About Synthetikos
Synthetikos is a strategy and innovation consultancy focused on complex, high-stakes change.
We help leaders:
- Frame problems that cut across silos
- Convene unlikely coalitions
- Design interventions that respect lived experience, power dynamics, and place
- Move from insight to scaled implementation without losing trust or momentum
Our work spans health, social, climate, education, government transformation and international development. We have experience working with over 40 governments at all levels across 4 continents.
Dr. Alex Ryan, CEO
Alex Ryan is a systemic designer, strategist, and facilitator with over two decades of experience helping governments and mission-driven institutions navigate complexity and deliver durable change. He is recognized internationally for his work in systemic design, mission-oriented innovation, public and social innovation labs, and strategic foresight across sectors including health, education, climate, defence, and economic development.
Alex has led major system-level initiatives such as Nova Scotia’s Health Beyond Hospital, the Pacific Community’s Growing the Pacific 2050 strategy, and enterprise-wide customer experience transformation for the Government of Abu Dhabi. Previously, he was Senior Vice President at MaRS Discovery District, where he led an $8M business unit and scaled national innovation and employment initiatives, and co-founded Alberta CoLab, Canada’s first provincial government innovation lab.
Eleanor Joel, Director and CFO
Eleanor Joel is a visual systems designer and business leader who translates complexity into clarity. As Director and CFO of Synthetikos, she ensures the firm’s financial stewardship while leading the visual design of its most consequential system-change work.
Eleanor has designed personas, journey maps, and visual frameworks for large-scale health system transformation, inclusive education reform, mission-oriented innovation, and strategic foresight initiatives across Canada and internationally. Her work underpins engagements with Nova Scotia Health, Alberta Education, the Canada School of Public Service, TELUS, and the Yukon Government, where her visualizations have been used to align diverse stakeholders and support executive-level decision-making.
Access a global network
We work as a networked agency, partnering with leading public and social innovators around the world to assemble the right team for each challenge. Through trusted global networks Synthetikos has co-founded, including States of Change and Future of Labs, we collaborate with practitioners who bring deep contextual knowledge, lived experience, and complementary niche expertise. This allows us to move quickly, scale capability up or down, and tailor each engagement to the system at hand rather than forcing a fixed team or model. The result is work that is locally grounded, globally informed, and robust enough to operate in complex political, institutional, and cultural environments.
