Menu
Our vision is to make Miami the
with an innovative technology ecosystem and economy that delivers for everyone.
Providing Concierge Support for Founders & Funders.
Connect Talent to Jobs.
Support Integration and Collaboration with Miami’s Tech Community.
Support Regional Collaboration with Stakeholders.
Erick Gavin is an Ecosystem Builder and Strategist. While attending law school at the University of Miami he set his sights on something different, technology. His experience and connections in the legal community afforded him the opportunity to make a meaningful pivot into the technology space with a new lens. He spent the next few years working in Product Design and doing Data Analysis merging the two into a specialization in Data Visualization. As such, he began teaching about leveraging data for social impact to students at Watson Institute and Design Thinking through the University of Miami.
He now focuses on leveraging Data and Design to solve complex problems, create impactful technology, and serve communities who have been historically left out of the innovation and technology space. He remains aligned with these goals through investments in purpose aligned education, access to growth opportunities, and a commitment to collaboration towards audacious community goals.
Kevin Ruiz is the Senior Advisor for Business Development and Recruitment, and a founding member of the Venture Miami team. He works with new to market and existing founders and funders as their primary touchpoint; covering quality of life considerations, research and data, talent recruitment, connections to key stakeholders, exposure opportunities, and more.
In his role, Kevin has met with thousands of founders, funders, educators, and various technology focused associations. To date, his team has directly recruited and assisted over 150 companies tied to 12,000+ projected jobs to the City of Miami. He is also the author of the incentive programs for the Miami Downtown Development Authority, City of Miami, and co-author of Miami Beach’s and Miami-Dade County’s newest iterations, all of which place an emphasis on Human Capital.
Kevin received a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of Florida and Master of Business Administration from the University of Miami. He is a third generation native who loves all things Miami; it’s history, culture, community, food, and sports. Most importantly, he firmly believes in a “Miami Forever” and “Miami For Everyone” and uses this daily as a guiding principal.
Niki Demko is an Advisor of Business Development and Recruitment to Mayor Suarez’s Venture Miami team. Niki provides concierge style support to founders and funders, helps connects talent to jobs, and supports the integration and collaboration of Miami’s tech community.
In her previous role at the Miami Downtown Development Authority, she took a holistic approach to building the City of Miami’s economy through business attraction, business retention, and small business support. She was passionate about building Miami’s tech and innovation ecosystem and actively recruited high-growth companies and providing connectivity to the existing tech community.
Niki graduated from University of Miami with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Philosophy, and a minor in Art History. During her time studying at UM, she fell in love with Miami’s rich culture, culinary scene, and active lifestyle and she decided to plant roots here, now raising her two boys as local Miamians.
Mr. Carswell is responsible for administrative oversight and management of all aspects of branding Miami as a regional technology and innovation hub and serves as the City’s keystone to economic development efforts that are inclusive of real estate development initiatives on City-owned land. This position reports to the City Manager/Chief Administrator and oversees the Office of Venture Miami.
Further, this position manages select public/private and public/public partnership opportunities, development of short- and long- term community and economic development plans and the gathering and preparation of studies, reports, and recommendations to achieve economic development goals. The position is also responsible for assisting the City Manager in directing, managing, and coordinating the activities of various City of Miami departments/offices to support and improve the local economy by encouraging investment, attracting new businesses, supporting entrepreneurial development, creating new jobs, and upskilling the local workforce.
Prior to his current position, Mr. Carswell served as Advisor to the Mayor of Miami for Economic Development & Resiliency. In that position, he advised the Mayor on strategic short- and long-term planning goals and objectives in the area of urban revitalization and resiliency. Mr. Carswell served as the Mayor’s chief liaison to the administration’s executive team and city attorney’s office with respect to assisting entitlement applicants, particularly applications for affordable housing and large-scale multi-use real estate development, with permitting. Resiliency objectives entailed advising on a variety of administrative, technical and professional work in the preparation and implementation of efforts that addressed sea level rise and hurricane preparedness.
Mr. Carswell, a Miami native, earned a degree in Urban Studies & Economics from Columbia University, New York, New York and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida.
Kelly Montoya is the Venture Miami lead for strategic engagement where she plays a key role in in strengthening relationships with community partners to maximize social impact, building community, and identifying and implementing initiatives and partnerships that align with Venture Miami’s mission.
