Operating at the Surface, Why Smart-Building Tech Fails to Dive Deep with Andy Frank Founder & CEO of Novant

In this episode of The Climate Gap: Quick Cuts, Ben Muwoki interviews Andy Frank, founder of Novant and a 25-year veteran of smart-building tech. Andy's POV is that most smart-building failures aren’t technical; they’re human. We chase dashboards and pilots, but skip coordination, outcomes, and the basic question: why are we doing it this way?

We dig into:

• “Closing the loop” beats dashboards: data is noise until a corrective action happens.
• Outcomes first, tech second: start with the problem, then pick tools.
• Fixing the handoffs: design → construction → operations are broken; bake data infrastructure early and align incentives.
• Independent help matters: owners need trusted advisors/MSIs who will push back and protect outcomes.

About Andy Frank

Andy is the founder of Novant, focused on building data infrastructure that makes information easy to consume and act on. His career spans from an early Software Engineer at Tridium to co-founding SkyFoundry and, more recently, the Founder of Novant, giving him a rare view of why deployments stall and how to design them so people, not just platforms, deliver results.

Watch if you are:

• A solution provider trying to turn pilots into deployments that actually change operations
• A real estate/FM leader stuck in dashboard purgatory
• Anyone tasked with proving measurable, repeatable outcomes from smart-building tech across multiple sites

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