MIAMI — The co-founder of a Miami-based software company may be running for mayor.
Fred Voccola, co-founder and vice chairman of Kaseya, spoke with Local 10 News about the speculation on Wednesday.
“I love this city. This city is my home. This city has changed my life,” Voccola said.
If the name “Kaseya” rings a bell, it’s because it’s on the arena where the Miami Heat play. The company is headquartered in the Bank of America Financial Center at 701 Brickell Ave.
Now, Voccola, the private business heavyweight, is leaning into local politics, with door flyers and text messages hitting homes across Miami this week, sparking speculation he could be eyeing a run for mayor this November.
What to know
- Fred Voccola, a co-founder of Miami-based tech firm Kaseya, is weighing a run for mayor as a flurry of flyers and texts spark speculation.
- He says Miami residents pay a “corruption tax” of 15% due to inefficiency and a lack of government accountability.
- Voccola considers himself a political outsider, focused on improving the city's quality of life and attracting businesses that hire locals.
“I do have an action committee, I do have a lot of causes I stand for. I have not made any decisions about running for mayor. But I can say this, our city deserves people who actually care,” he said.
Why he may run: ‘We have a corruption tax’
Voccola described himself as a political outsider focused on fighting corruption, which he says comes at a real cost to Miami residents.
“My father always told me, ‘Find a big problem. Solve that problem. Make that problem a little bit better for a lot of people,’” he said. “We have a corruption tax of about 15% that affects everything in our city.”
Voccola explained where he came up with the 15% figure.
“Corruption can have overstaffed departments,” he said. “Corruption can be lack of accountability of different parts of government to tolerate inefficiencies, not leveraging AI to its fullest potential, to optimize our government because it might not suit the needs of different people, or delaying contracts or having certain law firms represent organizations, or having contracting firms require other bids and no-bid contracts.
“There’s dozens and dozens and dozens of paper cuts that add up to it. And you know, the research that I’ve been able to put together it comes to in that 15-to-20% range. And that’s so material.”
For Voccola, Miami is about potential.
“It’s not Democrat or Republican, it’s not right or left. It’s about how do we get the best quality of life for our neighbors, the people that live next to us,” he said. “How do we bring businesses to Miami that will hire local, homegrown Miamians? Not go and get the Wall Street companies to come here that relocate a bunch of super wealthy dudes from Manhattan that want to pay lower state income tax.”
Voccola said he wants to give back to a city that shaped his worldview. He said he “(doesn’t) know where I would have been” had he not gotten an academic scholarship from the University of Miami.
He pointed to a contrast between his childhood in New Jersey and his adulthood in Miami.
“The town I grew up in was mostly Italian, Irish, and Polish immigrants. So I didn’t really experience diversity beyond economic diversity,” he said. “And when I came to Miami, everyone’s speaking Spanish, people are hugging each other, ‘hello,’ people are dancing. This was culture shock, and when I say it saved me, it allowed me to understand that the world is a big place.”
He said, “if I were to decide to enter the race, I would just say one thing: Put me on stage with every one of these people and we will have a conversation, and it will be game over.”
Analyst, possible competitor weigh in
Pollster and political analyst Fernand Amandi said if Voccola chooses to run, the short sprint to November could make it difficult to gain the name recognition needed to win.
“I just don’t see someone like this coming out of nowhere at the very last minute of the 11th hour,” Amandi said. “I think any time you have someone that can spend a large amount of resources in a limited period of time and a low turnout race, it’s always a factor, but frankly this is someone that has no history in the community, people are really unfamiliar with.”
Amandi added, “I still think he would be not so much of a leading contender with some of the more established candidates running for mayor.”
As for why Voccola is putting up flyers, Amandi said Voccola and his associates have likely done preliminary polling to gauge his viability.
“I think while they’re doing that polling, at the same time, they’ve got to mount what looks like a potential campaign operation,” he said.
Former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez reacted to Voccola’s potential candidacy. The father of current Mayor Francis Suarez is one of several candidates who say they’re running.
“I like him, as much as one can like an opponent,” Xavier Suarez with a chuckle, “I think he means well, he has good motives. He really doesn’t need this.
“People who are successful in the private sector are a good prerequisite. People who need the office as a job to feed their kids are the worst kind of candidates. It is good for democracy to have opponents, people should have choices and he is definitely someone worth looking at.”
Local 10 News also reached out to three other high-profile candidates for mayor: ex-City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, ex-City Commissioner Ken Russell and current Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins.
We hadn’t heard back as of the publication of this article.
Candidate qualifying runs through Sept. 20.
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