Chris Williams

Move fast. Ship intelligence. Build trust.

Chris Williams

Building companies where AI can be trusted with what matters most.

Founding engineer. Thoughtful AI through acquisition. Smarter Technologies. Previously AWS and Deloitte.

Based in Fort Worth. Building in Austin.

hi@chriswilliams.ai

About

I've spent my career doing two things.

First, building companies from zero. Founding engineer at Thoughtful AI (now SmarterDx), where I stood up the entire technology organization through acquisition. CISO at SmarterDx and Smarter Technologies, owning security, IT, and compliance as one risk surface.

Second, modernizing the world's largest technology estates. The F-35 program at Lockheed. Sysco's full legacy cutover. Walmart on zLinux, x86, and mainframe, SAP's largest DB2 on Z implementation. Then AWS brought me in to build their SAP on AWS Professional Services practice from an idea to a profitable business.

Enterprise scale taught me how big systems break. Zero to one taught me how to build them right.

Enterprise scale

Deloitte strategy through implementation

Lockheed Martin F-35 program

Sysco full legacy cutover

Walmart SAP's largest DB2 on Z, zLinux and x86

AWS SAP on AWS DevOps practice, from scratch

Zero to one

Thoughtful AI (now SmarterDx) founding engineer, through acquisition

SmarterDx · Smarter Technologies CISO, one risk surface

Experience

Jun 2026 – Present

Building what's next

If you are building or backing AI that has to be trusted with what matters most, say hello.

Jun 2025 – Jun 2026

Chief Information Security Officer SmarterDx (Smarter Technologies)

Moved into the CISO role as sole executive owner of security and enterprise risk across Smarter Technologies, and the board's primary advisor on cybersecurity, compliance, and resilience. Consolidated security, IT, and GRC into a single risk surface, ran SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA programs end to end, de-risked M&A through technology and security integration, and set the security strategy for AI-native systems handling PHI at enterprise scale.

Mar 2020 – Jun 2025

Founding Engineer Thoughtful AI (now SmarterDx)

Shipped AI agents into production before agents were a category, held to one standard. Every deployment had to pay for itself in ROI the customer could measure. The platform automated enterprise revenue-cycle work at that standard and carried the company from zero to acquisition in five years. Stood up and led the entire technology organization from scratch from day one, with SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA built in from the first readiness cycle so regulated enterprise buyers could say yes.

Jan 2019 – Aug 2021

Head of DevOps & Cloud Innovation Practice Amazon Web Services

Founded the SAP on AWS DevOps and Innovation practice and took it from an idea to profitability inside AWS Professional Services. Deployed and operated CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and serverless data pipelines directly into Fortune 500 customers' most critical SAP workloads, then codified them into the reference patterns and capability standards a global bench of consultants trained against. Entered as an architect, left running the practice for the global SAP business.

Dec 2016 – Dec 2018

Senior Manager Magic Leap

One of consumer technology's most ambitious hardware launches, and the enterprise systems to run it didn't exist yet. Delivered the ERP go-live that let Magic Leap build, ship, and sell hardware at scale, moved it onto AWS in three months, and ran it with DevOps, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code. Built the fully serverless data pipeline, warehouse, and real-time analytics layer that gave the business its numbers. The launch landed on those systems.

Feb 2008 – Dec 2016

Manager Deloitte

Nine years inside the biggest transformations Deloitte runs. Enterprise systems for the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin. A ground-up ERP and supply chain rebuild at Sysco that changed how the world's largest food distributor operates. SAP's largest DB2 on Z implementation at Walmart, zLinux to x86 to mainframe, modernized in place without breaking store operations. Every program paired the technical strategy with the business one, finance through supply chain, manufacturing through analytics, and I built the teams that delivered both. Left when a Magic Leap engagement became an offer to build rather than advise.

May 2007 – Aug 2007

Business Information & Technology Intern Devon Energy

My first exposure to operational technology, interning on SCADA infrastructure across field operations and corporate networks. Working directly with the CygNet operational data platform, I identified an unmonitored failure mode in the data center and delivered a water detection method to close it. A small but real outcome, early in a career built on finding gaps and delivering fixes that last.

Education

Certifications