[2][3] Rendón has been credited for the successful presidential campaigns of Juan Manuel Santos (first elected in 2010 and reelected in 2014), Porfirio Lobo Sosa (2010), and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012).

In 2016, ABC Internacional, a newspaper of record based in Madrid, named him one of "The 10 Most Important Political Consultants in the World" along with James Carville, Karl Rove, and Mary Matalin.

[5] Rendón was appointed in 2019 by contested Venezuelan acting president Juan Guaidó to lead the Strategy Committee to search new options to overthrow Nicolás Maduro,[6] until his resignation on 11 May 2020.

His mother, Zoraida Delgado, was one of the first militants of her parish registered in the Acción Democrática party, which promoted and helped end the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958.

At the age of 24, Rendón volunteered for Carlos Andrés Pérez's second presidential run, where he met and assisted the American political consultant Joseph Napolitan.

[15] In 1998, he was the strategist of the senatorial campaign of former president Carlos Andrés Pérez who, facing a trial for embezzlement, became the first candidate to win while in prison.

That same year, 2005, he was in charge of developing the launching campaign of the National Unity Party, the Partido de la U, which emerged as a movement to support the reelection of Álvaro Uribe in 2006.

[19] When Juan Manuel Santos was appointed Minister of Defense in Colombia during the presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez in 2006, J.J. Rendón became the ministry's chief strategist.

However, in January 2008, FARC rebels released a communiqué in which they admitted that Emmanuel "is the same three-year-old who was living in foster care in Bogotá, Colombia, who was due to be part of hostage deal.

That same year, with his audiovisual production company Get Real Films, Rendón produced and directed the documentary Here Comes The Wolf, in which he denounces the responsibility of the World Health Organization (WHO), governments, and the media in the handling of public information related to the events that led to the worldwide alarm.

[33][34][35] In May 2014, Javier Antonio Calle Sernaby, leader of the Colombian drug cartel Los Rastrojos, alleged that he paid Rendón $12 million to help him negotiate favourable terms of surrender and avoid extradition to the US.

[47] Rendon became well known in 2013 through media outlets such as CNN[48] and interviews with journalists including Jorge Ramos,[49] Maria Elvira Salazar,[50] Fernando del Rincón, and Jaime Bayly.

[51] He made an appearance on CNN to talk about the special elections being held in Venezuela to replace Hugo Chávez after his death in March 2013.

On his daily show, Jaime Bayly congratulated Venezuelan opposition figures Henrique Capriles Radonski and Rendón for the victory.

[63][64] In 2013, then-Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro declared that Rendón was a "stateless" person after accusing him of being linked to an audio recording "widely circulated on social media purporting to be the late Venezuelan leader saying that he's still alive".

It features practical strategies for political activists who wish to oppose neo-totalitarian regimes known as "The New Face of Dictatorship" as he named it during a TEDxMidAtlantic talk in 2014.

[78] Allegations were brought forward in November 2013 by Venezuelan prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz who requested Interpol detain Rendón and extradite him to Venezuela under charges of assault.

[83] In 2014, President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador accused Rendón of conducting dirty war campaigns throughout Latin America.

[84] Rendón filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg Businessweek and the journalists who signed the report, both in the United States and in Colombia, because of the story they ran.

In August 2019, Juan Guaidó tasked Rendón with a "Strategic Committee" to investigate scenarios for achieving the removal of Maduro from office.

[6][87] Members of the Strategic Committee argued that the Venezuelan Constitution, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and other treaties justified action against Maduro.