How Miami’s thriving tech scene prompted a relocation for LeverX
Victor Lozinski doesn’t need to say he was swept up in the COVID-era Great Migration to South Florida. He doesn’t have to. He exemplifies it. Originally from Latvia, and armed with a PhD in robotics, the cofounder and chairman of the board at LeverX is a tech exile, most recently from Palo Alto, where he spent over two decades. “Three years in Silicon Valley turned out to be 23,” he says.
Lozinski’s resume includes an advantageous run at SAP – the world’s largest vendor of enterprise planning software, founded in 1972. Lozinski spent the mid-nineties working in Germany, where SAP is based. (SAP stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing.) In 2003, with the founding of LeverX, the resourceful techie went from being on the inside of SAP to being a strategic supplier of technical services to SAP, one of only 14 worldwide.
LeverX is best described as a system integrator, providing IT services to support organizations through their digital transformations. LeverX implements SAP products — providing corresponding IT services — and engineers software, using the latest technology from solution and infrastructure providers like Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Databricks. The company now has 1,800 employees and offices in 12 countries with more countries to come.
The move to Miami has required some rebalancing. Historically, LeverX’s clients have included manufacturers of components, consumer products, and medical equipment, as well as logistics and retail firms; the company’s client roster has included JBS and Girteka. Now, given that Miami is cultivating a knowledge-based economy, Lozinski is itching for a pivot.
“In Miami, it’s not so much about manufacturing – it’s services,” he observes. “Financial services, banking, insurance, legal – this is what we’re trying to do more and more. In the service space, we began to realize that maybe we need to readjust our positioning within the market. It will take time. We’re learning new industries, trying to understand what kind of value we can provide.”
As for moving his HQ from Silicon Valley to Miami, Lozinski is uncommonly candid. “Silicon Valley is a great place to start a company, a great place to build a company in the beginning,” he allows. “There’s a lot of smart people around, a lot of mentors, very motivating. But if you want to scale up the company – particularly if you do a lot of business in Europe, and even in the United States – assuming the majority of your customers are somewhere in the northeast – I would argue that [Silicon Valley] is not good at all.” With most of his domestic customers in places like Boston, Minneapolis, and North Carolina – let alone Europe – a flight to California is a big ask.
While Lozinski considered redoubling his footprint in a northeastern city such as Philadelphia, in the end, “the logical choice was Miami,” he says. “It fit the bill from every perspective: great airport, easy to get in, great infrastructure, a lot of hotels and restaurants. Florida, and Miami in particular, is very pro-business. We were embraced by the local community, and the rest is history.”
The headquarters is located at 801 Brickell; enviably positioned on the 19th floor, the offices enjoy water views. Overseas visitors are awestruck, a fact that Lozinski clearly relishes: “They say, “Is this really your office?’ I’ve never met a single person who said, ‘No, I don’t want to come to Miami.’” The only sticking point for clients is gaining approval to attend a LeverX event. The higher-ups assume they’re making the trip for “fun.” Lozinski’s solution: “Ask your boss to pack a bag and come—because we’ll be working together and having fun together.”
