About Synaxis

Agencies and consultancies are dead. Synaxis is what comes next.

Most firms are machine firms—they bill for bodies producing repeatable deliverables. A partner sells the engagement. An army of analysts does the work. The client pays for the pyramid. AI collapses the pyramid. One person with judgment and the right tools can produce what the pyramid produced—faster, cheaper, and the person who sold the work actually does the work.

Synaxis is a human firm. One senior strategist—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 the work that remains after AI is human work: judgment, relationships, creativity, leadership. The same logic applies to firms. Bill for judgment, not headcount. That's the model.

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.