Smart-Tec was founded by Egidio Schiavone; a pioneer in the energy distribution and utility industry. The company provides venture capital, consulting, and mentoring services to early-stage, emerging, and emerging growth companies with novel technologies or business models. We can provide these companies with everything from start-up and expansion capital, to guidance with business strategy, operational systems, and business development.
Our executive team is comprised of knowledgeable and seasoned managers with more than 100 years of business application experience.
Executive Team
Egidio Schiavone
Founder and CEO
Egidio Schiavone’s career in the Canadian Utility industry spans more than 23 years of service in Canada. He has extensive experience in the areas of field services, utility billing, metering, smart metering, suite metering, and Conservation Demand Management.
Working as an Account Manager for Schlumberger Industries from 1992 through 1995, while managing field service meter reading for customer Toronto Hydro, Egidio gained important in-depth knowledge of field services and utility billing operations. It is here where he gained valuable insights into the intricate workings of the utility industry.
In 1996, his employer Schlumberger was successful in their bid to supply field services to TransAlta in the newly deregulated Alberta utility market. Schlumberger put Egidio in charge of this provincial wide contract and its implementation. Managing 70 territories and a predominantly rural customer base, Egidio was able to harness this experience in the areas of utility deregulation, energy distribution and retailing, and use it to launch a successful utility service company.
In 1999 Egidio founded Dataco an Alberta based utility service company that currently provides utility services, call centre and high interval metering installation to customers in Alberta and BC. With up to 250 employees, Dataco was a pioneer in the deregulation of the utility industry and continues to serve utilities across western Canada.
In 2010 he formed Smart Tec Energy, a highly successful energy distribution and management services company for multi-residential residential, commercial and industrial customers. Capitalizing on a trend toward sub-metering and billing of electricity, gas, and water as a means to control escalating energy and utility costs, Egidio was able to build a nation-wide company that was able to systematically lower energy costs for it’s customers. The inventiveness of this pioneering strategy was validated when, in 2015, the firm was sold to the Ontario based PowerStream.
The proceeds of the sale funded Egidio’s latest venture – Smart Tec Ventures, a venture capital and investment company dedicated to providing venture capital financing, mentoring, and guidance for start-up companies in a variety of areas such as energy, utility, and property management services.
Jim Pappas, B.Sc.
Business and Marketing Strategist
Jim Pappas is part of the executive management team specializing in the design, development and implementation of successful business development and operational systems that help start-ups improve their operations and achieve their business objectives.
Jim’s 35-year career includes assignments in both Canada and the USA working with a number of large technology companies including GEC, CompUSA, IBM, Inacom, EDS, GTSI and Micro Center.
Jim is knowledgeable and experienced in the areas of problem analysis, process improvement, change management and business model design. Jim’s deep understanding and intimate knowledge of successful business systems was gained first-hand launching and managing new products and services for technology companies. Uniquely positioned to observe the extremely short market life cycles of technical products and services, this experience provided him with invaluable knowledge as to why products or services succeed or fail.
An ardent futurist, Jim follows trends in society, science and technology and believes that the only constants in business are change and innovation. He believes that all companies need to constantly improve their products and services in a planned and methodical manner in order to guarantee their long-term success.