New Venture Miami tech leader talks boosting talent growth, diversity, crypto
In February 2021, amid surging interest in the Miami tech movement, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez created Venture Miami to help the city stay on top of developments.
The group has functioned as an advisory team comprised of innovation leaders in the community, including Saif Ishoof, vice president for engagement at Florida International University, Krillion Ventures Managing Partner Melissa Krinzman, former Downtown Development Authority Senior Manager Kevin Ruiz and members of Suarez’s staff.
The Venture Miami team’s goals include supporting homegrown and newly arriving company funders and founders, and expanding opportunity within the Miami ecosystem.
As the city enters the second year of capitalizing on the Miami tech movement, Suarez is doubling down on Venture Miami. Earlier this month, the mayor hired Erick Gavin, 29, as the full-time executive director. Gavin is a longtime player in Miami’s technology industry. After graduating from University of Miami Law School, he took his tech background and joined Miami software group Lavu Inc. as a product designer. Later, he joined the Center for Black Innovation — the Overtown-based innovation group — as senior program manager.
I caught up with Gavin on Friday for a conversation as he finished his first week on the job. His comments are edited for clarity and brevity.
What is your job description as executive director of Venture Miami?
I am helping to lead and implement what the mayor has laid out for growing our tech and innovation ecosystem, as well as closing gaps that exist in terms of the talent we’re trying to develop, among new and existing firms.
What does your daily regimen look like?
It’s building up partnerships that either previously existed, or looking into new opportunities for collaborating, or seeking out opportunities between two startups, or a startup and a fund, or a school and a startup, or a company looking to get larger investments that doesn’t know where to go.
All that’s to say, there’s been a lot of economic development in terms of companies coming down here and growing, getting a lot of attention. We just put up $4.5 billion in venture funding, but from that we want to do things that affect the community as well. We’ll look at opportunities that exist and expand them. We’re aiming for 200% growth in venture funding this year, which is ambitious, but we also continue community development.
How are you approaching diversity and inclusion in the tech arena?
It can’t be treated as a whole thing that’s apart from the natural development of the ecosystem. The goal is not to just say funds are not focusing enough on black founders, but rather are we getting black founders into the pipeline at a good rate.
And then also not simply say progress exists simply because our community already has diversity numbers.
Can you give an example of how your approach to improving diversity works in practice?
We’re creating partnerships, collaborating with organizations and companies looking to diversify their organizations. More importantly, we’re trying to better connect communities to the technologies that companies are deploying. So if you’re a company looking to hire more diverse candidates, we want to encourage them to put money and dollars into putting their technologies in diverse communities. If you’re a crypto company, don’t solely put money into hiring employees to come on board, rather build a pipeline that can be more long lasting, as opposed to simply setting a quota.
What can that crypto company do to bring its technology down to the community with individuals who could potentially work there in the future? We’re not talking kindergarten to eighth
grade, but middle school and high school are only a few steps from hiring age. It’s a longer-term play, and we’re going to want shorter-term gains, too, but that’s the goal.
Lots of tech businesses are hungry for talent. How is Venture Miami approaching that challenge?
We want to see people landing these tech jobs. We had high-tech job growth last year, and had a really successful job fair. Now it’s expanding to what are they doing before the fair and partnering with people so that they’re not only going to the fair, but are they aware of what jobs they could have. And then, what skills could they have.
There were 500 participants at the fair and we’re still counting how many of them received jobs. Moving from that point how do we double or triple the number going to future fairs and making sure we’re creating tangible change to their lives.
What are some concrete goals you’ll be working on your first year?
MiamiCoin, and how we’re dealing with cryptocurrency as an organization, as the city of Miami. I can’t say specifically what we’re going to do in that regard. But we want to bring utility and operationalize aspects of MiamiCoin where there’s a social benefit.
And then expanding opportunity. The tech and innovation ecosystem is not the entire community, so as we grow that ecosystem the community has to grow in lockstep. How are we best serving constituents that do live in the city of Miami? It’s not always going to be clear how each new company is going to benefit the city. So the macro goal is for all advances and improvements we make as a tech ecosystem — that they’re more democratized and shared. If we’re really going to be the capital of capital and a Miami for all, it’s necessary that the benefits at the highest levels are democratized and shared for all Miami citizens.
That’s a tall order that we’re being asked to approach, when we’re talking about a Miami for all, but that’s what we want in the forefront. Does this serve more and more people? And some people are going to come in and they’re not going to serve everyone. In the aggregate the entire ecosystem should, as opposed to a select few. That’s what we’ll continue to preach, keep hammering home, keep talking to every new resident and reassure citizens here that it’s possible. Can’t control every single aspect of what Miamians are feeling. However, we want to be sure the economic benefits are not just trickling down, but that opportunities are grown for people.
Rob Wile: 305-376-3203, @rjwile