Michael A. Dennis – Chairman, President & Majority Owner
Michael A. Dennis, Chairman, President & Majority Owner of General Sports Venue, is a talented and experienced executive who not only serves as an officer of General Sports Venue, but also as the company’s largest shareholder. Michael has played a very active role in management of the company since it was launched in 2003. He was one of the founding members of the company, and in 2006 he increased his ownership to a majority stake. He also joined the Board of Managers for General Sports Venue, and was named as Chairman and President.
In addition to Michael’s role with General Sports Venue, he also serves as the Chief Operating Officer for JNET Communications, LLC. JNET is minority-owned business that provides services across the telecommunications industry. The company owns two subsidiaries, ServiCom Communications, LLC. and VITEL communications, LLC. ServiCom is an outsourced call center services business. The company handles both inbound and outbound calls for Fortune 500 companies. ServiCom has more than 700 agents and is aggressively expanding their operation. VITEL is a cable installation and construction services business. The company serves as an authorized vendor for COMCAST, Time Warner, and Cox Cable. VITEL has more than 600 trucks on the road and operates in 8 states across the country.
Prior to joining JNET, Michael was the Group Vice President for the Worldwide Services organization at Avaya. As one of Senior Officers of Avaya, Michael was responsible for a $3B business that included customer service, product manufacturing, and business quality/re-engineering initiatives. The scope of his organization included all service functions outside of the US, the technical service centers, all installation and project management functions, the professional services organization, all outsourcing and management services, and the Avaya Data Services business.
Michael joined AT&T General Departments in June of 1981 as a staff assistant in the Data Center Operations organization. At AT&T, Michael held a variety of positions in programming, project management, staff, operations and marketing, as well as several direct sales assignments. In 1993, he was named the General Manager of Business Communications Sales and Services Division and was responsible for all sales and provisioning activities for the state of Michigan. During is assignment in Michigan, Michael and his team tripled their revenue and gross profit over the course of 2 years. He was selected to Leaders Council in 1995 as the top General Manager in country.
Michael was promoted to Sales Vice President for Lucent Technologies in 1996. He and his team exceeded their revenue and profit plan in just 9 months. Michael was asked to take over the 15,000 person Field Services organization in December of 1996. In September 2000, he became the Group Vice President for Services, which included global provisioning, quality and training, business re-engineering, value-added services, manufacturing, and professional services.
Michael earned his degree in Government from Dartmouth College and he has completed two Executive Programs – Darden School of Business – University of Virginia and the Hass Business School – University of California at Berkeley. Michael was featured in the New York Times in article regarding Workforce management innovation and was also profiled in the Sunday Times Boss’ column. In the February 2000 issue of Black Enterprise magazine, he was recognized as one of the Top 50 African- American leaders in Corporate America.
Michael served as the chairperson for INROADS, Central New Jersey from 2003 to 2005. He also served on the board of Payroll Online (Seattle, WA). The company was recently sold to the Key Bank.
