoa Antich.

1989-1993

Starting as the driver of the pioneering campaign consultant Joseph Napolitan at a young age, soon after Rendon served as his assistant in the political campaign for the second presidential run of Carlos Andres Perez.

Rendón founded an advertising company, Chiripa Publicidad, in Caracas, Venezuela. One of his first clients was the former Venezuelan president Rafael Caldera (1969-1974), who was elected president for his second term in a narrow victory in 1993.

Consulting for political parties

In the early 2000s, Rendón worked with organizations including the dominant Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Party of the U.

2004 Hipólito Mejía presidential campaign

Rendón advised the candidate of PRD Dominican Revolutionary party, Hipólito Mejía, during his successful presidential campaign in 2004.

Senior Advisor of Colombian Ministry of National Defence

When Juan Manuel Santos was named Minister of Defence during the presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez in Colombia in 2006, JJ Rendón became the strategist of the Ministry of National Defence of Colombia, as he also was the lead strategist of Social Party of National Unity (Party of the U). One of his roles was helping high rank military officers to learn how to use communication as a tool. During this time, there were notable military operations to rescue hostages who had been held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) included Operation Jaque (Operación Jaque) that resulted in the rescue of 15 hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Also, there was a military raid that killed FARC leader Raúl Reyes on March 2008. Another operation called "Operation Emmanuel" took place on 2007, it "was a humanitarian operation that rescued politician Clara Rojas, her son Emmanuel (born in captivity), and the former politician Consuelo González from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)" (REF. quote Operation Emmanuel). Hugo Chávez Frías, who was at the time the former president of Venezuela and the FARC insisted they would liberate Emmanuel with the rest of the hostages.

2008

JJ Rendón was accused through various social media platforms, which supported the Venezuelan government, of having JJ being behind the "historic fantasy" of the rescue of the child Emmanuel by the Colombian government (former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez), and that the child was living in Bogotá, this ends up being true. Soon after, it was proved that the child was in effect Emmanuel the DNA testing backed it up. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro questioned the results of the DNA testing, stating that Colombia did not allow Venezuelan specialist to conduct their own tests and had created a "cloak of doubt". But on January 2008, FARC rebels released a communiqué in which they admitted that Emmanuel "is the same three-year-old living in foster care in Bogotá, Colombia, who was due to be part of hostage deal."

Juan Manuel Santos presidential campaign

Rendón, the lead strategist of Juan Manuel Santos presidential campaign in Colombia, helped turn a close presidential race in Colombia into a landslide victory for Juan Manuel Santos against Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus.

Porfirio Lobo Sosa presidential campaign

Honduran politician and agricultural landowner Porfirio Lobo Sosa, known as Pepe Lobo, was elected president of Honduras in 2010. Rendón also advised Honduran politician Juan Orlando Hernández during his successful presidential campaign in 2012.

2012 Enrique Peña Nieto presidential campaign

In 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto was elected 57th President of Mexico.

Juan Manuel Santos re-election campaign

Rendón joined Juan Manuel Santos for his re-election campaign in Colombia. An allegation was made in May 2014 by alleged leader of a Colombian drug cartel called Los Rastrojos, Javier Antonio Calle Serna, in which he accused Rendón of agreeing to broker $12 million for several Colombian drug lords to surrender in exchange for not being extradited to the United States. Rendón denies receiving the money, but stepped down as campaign chief in its final stretch. Upon investigation, the allegations were not consistent with the evidence and could not be proven, prosecutors dismissed the case and concluded that Rendón had not been involved. Santos beat his opponent by six percent in a run-off election in June 2014, securing his second four-year term as Colombia's president.

Henrique Capriles Radonski presidential campaign

Rendón was the main strategist for the Venezuelan opposition Henrique Capriles Radonski. Official results gave Maduro—who had assumed the role of acting president since Chávez's death—a narrow victory over Capriles. Capriles claimed electoral fraud had taken place on April 14, 2013, in the Venezuelan special election where Nicolás Maduro was elected president. Capriles, leader of the Venezuelan opposition, provided evidence of the alleged fraud and refused "to accept the vote-tally unless the electoral authority agrees to open all the ballort boxes and count the paper ballots" –Capriles said (Maduro´s pyrrhic victory, published in The Economist).

Relationship with the media

Rendón had over a million followers on Twitter and is one of the most followed political strategists on social media.

He became especially well known in 2013 through media outlets such as CNN and interviews with journalists including Jorge Ramos, Maria Elvira Salazar, Fernando del Rincón, and Jaime Bayly. He came back on the show to talk about the special elections being held in Venezuela to replace Hugo Chavez after his death in March of that year. In a January 2016 interview with Jaime Bayly, Rendón claimed he had been a victim of political persecution and the subject of more than 140 attacks by the Venezuelan government.

