About Silex
Silex Data Solutions is a technology solutions provider and systems integrator headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee. We supply, integrate, and support infrastructure, security, and AI platforms for healthcare systems, public sector agencies, utilities, and enterprises across the Southeast and nationally, backed by an engineering team with deep technical expertise.
Our story
Silex was founded in 2014 by industry veterans who wanted to move the conversation from infrastructure alone to how organizations use their data. The company grew by supplying and integrating enterprise platforms, and by teaching customers how new architectures work before they committed to them.
Our automation practice began in 2017 and became the base for managed programs our engineers still run. The same approach now carries into AI: GPU infrastructure, AI and MCP gateways, agentic operations, and model serving, designed and operated by the engineers who build them.
How we work
Forward Deployed Engineers stay with the system they design, and your team takes over at the pace you choose.
A workshop or assessment defines use cases, current state, and success criteria.
An architecture blueprint with documented decisions, reviewed with your architecture and security teams.
The platform deployed as code, tested, and written up in runbooks.
Forward Deployed Engineers run it, onboard use cases, and hold service and governance reviews.
Operational ownership moves to your team at the pace you choose.
Leadership
Chief Executive Officer
Johnna Smith leads the overall direction of Silex. Her background in operations and marketing guides business development and brand, and her finance and accounting experience supports the wider team. She also directs Silex's giving to local nonprofit organizations.
President
Ryan Smith co-founded Silex in 2014 as a vendor-neutral partner focused on client data strategy. He leads strategy, customer relationships, and the partner ecosystem, and he champions customer education through workshops and independent industry research.
Chief Financial Officer
Bryan Dunn directs all financial and accounting functions. He has more than twenty years of financial and management experience, including work with a Nashville CPA firm, and holds a BS in Accounting from Lipscomb University.
Chief Technology Officer
Derek Lewis leads Silex's architecture and delivery engineering teams and its AI practice. He was previously a Solutions Architect at Dell Technologies and CTO of a cloud-first healthcare startup, and he speaks frequently at industry and customer events, including two keynotes at the State of Tennessee AI Summit.
Careers
We hire engineers who want to design systems and then operate them with our customers.
