Ivan Rapin-Smith
Managing Director at Watsco Ventures
Ivan Rapin-Smith
Managing Director at Watsco Ventures
Miami, Florida
Overview
Work Experience
Managing Director
2014 - Current
Watsco Ventures’ mission is to invest in new technologies and business models that will generate exponential growth for Watsco Inc. Watsco is the largest distributor of air conditioning, heating and refrigeration equipment and related parts and supplies in the HVAC/R distribution industry, currently operating more than 560 locations in 37 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico with additional market coverage on an export basis to Latin America and the Caribbean. Watsco is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange with a market cap of approximately $11 Billion.
Managing Director
2012 - 2014
In 2012, under the leadership of Dr. Susan Amat, Venture Hive spun out of the University of Miami as a 12-week, full time, in-person startup accelerator program for Miami-based entrepreneurs. The initiative was a partnership between Miami’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA), the Office of the Mayor of Miami-Dade and the University of Miami. As the inaugural managing director, I co-developed the program, ran the application process, selected the first two cohorts, conducted training and mentoring sessions and ran day-to-day operations.
Co-creator and Mentor
2012 - 2014
NEST'up was the first TechStars-style startup accelerator in Belgium. I co-created the program, selected the first class of 6 companies and was one of the lead mentors and workshop facilitators.
Co-founder and Managing Partner
2011 - 2013
I co-founded Idealy to support Belgian entrepreneurs by providing accessible expertise, connections and financing. The company focused on very early stage initiatives, taking newly formed ideas through the process of business model validation and the initial development and marketing of products and services.
Managing Director
2004 - 2012
Established a consulting business to focus on projects at the intersection of business and technology.
Co-Founder
2007 - 2012
I was a co-founder of Whatever Co, a company specialized in enterprise Knowledge Management that created the SaaS product "Knowledge Plaza". I am currently a non-operating shareholder. The company is now called Elium.
Management Consultant
2000 - 2004
I joined EPi (European Performance institute) as a management consultant for performance improvement projects. My role was to help clients identify and quantify potential operational efficiency gains and implement improvement plans to achieve measurable operational improvements in terms of increased sales or reduced costs. During my years at EPi I worked on performance improvement projects in Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Germany and The UK for the following clients: Asco (Brussels, B), CBR (Liège, B), Coca-Cola Belgium, Connex (London, UK), De Ruyter Seeds (Rotterdam, NL), DKV (Brussels, B), DSM (Venlo, NL), Ematech (Utrecht, NL), GWA (Amsterdam, NL), Hopitaux Saint-Joseph (Liège, B), Michelin (Roanne & La-Roche-Sur-Lyon, FR), NMBS (Brussels, B), PCM (Amsterdam, NL), Solvay (Brussels, B), Swets (Lisse, NL), TNT (Liège, B), Veolia (Paris, FR).
Co-founder
1999 - 2000
Web-Diggers was the first Internet startup I was involved in as a co-founder. Our tagline was "not just another search engine but search engineers". Our added value was to combine advanced Internet search techniques with human domain expertise to provide our clients with the most relevant search results using both public and private online databases.
Management Consultant
1995 - 1997
After graduating with a Masters in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in Electromechanical Engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven, I was recruited as a management consultant/trainer/coach. I was groomed to facilitate sales and management training and on-the-job individual coaching for companies like Coca-Cola, Interlabor and Chefaro Pharmaceuticals.