Before joining the Venture Miami team, Kelly Montoya was a key member of the Public Affairs and Communications team at the University of Miami, serving both in the Office of the President and University Communications since 2012, leading university-wide initiatives. She holds a BS in Marketing from the Florida State University and an MA in Public Relations from the School of Communication at the University of Miami.
Sa’Vanna Dre’ Smith is a Miami-Dade County native who graduated from Florida A&M University with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in marketing at Barry University. She recently joined the Venture Miami team as a Senior Marketing and Communications Specialist, and she is excited to assist the organization tell its narrative while including the lovely people of Miami.
Adi Shoshani was born in Miami and currently serves her City as the Senior Communications Aide and Social Media Coordinator for the Mayor of Miami, Francis X. Suarez.
Apart from her role leading the social media communication efforts and Cafecito Talks for Mayor Suarez, Adi was recently assigned as the Communications Liaison for Venture Miami, an initiative to enhance the move of start-ups and tech companies to Miami and build our tech ecosystem that delivers for everyone.
Adi earned her bachelor’s degree in marketing and politics from Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel and while in Israel, worked for multiple start-ups including Zeekit, a virtual fashion imagery A.I. platform, and Techcode, a global innovation service operator and accelerator.
Melissa Krinzman has a 20-year history of launching, growing and advising early-stage companies. Prior to co-founding Krillion Ventures, Melissa worked with over 1,000 companies that raised more than $1B in investment capital using business plans developed by Venture Architects, the business planning firm she founded in New York City in 1998. Melissa has remained a sought-after speaker and advisor on the subjects of business planning and capital raising.
In February 2021, Melissa was appointed by Mayor Francis Suarez as the City of Miami’s inaugural Venture Capitalist in Residence to support and accelerate the growth of Miami’s tech community. In this role, Melissa serves as a founding member of the Venture Miami team and works with growth-oriented founders, investors and community leaders to create and implement initiatives that will accelerate the success of Miami’s tech community and strengthen Miami at large.
Melissa began her career as a member of the start-up teams for three national nonprofit organizations – Points of Light Foundation, Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, and DoSomething. In addition to serving as a Board Advisor to many of Krillion Ventures’ portfolio companies, Melissa is a Founding Board Member of Beacon College Prep and Miami Angels, and serves on the Board of Trustees of Ransom Everglades School. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts University.
In April 2021, Melissa was named to Business Insider’s 2021 list of The Seed 25: Best female early-stage investors and in August 2021 one of the 20 best Seed-Stage investors outside of Silicon Valley and New York who specialize in consumer tech.
Antonio Delgado Fornaguera is passionate about creating and providing educational opportunities that change lives. As the Vice President of Innovation and Technology Partnerships and formerly the Dean of Engineering, Technology and Design at Miami Dade College (MDC), one of the largest and most diverse higher education institutions in the United States, he has focused on realizing MDC’s ethos as an equalizer of opportunity. At MDC, he has developed strategic partnerships and cutting-edge programs to harness the immense potential of MDC students and the community at large through exposure to emerging technologies, ensuring MDC’s role at the frontier of innovation and solutions to our society’s most pressing challenges.
Antonio has fostered strong connections with key industry partners such as Amazon, Tesla, IBM, Microsoft, SoftBank and Google; and launched the Cybersecurity Center of the Americas, the Cloud Computing Center and the Electric Vehicle Training Center at MDC. He has helped secure more than $15 million in prestigious grants and other external resources, including grants from the National Security Agency, the National Science Foundation, Mozilla and Google.org.
Since the onset of his professional career as a researcher in electronic engineering, Antonio has accumulated over 15 years of ascending experience in technology program management and consulting across the United States, Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean, including country manager at one of Latin America’s leading technology companies. He began his tenure at MDC as Program Manager and Lead Instructor for the McKinsey Social Initiative, and subsequently became Program Manager of Technology Programs for The Idea Center. Antonio currently serves on the STEM Advisory Board of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the Advisory Board of South Florida Tech Hub, the Miami-Dade Beacon Council’s Technology Committee and the AWS Educate Cloud Associate Degree Executive Committee.
He obtained a Bachelor Degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from Universidad Tecnológica de La Habana (CUJAE) in Havana, Cuba, and a Master of Science in Computer Networks from the University of Westminster in London, UK.
