Steffen waite

My journey began with engineering and infrastructure construction through to manufacturing and technology. Raising capital to fund projects has been an integral part of my roles and endeavors, as well as effective deployment through marketing, sales, product management and fulfillment.

Current Career Objectives (2022 - Q2)

To provide engaging leadership, analysis and creativity to up-level strategy, business development, and

profitable revenue growth for a productivity-boosting technology innovator in construction management or manufacturing.

Strive for best of class. Grow high-performance teams that unlock value to customers and investors. Get it done.

A role that demands entrepreneurial thinking and risk taking, plus offers a partnership with finance to deliver the necessary working capital to grow.

Opportunities to drive competitiveness and market share; but recognize when to cap the downside and move on. Affect projects that better humanity's relationship

with the built environment and energy consumption. A role that allows me space to navigate within my principles and create well thought out plans. 

Leverage technology to drive value and augment human accomplishment.

I want to evolve to be a leader within a profitable mid-market or large enterprise that seeks to scale. Ideally publicly traded or PE funded inching towards an IPO.

Willing to immerse myself into established teams, commit and then deliver to drive revenue and success. With time grow to become an executive partner to the CEO and Board.

To learn from strong leaders that are inspired to contribute to the betterment of humankind.

Success = Finance + People + Process + Automation 

2022 - Offering consulting services to allow firms to determine best fit

2022 is foreseen to experience unprecedented growth. We are witnessing the end of Covid. Supply chains are beginning to balance, travel will scale up, automotive and the associated push to new heights in electrification will drive the economy. Covid has been the accelerant to have employees and corporations explore new ways to work together. Housing is in a crisis state and North America will see tremendous immigration as attempts are made to on-shore manufacturing. The next 20 years will be exciting. My objective is to move away from SMB/SME to large enterprise. The trend is consolidation and vertical merging. There is tremendous value being unlocked through acquisitions, alignment of automation and human focus. Working capital is the key, and high-performance multi-nationals are positioned to succeed. They will need competent and energetic risk takers that understand the benefit of a coordinated team approach. These will be corporate entrepreneurs - fast thinkers, problem solvers, high-performance team builders that are marketing savvy and know how to unlock funding from treasury and boards.

I believe I offer these facets of leadership and a low-risk way to confirm this is to test drive me. As a consultant, I promise to align with establish cultures, ask questions, listen, propose solutions and then roll-up my sleeves to get hands dirty and implement. Its easy to talk and point to what should be done. The real talent appears by actually doing it.

2021 - Construction Technology + Finance

The foray into leveraging BIM (Building Information Management) technologies into commercial construction catalyzed the relationship with ACQBuilt, Inc. (Edmonton, AB). A firm that has spent the past 17 years in marrying process, software and machinery. An innovative off-site building solution that leverages automation. A gem of an operation that has proven through output, that they lead in market metrics. Covid sparked the demand for housing, exposed affordability and delivered North America a labor shortage. The trade secrets that ACQBuilt had developed are ripe for replication. Marry large markets with insatiable demand together with industrialized home-building and the opportunity exists to alter how residential developments are delivered in the field.

Partnering with Ownership, my experience in vending Red Leaf Architectural Products Inc. and the relationships I have with home-builders and mid-market M&A advisors; we embarked on a vision to partner with buy-side investors to replicate the proven platform, whereby I played the lead. Owner-operators are never prepared for divestiture / succession. My role was to identify the value in the business, and then work with investors, bankers, and consultants to facilitate a win-win outcome. Efforts continue in working with strategic and financial investors, plus recruiting for the right members of the US expansion team.

2020 - Cloud Application Development and BIM Tech Service

Construction is considered the last industry to automate. Efficiencies are limited through a fragmented industry and established thinking. Open the data tap and make 3D designs accessible to decision makers and the opportunity presented itself to embark on a technology option. What we discovered however is a disparate community of design philosophies and BIM model development strategies. Garbage in, garbage out...the best software will not deliver if the data cannot be ingested. Simple5D Systems Inc. was originated within this dynamic of thinking and stagnation in leveraging design technology. 

If the model is broken, fix it. So along side software development we embarked on BIM model conditioning services. The world moves quickly however, and the shuttering of projects on a global scale because of Covid, released significant foreign capacity to condition models. The ability to compete against off-shore service providers proved impossible, and the smartest decision was to cap the downside and shutter the start-up.

2010 - 2019 - Digital Manufacturing

Red Leaf Architectural Products Inc. began on the concept of distribution and low capex. Buy at low off-shore prices, sell at a discount to local market prices. Works in concept in a consumer world. Construction and building assembly requires precision...especially in finished products such as cladding.  ... to be continued

“Startups don’t really do that well in a world in which there are people that are just outspending it by many orders of magnitude,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy.

Education