About Synaxis

Synaxis is a human firm. One senior practitioner—Paul J. Welty, Ph.D.—plus an AI execution layer. No pyramid. No junior staff. No overhead. The person you talk to does the work.

In The Work of Being, I argue that modern work increasingly resembles machine work—repetitive, systematizable, replaceable by AI. The work that remains is human work: judgment, relationships, creativity, leadership. Your machine self will be replaced. Cultivate your human self, because that's the work that's left.

The same logic applies to firms. Most consultancies and agencies are machine firms—they bill for bodies producing repeatable deliverables. A partner sells the engagement. Analysts execute. The client pays for the pyramid. AI makes that model obsolete. What comes next is the human firm: one senior person's judgment, amplified by AI, delivering the same results without the overhead.

That's Synaxis. I've spent more than two decades doing this work—first at Cambridge Technology Partners building digital teams and leading implementations, then at North Highland managing technology consulting engagements for Disney, Delta, The Home Depot, IHG, and Primerica. I know the machine-firm model from the inside. I know what it charges, how it staffs, and where the client's money actually goes.

I founded the first iteration of Synaxis in 2005 and ran it as a technology consulting practice through 2013. Then I went inside a large institution—Emory University—as Vice Provost for Academic Innovation (2019-2025), where I led digital transformation initiatives, built Facet (a faculty data system serving thousands of users), co-founded the Center for AI Learning, and ran "The Summer of AI"—43 experiments across 13 work categories evaluating how AI actually performs in real workplace settings. I also founded The Hatchery innovation center, which launched 52 companies.

During COVID, I led the transition of 205 courses online in weeks and stood up new digital systems under crisis conditions. That experience—philosophy training, technology leadership, consulting, crisis management, and years inside large institutions navigating change—shapes how I approach every engagement.

Most consultancies staff a team. I staff a person. That's the model. That's the advantage.