Political Activist

Rendón gained international attention for his role as activist against what he considers neo-totalitarian regimes. He is a self-declared enemy of Socialism of 21st century and supports presidential and governor candidates running in opposition to their policies.

His position with regards to these governments, specially the Venezuelan, has caused strong reactions by Socialism of 21st century, Chavez and communist supporters. On many occasions, Rendón has faced strong opposition from Venezuelan senior officials government, including president Nicolás Maduro, who was the first to declare J.J. Rendón "the number one public enemy of the Venezuelan state" in July 2012.

The lead strategist of the Venezuelan government, Jorge Rodríguez, has heavily insinuated that J.J. Rendón is the main strategist of the Venezuelan opposition, calling him "psychopath" on government-funded media outlets, including the public channel VTV (Venezuelan Television Corporation) and TeleSUR, which is a pan-Latin American television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela.

Since 2004, Rendón has denounced that Venezuelan government has committed fraud in the electoral elections. On December 6, 2015, after lost 19 elections in 15 years, the Venezuelan government recognized the Venezuelan opposition has won 112 posts in the National Assembly. However, president Nicolás Maduro and Jorge Rodríguez, the lead strategist of the Venezuelan government, assured on national television network the Democratic Unity coalition (Venezuelan opposition party, MUD) was won it because the "economic war and psychological war", which they had said it has been led by J.J. Rendón, and other opponents. On his daily show, the journalist Jaime Bayly congratulated Venezuelan opposition, Henrique Capriles Radonski and Rendón for the victory.

In 2013, the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro considered Rendón a "stateless" person after accused him to be tied to an audio recording "widely circulated on social media purports to be the late Venezuelan leader saying he's still alive" (CNN). The Venezuelan government denied him the fundamental human right to a nationality, Rendón born in Venezuela, but he can´t obtain a Venezuelan passport. He has claimed to be subjected to several other human rights violations and political persecution.

After three years of paperwork, he obtained the protection of the U.S. government. In May 2016, Rendón received political asylum from the government of United States.

The Power of One

Rendón started The Power of One seminar series in 2013. It features practical strategies for political activists who wish to oppose "neo-totalitarian regimes" otherwise called "The New Face of Dictatorship" by Rendón. Rendón has presented the seminar for free in over 30 cities throughout Latin America and at the TEDx conferences in Washington D.C, and in New York City for the United Nations.

In September 16, 2016, Rendón was invited to present "The Power of One" in Downtown Harvard Club of Boston and received a Doctor Honoris Causa from Cambridge University.

Allegations

Rendón was faced with strong opposition from various Chavez-funded media outlets, centering on his work ethic and strategy tactics. In 2013, leaders of the Venezuelan government among various other openly Chavez-supporting journalists joined former host of the Venezuelan talk show La Hojilla, Mario Silva, in an attempt to bring Rendón's political reputation down on national television with a video discrediting him that was transmitted daily on the Venezuelan state channel Venezolana de Televisión. The video accused Rendón of fabrication and accusing him of directing a "dirty war" with "psychological strategies and rumors".

Allegations were brought forward in November 2013 by Venezuelan prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz who requested Interpol detain Rendón under charges of assault. Rendón denied these claims and asserted that Venezuela could not legally ask for his arrest without a warrant being present. Despite the allegations, no such warrant was placed on Interpol's wanted persons list, and the claims were dismissed.

In March 2016, Andrés Sepúlveda, who was serving 10 years in prison for charges including use of malicious software, conspiracy to commit crime, violation of personal data, and espionage, during Colombia's 2014 presidential election, said that most of his work in the past eight years had been on the payroll of Rendón. Sepúlveda provided Bloomberg Businessweek with what he said were e-mails showing conversations between him, Rendón, and Rendón's consulting firm concerning hacking and the progress of campaign-related cyber attacks. Rendón denied using Sepúlveda for anything illegal, and categorically disputed Sepúlveda's account of their relationship.

Achievements

J.J. Rendón was given the flag of the United States of America, after it was raised in his honor by the United States Congress in recognition of his twenty-five years of work as a political consultant.

In 2015, JJ Rendón received the Humanitarian Award for Innovation from the Humanitarian Innovation Forum (HIF) at the United Nations headquarters in New York.^[14]

In 2014, Rendón was nominated as Political Consultant of the Year by Victory Awards.

Rendón was ranked as one of the top five most prominent Latin American consultants by Campaigns & Elections in 2012.

In 2011, he received the Order of Merit award by Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa.^[13]