About

I’m Ivan Schafier, a business operator, executive and technology builder with nearly 20 years of experience across retail, healthcare, software, sales and multi-location operations.

My career started in the optical industry as an optician, which gave me something I still value today: an understanding of what actually happens on the front line of a business. From there, I moved into management, business development, technology and executive leadership, eventually overseeing operations across more than 25 locations and working with organizations in Canada, the United States and international markets.

Over the years, I’ve been involved in almost every side of running and growing a business: operations, sales, recruitment, marketing, inventory, financial performance, process improvement, technology implementation, expansion and team leadership.

That experience shaped the way I approach problems today.

I tend to look at a business as a system. When something isn’t working, I want to understand why, identify where the friction is and find a practical way to fix it. Sometimes the answer is a better process. Sometimes it’s better management or better information. Increasingly, it’s software, automation or artificial intelligence.

Technology has always been a major interest of mine, but I’m not interested in technology for its own sake. I’m interested in what it allows businesses and people to accomplish.

That curiosity has led me to design and build business applications, internal operational tools, automation systems and AI-powered solutions. Because I understand both the operational side of a business and the technology behind the solution, I’m often able to bridge the gap between what a company needs and what should actually be built.

I’m very hands-on. I like going from an idea or a problem to something tangible, whether that means improving an operation, designing a workflow, building software, implementing AI or helping a company rethink how it works.

Today, I work on a mix of business, technology and entrepreneurial projects, particularly around multi-location operations, retail, optical, AI, automation and software.

I’m based in Montreal, Canada, but my work and projects regularly extend beyond Canada.

At the core of everything I do is a fairly simple idea:

Understand the problem. Find the simplest effective solution. Build it. Improve it.

I enjoy working with entrepreneurs and organizations that are building something, changing something or trying to solve a problem that doesn’t have an obvious answer.