WAYMAKER – Dale Kutnick -Built Yankee’s Research Engine, Gartner’s Research Engine And Founder of META Group (Acquired by Gartner)

Dale Kutnick is a technology-industry pioneer who helped shape the technology research and advisory industry from its earliest years.

He began his career at Yankee Group, becoming an influential voice as the technology market itself was taking shape. More important than his voice was his deep understanding of how to conduct the research—and how to package real-time insight into new, revolutionary delivery formats that put critical technology intelligence directly into the hands of decision-makers around the world.

He later joined Gartner Group, serving as head of research under founder Gideon Gartner. There, Dale helped build the research engine and advisory model that would fundamentally change how technology was studied, understood, and communicated to corporate leaders.

Kutnick subsequently founded META Group, serving as Chairman and CEO. META became a global technology research and advisory firm serving senior executives and enterprise technology leaders around the world.

In 1998, Lori Davis joined META, working with Dale and the board on emerging markets, industries, and changes occurring across traditional technology boundaries.

In 2005, Gartner acquired META Group, bringing the company—and Dale—back into the Gartner organization.

Today, Gartner is a $6.5 billion global enterprise with more than 20,000 employees and clients across approximately 90 countries and territories. It has become one of the world’s most influential voices on where technology is going and what its impact will be across virtually every industry.

The enormous technology research and advisory industry that exists today is not entirely—but in significant measure—built upon the research model Dale Kutnick helped create. Dale built the research engine that helped become an industry: a way of continuously studying technology as it emerged, understanding what it meant, and putting those insights into the hands of the leaders making decisions about what came next.

Yankee Group → Gartner, Head of Research → META Group, Founder/Chairman/CEO → Gartner

That last paragraph is where your firsthand account of Dale belongs. I would not dilute it into generic “industry pioneer” language; the whole reason he’s a WayMaker on your site is that you’re explaining what you personally watched him build.